Education Commons^™

Bringing The Standards Into The Classroom: A Case Study Of One School District's Implementation Process, Georgia Sarroub, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In 1993 federal funding was provided for the development of national foreign language standards for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The resulting content standards (Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparingfor the 21st Century) define what students should know and be able to do in grades four, eight, and twelve and were intended to "serve as a gauge for excellence" (National Standards in Foreign Language Learning Project 1996, 13). Like the mathematics goals, the foreign language goals were viewed as criteria for excellence rather than as a minimum level of competency (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1989, 2).

The …

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back: The Stormy History Of Reading Comprehension Assessment, Loukia K. Sarroub, P. David Pearson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

After closely examining the recent history of reading comprehension assessment in the United States, we have concluded that although both the forms of assessment and the key players in the assessment process have changed in significant ways, the functions of assessment have remained relatively constant. In terms of function, we have always used, and continue to use, assessment tools to evaluate programs, to hold particular groups accountable for some specified set of outcomes (though it may seem that that is all we do these days), to inform instruction, either for individuals or whole classes, and finally, to determine who gains …

Assessment In Literature-Based Reading Programs: Have We Kept Our Promises?, Tanja Bisesi, Devon Brenner, Mary Mcvee, P. David Pearson, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

We have made incredible progress, both conceptually and practically, in the development of literacy assessment tools that appropriately reflect the goals and activities of literature-based reading programs. This progress, however, has not come without obstacles, many of which have not yet been (and may never be) fully negotiated. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the "promises" we as a literacy assessment community have made to ourselves, as we implement new forms of assessment for new purposes, and to critically evaluate our progress toward keeping those promises. We begin by briefly describing recent shifts in literacy …

Model Limitations, Randy Yerrick, Linda James, Jon E. Pedersen

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

SPACE EXPLORATION HAS SPAWNED MORE interest in science among teachers and students than any other topic in recent science education history, and teachers can use space science as an opportunity to encourage students to observe and make new discoveries for themselves. Many times, however, we run into obstacles. One trend we have noticed is that students can form misunderstandings based on simplistic explanations such as catchy astronomy activities on the back of cereal boxes, cartoon renderings of life on the Moon, or linear models in textbooks depicting the Solar System. These misrepresentations of science present problems for instructors.

Book Review - Moving Beyond Dichotomies To Outline Discourse Strategies In A Transnational Community, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Intended both for ethnographers and for scholars of literacy and rhetorical studies, Juan C. Guerra’s Close to Home: Oral and Literate Practices in a Transnational Mexicano Community is at once groundbreaking and important, though because of the sophistication and detail of its reasoning, it may not be accessible to a broad audience. The book—the fortieth title in the Teachers College Press Language and Literacy Series—is pioneering in a number of ways. Most notable is Guerra’s refusal to fit the group he is focusing on—the multigenerational social network of an extended Mexican-origin family—into a single geographic frame of reference. Guerra explains …

Nine Complementary Principles To Retain Adults In An Esol/Literacy Program, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The following list of principles is my attempt to share general recommendations to teachers of ESOL and/or limited literacy adults based on my specific practice running a bilingual family literacy program and confirmed by my more recent experience as a volunteer bilingual literacy teacher at the Asociación Latinoamericana (in Atlanta). Though I believe in bilingual classroom environments, I think the principles identified here are also pertinent to monolingual ESL environments.

When Portfolios Become Part Of The Grading Process: A Case Study In A Junior High Setting, Loukia K. Sarroub, P. David Pearson, Carmen Dykema, Randy Lloyd

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Formal assessments have long served as our society's most privileged indices of student learning and school accountability. Hence, both learning and school effectiveness have often been equated with standardized test scores and/or grades. The privilege accorded to external assessment has tended to minimize the role of teachers and, even more dramatically, students in the assessment process. Assessments are external tools that are administered to teachers and students. For teachers, this often leads to a tension between their curricular goals and the assessment measures they must use in the classroom (Mitchell, 1992; Pearson, DeStefano, & Garcia, in press). Students are rarely …

Creating Bicultural Identities: The Role Of School-Based Bilingual Paraprofessionals In Ontemporary Immigrant Accommodation (Two Kansas Case Studies), Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study locates the professional and informal practices of school-based bilingual paraprofessionals (paras) in the context of the larger social phenomenon of acculturation, cultural brokerage, and identity construction. It demonstrates how the paras in two Kansas communities transform an assimilationist mandate into something quite different, the promotion of bicultural identities, as part of a process called “additive biculturalism.” Additive biculturalism incorporates Weiss’s characterization of paras as cultural brokers (1994), but expands upon it significantly. As the first part of additive biculturalism, bilingual paras model and promote bicultural identities among the English-Learner students and parents they work with. As the second …

Omaha Language Preservation In The Macy, Nebraska Public School, Catherine Rudin

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

A native language renewal program at the Macy, Nebraska Public School is described that is designed to preserve Omaha, a native American Indian language that is only a generation away from extinction. At the time of this research, only about 100 fluent Omaha speakers lived on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska. The language and culture program, instituted in 1970, has employed various instruction techniques and methodologies, including immersion, memorization of words and phrases, and publication of student-authored stories in English and Omaha. The program has suffered from a lack of consistency; frequent changes in funding, personnel, and curriculum; and a …