Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Foreword To Revisiting Education In The New Latino Diaspora, Amanda Morales

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

I share this short autobiography because I think it ties together so much of this book. In Chapter 1, Hamann and Harklau (reprising their chapter for the 2010 Handbook on Latinos and Education) acknowledge that in emphasizing the “new” of the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) the first edition of Education in the New Latino Diaspora (Wortham, Murillo, & Hamann, 2002) made invisible Latinos like my dad and uncle who, per the construct of the NLD, settled in Kansas earlier than the NLD narrative describes. Yet as the comparison of my northwestern Kansas childhood and my sister’s illuminates, something did …

Leadership And Its Ripple Effect On Research, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Sheri Hurlbut

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

In this chapter we would like to address the impact visionary leadership can have on a field of research. Through forward-looking ideas and projects, an organizational leader’s influence on those who test, research, and inquire into issues that build and deepen the knowledge base in second language acquisition and foreign language education is illustrated through an innovative professional development program that was developed during Helene Zimmer-Loew’s tenure as executive director of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). The ripple effect of progressive leadership that inspires others to contribute actively to the well-being of a profession, or an organization, …

Skirting Around Critical Feminist Rationales For Teaching Women In Social Studies, Mardi Schmeichel

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

Feminist practices can provide firm theoretical grounding for the kind of social studies that scholars promote, especially in relation to efforts to include women in the curriculum. However, in P–12 social studies education, neither women nor feminism receive much attention. The study described in this article was a discourse analysis of 16 recently published lesson plans that did include women. Through this examination of the rationales and language used to promote teaching about women, the author sheds light on some discursive obstacles inhibiting attention to gender issues in critical feminist ways and argues that by shifting norms in the field, …

Caught In The Tractor Beam Of Larger Influences: The Filtration Of Innovation In Education Technology Design, Justin Olmanson, Fitsum Abebe, Valerie Jones, Eric Kyle, Lyrica Lucas, Katie Robbins, Guieswende Rouamba, Xianquan Liu

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

While emerging technologies continue to emerge, research into their use in learning contexts often focuses on a subset of educational practices and ways of using technologies. In this study we begin to explore the extent to which educational designs are influenced by larger societal and education-related factors not usually explicitly considered when designing or identifying technology-supported education experiences for research study. We examine patterns within and between factors via a content analysis across ten years and 19 different journals of published peer-reviewed research on technology-supported writing. Our findings have implications for how researchers, designers, and educators approach technology-supported educational design …

Learn Languages, Explore Cultures, Transform Lives, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

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

Selected Papers from the 2015 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

Aleidine J. Moeller, Editor

1. Creating a Culture-driven Classroom One Activity at a Time — Sharon Wilkinson, Patricia Calkins, & Tracy Dinesen

2. The Flipped German Classroom — Theresa R. Bell

3. Engaging Learners in Culturally Authentic Virtual Interactions —Diane Ceo-Francesco

4. Jouney to Global Competence: Learning Languages, Exploring Cultures, Transforming Lives — J. S. Orozco-Domoe

5. Strangers in a Strange Land: Perceptions of Culture in a First-year French Class — Rebecca L. Chism

6. 21st Century World Language Classrooms: Technology to Support Cultural Competence — …

Foreign Language Teaching And Learning, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Theresa Catalano

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

Foreign language teaching and learning have changed from teacher-centered to learner/learning-centered environments. Relying on language theories, research findings, and experiences, educators developed teaching strategies and learning environments that engaged learners in interactive communicative language tasks. A shift in foreign language pedagogy from a specific foreign language method to the measurement of language performance/competency has resulted in a change in the role of the teacher from one of authority/expert to that of facilitator/guide and agent of change. Current developments point to public pedagogy, social media, and action research as additional ways to foster intercultural competence and language learning.

The Techno-Pedagogical Pivot: Designing And Implementing A Digital Writing Tool, Justin Olmanson, Katrina Kennett, Bill Cope

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

In educational technology, the idea of innovation is usually tethered to contemporary technological inventions and emerging technologies. Yet, using long-known technologies in ways that are pedagogically or experientially new can reposition them as emerging educational technologies. In this study we explore how a subtle pivot in pedagogical thinking led to an innovative education technology. We describe the design and implementation of an online writing tool that scaffolds students in the evaluation of their own informational texts. We think about how pathways to innovation can emerge from pivots, namely a leveraging of longstanding practices in novel ways has the potential to …

The Teacher-Artist's Creed: Teaching As A Human, Artistic, And Moral Act, Amanda Morales, Jory Samkoff

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

Historically, educators and philosophers have struggled to define the role and the value of formal curriculum and its impact on classroom praxis. As the current accountability movement dominates discussions in education, educators are pressured to implement increasingly standardized curricula. The authors of this chapter consider the tensions arising from this trend, situated first within contrasting theories on teaching and learning. They then explore the concept of phronesis through an interpretive biography of one teacher-artist, Frieda, whose praxis also demonstrates the aesthetic and artistic side of the teaching-learning process. This 90-year-old teacher-artist's experiences implementing her curriculums suggest that it is always …

Going To A Home You’Ve Never Been To: The Return Migration Of Mexican And American-Mexican Children, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann

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

The paper has two goals. The first is to present the main quantitative findings drawn from four surveys we conducted in Nuevo León (2004, n=14,473), Zacatecas (2005, n=11,258), Puebla (2009, n=18,829) and Jalisco (2010, n=11,479) using representative samples of children aged 7 to 16. We classified children in the following categories: (a) children who are returnees (who were born in Mexico), (b) international migrant children (born in the U.S.), and (c) mononational Mexicans. Among the second group, we distinguish children who had school experiences in the U.S. and those younger transnationals who came to Mexico before enrolling in school. The …

Education Policy Implementation In The New Latino Diaspora, Jennifer Stacy, Edmund T. Hamann, Enrique G. Murillo Jr.

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

Villages, towns, and cities throughout the United States, including the 41 states of the New Latino Diaspora (NLD), continue to host/receive heterogeneous populations of Latinos who transform the physical and cultural landscape in ways that require social institutions, like schools and universities, to respond. Increasingly, this transformation includes newcomer parents starting families. Thirty-three percent of the U.S. Hispanic population is age 18 or younger, while that age profile is true of slightly below 20% of non-Hispanic Whites (Pew Hispanic Center, 2012). While voter rolls and retirement community residents may remain much Whiter than the U.S. population as a whole for …

Alumnos Transnacionales En México Y Estados Unidos. Docentes Y Los Desafíos De La Globalización, Juan Sánchez García, Edmund T. Hamann

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

La migración internacional es un fenómeno que se encuentra presente en el desarrollo histórico de todos los países. Un hecho reciente es la migración escolar de niños y adolescentes en el contexto de la globalización. Este estudio se enfoca en la migración de retorno o llegada por vez primera de alumnos transnacionales que tuvieron la experiencia de haber vivido y estudiado en Estados Unidos y que se encuentran en escuelas mexicanas. El propósito de este artículo es explicar los resultados de una investigación de largo plazo sobre los alumnos transnacionales. Con la aplicación de métodos mixtos a través de un …

The Business Of Learning To Teach: A Critical Metaphor Analysis Of One Teacher’S Journey, Lauren Gatti, Theresa Catalano

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

This article analyzes the learning to teach process of one novice teacher, Rachael, enrolled in an Urban Teacher Residency (UTR) in Harbor City, United States. Building on Loh and Hu’s (2014) scholarship on neoliberalism and novice teachers, we employ Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) to make visible the ways in which Rachael contends with conflicting frames of learning to teach—TEACHING IS A JOURNEY vs. TEACHING IS A BUSINESS— within her program. Rachael encounters three primary obstacles: programmatic incompatibility, pedagogical paralysis, and, ultimately, programmatic abandonment. The discussion explores the potential consequences of learning to teach in neoliberal contexts.

Includes Supplementary appendices (Interview …

Bringing Literacy Home: Latino Families Supporting Children's Literacy Learning, Stephanie Wessels, Guy Trainin

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

DUAL LANGUAGE LEARNERS (DLLS) are part of the educational landscape across the United States. Public school enrollment of dual language learners increased by 51 percent from 1997 to 2008 (NCELA 2011). At the same time, students who are DLLs meet the same academic standards as English-only students after an adjustment period (Goldenberg 2008). The challenge for our schools and communities is educating all students while helping DLLs close the gap in language and cultural understanding so they can succeed in the American educational system. Research suggests that working to close the achievement gap during regular school hours only is not …

College Dreams À La Mexicana . . . Agency And Strategy Among American-Mexican Transnational Students, Nolvia A. Cortez Román, Edmund T. Hamann

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

Drawing from in-depth interviews with university-level transnational students in Mexico, we highlight these students’ resistance and agency in the face of US legal and educational policies that have marginalized them and other undocumented students. We also illustrate pitfalls and possibilities that students encounter in a Mexican system that has not anticipated their presence. The interviewed students viewed return migration for higher education in Mexico as a strategy that could allow them to access/develop their imagined identities as college-educated professionals and one day, legalized citizens of the United States. At the time they made their decisions, before Deferred Action for Childhood …

Children, Mathematics, And Videotape: Using Multimodal Analysis To Bring Bodies Into Early Childhood Assessment Interviews, Amy Noelle Parks, Mardi Schmeichel

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

Despite the increased use of video for data collection, most research using assessment interviews in early childhood education relies solely upon the analysis of linguistic data, ignoring children’s bodies. This trend is particularly troubling in studies of marginalized children because transcripts limited to language can make it difficult to analyze embodied power relations between majority researchers and minority children. This article responds to this problem by outlining a theoretical position on power and bodies, describing multimodal analysis strategies, and using these strategies to analyze the subject positions available during a mathematical assessment interview for three African American preschool child-participants and …

Preparation For Practice: Elementary Preservice Teachers Learning And Using Scientific Classroom Discourse Community Instructional Strategies, Elizabeth Lewis, Oxana Dema, Dena Harshbarger

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

Despite historical national efforts to improve elementary science education, science instruction continues to be marginalized, varying by state. This study was designed to address the ongoing challenge of educating elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach science. Elementary PSTs are one of the science education community's major links to schools and science education reform. However, they often lack a strong background in science, knowledge of effective science teaching strategies, and consequently have low confidence and self-efficacy. This investigation explored the initial learning of elementary PSTs using an interdisciplinary model of a scientific classroom discourse community during a science methods course. Findings …

Drawing Their Way Into Writing: Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students Finding Voice Through Mini-Novelas, Stephanie Wessels, Socorro G. Herrera,

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

Writing can be a difficult task for many students in today’s classrooms; however, for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), writing can be especially difficult. These students often are in the process of developing their facility with the English language, and they possess cultural backgrounds that differ from those of many of their peers and teachers. In addition to these challenges, they face the typical difficulties of selecting ideas to write about for their stories. One way to tap into the cultural backgrounds of Spanish-speaking CLD students is through the use of a strategy called the mini-novela. A …

A Pragmatist Perspective On Building Intercultural Communicative Competency: From Theory To Classroom Practice, Aleidine J. Moeller, Sarah R. Faltin Osborn

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

This article analyzes and synthesizes the major theoretical frameworks for building intercultural communicative competency (ICC) within the domain of the foreign language classroom. Researchers used a pragmatist orientation as a venue for the translation of theoretical models into usable, accessible guidelines for classroom teachers in order to provide a deeper understanding and clarity of ICC and its implementation in the language classroom

“A Hidden Part Of Me”: Latino/A Students, Silencing, And The Epidermalization Of Inferiority, Jason G. Irizarry, John Raible

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

Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latino/a Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) as analytical tools, this article examines the experiences of a seven Latino/a high school students at various points of engagement with the school-to-prison pipeline. Building on and extending Franz Fanon’s (1952) concept of the epidermalization of inferiority, the authors demonstrate the nuanced ways that institutional racism and other interrelated forms of oppression function to contribute to a sense of internalized oppression among Latino/a youth. We critically examine the ways in which dialogue and collaborative research undertaken in a supportive classroom atmosphere can help students move from feeling shame and …

The Effect Of Morphological Strategies Training For English Language Learners, Q. Deng, G. Trainin

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

Native speakers have a vocabulary size of about 50,000 when they enter college, but English as a second language learners (ELLs) have a size between 3500 and 4500 word families to take TOEFL exam (Chujo & Oghigian, 2009). It is not difficult to conclude that, when students enter college, the vocabulary size of native speakers is about 12 times of that for ELLs. Of the recently developed Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000), more than 82% of the entries are of Greek or Latin origin, indicating that the knowledge of morphemic structures, such as prefixes, suffixes, and word stems, positively affects …

Reflections On Effective Writing Instruction The Value Of Expectations, Engagement, Feedback, Data, And Sociocultural Instructional Practices, Kara Mitchell Viesca, Kim Hutchison

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

This reflection on effective writing practice is the result of a university–school partnership focused on collaboratively investigating the work of a successful 5th grade-writing teacher. The co-authors collectively present the work of Mrs. Hutchison, a veteran teacher who worked in a predominately low-income school with a high percentage of students labeled English language learners. Mrs. Hutchison’s class was a space where each student was both a learner and a teacher and most students developed a great interest and love of writing. This reflective piece presents data documenting Mrs. Hutchison’s success as well as a collaborative reflection on her work intended …

A Professional Learning Community Activity For Science Teachers: How To Incorporate Discourse-Rich Instructional Strategies Into Science Lessons, Elizabeth Lewis, Dale Baker, Nievita Bueno Watts, Michael Lang

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

In this article we describe current educational research underlying a comprehensive model for building a scientific classroom discourse community. We offer a professional development activity for a school-based professional learning community, providing specific science instructional strategies within this interactive teaching model. This design activity provides a quick and practical means of transforming science lessons to be more engaging for students. Through this activity teachers can redesign any science lesson by focusing on each of the five core components of a scientific classroom discourse community: (a) scientific inquiry, (b) oral discourse, (c) written discourse, (d) academic language development, and (e) learning …

Spoken Spanish Language Development At The High School Level: A Mixed-Methods Study, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Janine Theiler

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

Communicative approaches to teaching language have emphasized the centrality of oral proficiency in the language acquisition process, but research investigating oral proficiency has been surprisingly limited, yielding an incomplete understanding of spoken language development. This study investigated the development of spoken language at the high school level over five consecutive years, involving more than 1,500 students representing 23 school districts. Quantitative Standards-Based Measure of Proficiency speaking scores and student-produced qualitative spoken samples (n > 6,000 samples) contributed to an understanding of the development of spoken language. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) revealed a consistent growth trajectory of spoken language development, and results …

The Mathematical Nature Of Reasoning-And-Proving Opportunities In Geometry Textbooks, Samuel Otten, Nicholas J. Gilbertson, Lorraine Males, D. Lee Clark

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

International calls have been made for reasoning-and-proving to permeate school mathematics. It is important that efforts to heed this call are grounded in an understanding of the opportunities to reason- and-prove that already exist, especially in secondary-level geometry where reasoning-and-proving opportunities are prevalent but not thoroughly studied. This analysis of six secondary-level geometry textbooks, like studies of other textbooks, characterizes the justifications given in the exposition and the reasoning-and-proving activities expected of students in the exercises. Furthermore, this study considers whether the mathematical statements included in the reasoning-and-proving opportunities are general or particular in nature. Findings include the fact that …

A Study On The Elementary School Teachers’ Awareness Of Students’ Alternative Conceptions About Change Of States And Dissolution, Chanho Yang, Taehee Noh, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Sukjin Kang

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

Knowledge about students’ conceptions is one of the requisite components of pedagogical content knowledge. A keen awareness of students’ alternative conceptions provides teachers with information about prospective difficulties students may incur as they make attempts to learn more accurate scientific representations of critical concepts. In this study, we investigated elementary school teachers’ understanding of their students’ alternative conceptions about change of states and dissolution. The subjects were 152 elementary school teachers and 529 sixth graders in Korea. A conceptions test and the test of the understanding about students’ conceptions were administered in order to examine students’ alternative conceptions and the …

Narrative Understandings Of A School Policy: Intersecting Student, Teacher, Parent And Administrator Perspectives, Elaine Chan, Vicki Ross

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

In this article, we examine one school’s experience with policy, as a means of shedding light on the intersection of factors contributing to challenges of implementing policies to support the academic achievement and social adaptation of immigrant and minority students in their school context. We begin with the presentation of a ‘big fight’ between two students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and consider multiple perspectives of how the disagreement was addressed by teachers and administrators, to offer insight into how issues of race and policy might have been understood by members of the school community. We use a narrative …

“Women Made It A Home”: Representations Of Women In Social Studies, Mardi Schmeichel

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

This article explores recently published P–12 social studies lesson plans that include women to examine how attending to women is “getting done” in the field and how the lessons represent women and women’s experiences. Using discourse analysis methodologies, the author demonstrates that women have been included as topics in ways that do not work toward disrupting problematic discourses about gender norms. Through their avoidance of issues of power and patriarchy, most of the lessons fall short of addressing gender inequity—in the past or the present—in a significant way. More critical attention to women and gender in lessons, as well as …

Equitable Written Assessments For English Language Learners: How Scaffolding Helps, Marcelle A. Siegel, Deepika Menon, Somnath Sinha, Nattida Promyod, Cathy Wissehr, Kristy L. Halvorson

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

This study investigated the effects of the use of scaffolds in written classroom assessments through the voices of both native English speakers and English language learners from two middle schools. Students responded to assessment tasks in writing, by speaking aloud using think aloud protocols, and by reflecting in a post-assessment interview. The classroom assessment tasks were designed to engage students in scientific sense making and multifaceted language use, as recommended by the Next Generation Science Standards. Data analyses showed that both groups benefited from the use of scaffolds. The findings revealed specific ways that modifications were supportive in helping students …

Home Visits: A Way Of Connecting With Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Families, Stephanie Wessels

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

Home visits allow ELL educators to learn more about culturally and linguistically diverse families’ interactions and experiences and build on those activities in the educational setting. The visits can provide an amazing source of information regarding the socio-cultural processes, academic, and linguistic development of students. Home visits are a start to relationship building between teachers and parents where everyone benefits. ELL teachers benefit from learning more about their students’ interests and cultural experiences. Parents benefit from the teachers showing how much they care and value what the parents have to offer to the educational process. Students benefit the most from …

The Nuts And Bolts Of Running A Graduate Student-Led Science Outreach Program, Matthew Mccune, Deepika Menon, Kevin Tarwater, Christopher Owens

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

Abstract submitted for the PSF13 meeting of the American Physical Society, October 12, 2013 about the nuts and bolts of running a graduate student-led science outreach program.