Education Commons^™

Playing With Texts: Classroom Practices For Enriching Young Readers' Engagement With Texts, Pauline J. Harris, Barbra Mckenzie

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores ways in which teachers may build bridges across children's home, community and school texts. It does so by looking at how children's texts form networks of relationships inside and beyond the text. These relationships significantly shape ways in which a reader interacts with the text in hand, other texts that the text-in- hand calls up, and other texts that the reader brings to bear. Further, these relationships provide teachers with valuable means for bridging children's home, school and community texts and literacy experiences. In exploring these relationships, implications for young readers and for classroom practices are described.

Incorporating Real Experience Into The Development Of A Classroom-Based Simulation, Brian Ferry, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian L. Cambourne, Janice B. Turbill, John Hedberg, David Jonassen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper reports on the design of an on-line simulation that enhanced preservice teacher practicum experience in the important area of literacy teaching. Research with more than 200 users of the simulation showed that it developed pre-service teacher understanding of complex classroom situations associated with the teaching of literacy by giving them the opportunity to slow down or accelerate classroom events, revisit and reflect on critical decision points and replay events in the light of new understandings. This gave preservice teachers time to think critically about complex teaching situations which relied on the teacher’s ability to tune into children’s experiences, …

From Classroom Reality To Virtual Classroom: The Role Of Teacher-Created Scripts In The Development Of Classroom Simulation Technology, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian L. Cambourne, Janice B. Turbill, Brian Ferry, John Hedberg, David H. Jonassen, Sarah Puglisi

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper describes a specific kind of teacher narrative (the teacher created script) to support the design of a classroom simulation to be used in pre-service teacher education. We intend to share our experiences in exploring and developing the kind of narrative text which can be developed from a large reservoir of ethnographically generated data collected from the teachers and classrooms we have closely observed and documented over the last two decades. In particular, we explore the role which these narratives play within the development of the kind of classroom simulation we have produced.

Reflection has long been acknowledged as …

Children's Sense Of Place As Literacy Learners In Their Classroom, Pauline J. Harris

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper focuses on children's sense of place that they find in their classroom literacy situations This paper presents findings of child interviews and samples of classroom observations from the author's classroom-based research, to explore the pleasures and passions that children bring to or find in their classroom literacy situations and the provocations they encounter there. Children's pleasures, passions and provocations provide a backdrop for exploring and understanding their patterns of participation. This paper examines how particular kinds of classroom situations may help or hinder children's participation and the sense of place that they find as literacy learners at school.

Online Classroom Simulation: Using A Virtual Environment To Prepare For Classroom Reality, Brian Ferry, Lisa K. Kervin, Sarah Puglisi, Janice Turbill, Brian Cambourne, David Jonassen, John Hedberg

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Research over past decades consistently shows that traditional pre-service teacher preparation programs are not adequately preparing beginning teachers for the reality of classrooms. The purpose of this paper is threefold. We describe the development of an online classroom simulation, the specific design features in our initial prototype version of the software and our research into our first trial of this with pre-service teachers. The classroom simulation allows the user to take on the role of the teacher of a virtual Kindergarten classroom, working with students aged 5 to 6 years of age. During the simulation the user is required to …

Inviting Dissent: Classroom Practices For Nurturing Communities Of Readers In The Early School Years, Pauline J. Harris, Barbra Mckenzie

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In the context of the early school years, this paper examines established classroom practices that focus on engaging young readers with texts. The lens used for this exploration is provided by transtextuality theory that accounts for ways in which texts build networks of meaning for readers to negotiate. Transtextuality theory originated in and serves literary criticism. However, this paper demonstrates how this theory provides teachers and researchers with tools for interrogating classroom practices that seek to develop young readers as meaning makers. Examples of teaching strategies and learning experiences are shared. These examples sometimes see dissent over interpretation arise among …

Operationalizing Nine Design Elements Of Authentic Learning Environments In A Classroom-Based On-Line Simulation, Brian Ferry, Lisa K. Kervin, John Hedberg, Janice B. Turbill, Brian L. Cambourne, David H. Jonassen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Herrington, Oliver and Reeves (2003) assert that many researchers and teachers now accept that well designed multimedia environments provide an alternative to real-life settings without sacrificing the authentic context. Further, researchers report that recent educational software advances have demonstrated that it is feasible to create a motivational simulation that supports pre-service teachers by providing them with tools that allow them to view the effects of their decisions within a virtual classroom context (Aldrich, 2004) However, limited research has been reported on the use of authentic simulations in pre-service teacher education.

This paper describes the on-line simulation that we developed to …

The Use Of Embedded Tools And Support Materials Within A Classroom Simulation To Support Quality Teaching, Janice B. Turbill, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian Ferry, Brian L. Cambourne, John Hedberg, David Jonassen, Sarah Puglisi

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper focuses on the use of embedded tools and support materials within a web-based simulated classroom environment. The developed simulation prototype allows the user to adopt the role of a Kindergarten teacher where they have to “teach” a typical literacy episode that we have called “days of the week”. During this episode the user is asked to make decisions about the organisation of the classroom, management of the classroom, and the teaching and learning experiences to be offered.

A key component of this on-line simulation is the incorporation of an embedded tool, referred to as a thinking space, at …