Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Comparing Science Teaching Styles To Students' Perception Of Scientists, Kevin D. Finson, Jon E. Pedersen, Julie A. Thomas

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

Many educational researchers seem to concur with the idea that, among other factors, the teacher's teaching style has some impact on student learning and the perceptions students develop about science learning and the work of scientists. In this study, nine middle grades teachers' teaching styles were assessed using the Draw-a-Science-Teacher-Teaching Test Checklist (DASTT-C) and categorized along a continuum from didactic to inquiry/constructivist in orientation. Students' (n = 339) perceptions of scientists were determined using the Draw-a-Scientist-Test Checklist (DASTC). Teachers' teaching styles and their students' perceptions of scientists were then compared using nonparametric correlational methods. Results showed that no significant correlation …

Teacher Experiences Of Culture In The Curriculum, Elaine Chan

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

In this study, I examined the experiences of two middle-school-level teachers as they attempted to acknowledge the ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity of their students in their curriculum and through their teaching practices, to identify the kinds of complications and challenges they encountered in the process. I presented one particular curriculum event to explore ways in which diverse beliefs and values intersected as the teachers implemented the event.

I employed a narrative inquiry approach with an emphasis on stories to learn about the experiences of my participants. I took part in all aspects of school life, including staff meetings and …

Multi-Party Mobilization For Adolescent Literacy In A Rural Area: A Case Study Of Policy Development And Collaboration, Edmund T. Hamann, Julie Meltzer

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

Between 2001 and 2005, the state of Maine shifted the focus of its statewide high school improvement efforts to include an explicit focus on adolescent literacy. One trigger for that change in focus was a 5-school adolescent literacy initiative previously launched in a rural county under the federal Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory contract. This monograph describes the multi-party mobilization that led to the creation and implementation of the adolescent literacy project and explains the link between that modest rural effort and the change in state-level reform efforts. The project was designed and implemented at the intersection of what …

Systemic High School Reform In Two States: The Serendipity Of State-Level Action, Edmund T. Hamann

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

Maine and Vermont have been national leaders in state-level coordination of high school reform. Both recently developed almost interchangeable, new, voluntary, statewide frameworks that describe multiple ways high schools should change. Both frameworks— Promising Futures (Maine Commission on Secondary Education 1998) and High Schools on the Move (Vermont High School Task Force 2001)—were published in book form and include extensive bibliographies grounding their claims that they are research based. Both frameworks recommend principles and practices for improving high schools for all students. Both frameworks were drafted primarily by leading local educators with only modest support from experts based beyond the …

Multi-Party Mobilization For Adolescent Literacy In A Rural Area: A Case Study Of Policy Development And Collaboration, Edmund T. Hamann, Julie Meltzer

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

Between 2001 and 2005, the state of Maine shifted the focus of its statewide high school improvement efforts to include an explicit focus on adolescent literacy. One trigger for that change in focus was a 5-school adolescent literacy initiative previously launched in a rural county under the federal Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory contract. This monograph describes the multi-party mobilization that led to the creation and implementation of the adolescent literacy project and explains the link between the modest rural effort and the change in state-level reform efforts.

Preparing Teachers To Create A Mainstream Science Classroom Conducive To The Needs Of English-Language Learners: A Feminist Action Research Project, Gayle A. Buck, Colette Mast, Nancy Ehlers, Elizabeth Franklin

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

A feminist action research team, which consisted of a science educator, an English-language learner (ELL) educator, a first-year science teacher, and a graduate assistant, set a goal to work together to explore the process a beginning teacher goes through to establish a classroom conducive to the needs of middle-level ELL learners. The guiding questions of the study were answered by gathering a wealth of data over the course of 5 months and taken from the classroom, planning sessions, and researchers and students. These data were collected by observations, semistructured interviews, and written document reviews. The progressive analysis ultimately revealed that: …

The Necessity Of Seeing Relational Accountability In Teaching And Learning, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

BOOK REVIEW ESSAY:

Carr, D. (2000). Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching. London: Routledge. 304 pages.

Sidorkin, A. M.(2002). Learning Relations: Impure Education, Deschooled Schools, and Dialogue With Evil. New York: Peter Lang. 212 pages. DOI: 10.1177/0022487105279944

Teacher educators work with prospective and practicing teachers focusing on what it means to learn and teach. They confront what constitutes learning experiences in classrooms, pursuing the consequences for the nature of learners, learning, teachers, and teaching. Increasingly, in my work as a teacher educator I document consequences to the elemental nature of learning and teaching, such as neglecting the ethical realm of teaching …

Book Review: Liora Bresler (Ed.). (2004). Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: Towards Embodied Teaching And Learning. , Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

Each chapter foregrounds embodied significances for learners and learning. Contributing authors draw me into the text in different ways and with different purposes, but all with strong recursive waves rooted in themes of receptivity and relatedness. As I find myself experiencing these waves some are quiet reminders, some carry me away to new thinking, new ideas, and new experiences; some resonate deeply, while others awaken and enliven. Embodied understandings are elicited as I encounter myself within these waves. It is this self-encounter that makes the book so powerful. Gadamer's notion of foregrounding comes into play as concomitantly I engage the …

Design Bearings, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

Discovery and invention yield design, bringing forth a tangible form. There is little room for exploring designing as being-in-the-world where rigid rules dictate the way in which design should be represented. Limitations unduly impinge upon or restrict the possibilities for designing. Design as being-in-the-world comes from playing with possibilities, starching for relationships. The development of such thinking in situation allows for the discovery of potential. It permits possibilities to be included as the search evolves. Without a playful spirit it would seem that imaginative thought, requiring speculation and conjecturing about possibilities, might not be possible. So as educators find themselves …

Book Review - Coming Of Age In U.S. High Schools: Economic, Kinship, Religious, And Political Crosscurrents. , Edmund T. Hamann

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

Annette Hemmings’ research on U.S. high schoolers’ identities and their negotiation of economics, kinship, religion, and politics is important. Yet, it is better exemplified in her excellent Anthropology and Education Quarterly piece, “Lona’s Links: Postoppositional Identity Work of Urban Youths” (Hemmings, 2000:152–172), than in this uneven and sometimes difficult-to-follow book, which is a fuller treatment of the same research presented in the article. While logical and consistent with the original research design (see Endnote 15, p. 190), her choice to organize the book according to themes instead of school or student made it difficult to keep track of who was …

Book Review - The Culture Of Education Policy, Edmund T. Hamann

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

The title of this book is a shorthand play on words. It is derived from the concept of “the culture of poverty,” which, as author Sandra Stein demonstrates, provided important discursive underpinnings for the original Title I Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the U.S. in the mid-1960s; it is essentially “the culture of policy arising from the culture of poverty.” The book describes how the work of social scientists such as Oscar Lewis was utilized by legislators in the U.S. Congress as a means of persuading their colleagues to agree to federal funding for schools. As picked up and …

Review Of Arab-American Faces And Voices: The Origins Of An Immigrant Community, By Elizabeth Boosahda, Loukia K. Sarroub

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

Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins of an Immigrant Community offers a detailed history of the lives of Arab immigrants in Worcester, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Booshada conducted primary source research, interviewed nearly 200 people, and documented the immigrants' stories of their families' lives from 1880-1915. The author's personal and family connections to the community, in combination with the candid interview excerpts, provide a fascinating and much needed account of a people who survived, thrived in, and helped to create an important part of American society.

The book's main focus is to describe, from the perspectives of elderly immigrants of mainly Christian …

Gaining Interpretive Competence Through Cross-Cultural Dialogue Among Teachers And Researchers, Michelle Boone, Elaine Chan

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

We examined the complexities of developing and implementing school curricula that reflect the goals for equality for students outlined in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Stories of teaching and learning experiences were presented to teacher-researchers as a means of generating discussion about differences in perspective pertaining to the curricular needs of an ethnically diverse student population. We articulate this ongoing inquiry about how best to meet the needs of a diverse society in terms of enhancing a sense of ‘interpretive competence’ (Conle, 1997b, Conle et al., 2000, Conle, 2000).

ACQUÉRIR LA COMPÉTENCE INTERPRÉTATIVE GRÂCE AU DIALOGUE INTERCULTUREL ENTRE ENSEIGNANTS ET CHERCHEURS--Nous …

Considering The Nature Of The Aesthetic Through An Imaginary Letter Exchange, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

I propose to consider the nature of aesthetics through the perspectives of three contemporaries of early 20th century England (Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941 , Clive Bell, 1881-1964, and Sylvia Gosse, 1881-1968), with claim to an intimate understanding of the aesthetic. This is an imaginative journey of my own making. I find imagination makes empathy possible. Imagination allows me to put aside my definitions and distinctions regarding the aesthetic, and give credence to alternative perspectives. Aesthetics is an elusive entity that is used indiscriminately to capture a felt dimension of lived experience. Superficially the aesthetic is a term often used to mean …

Explicit Reflective Nature Of Science Instruction: Evolution, Intelligent Design, And Umbrellaology, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Mike U. Smith, Mark C. James, Murray Jensen

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

The investigators sought to design an instructional unit to enhance an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) by taking into account both instructional best practices and suggestions made by noted science philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a course “Laboratory Techniques in the Teaching of Science” served as participants in action research. Sources of data used to inform instructional decisions included students’ written reaction papers to the assigned readings, transcribed verbal comments made during class discussions and other in-class activities, and final reflection essays. Three iterative implementations of the instructional unit were attempted. The objectives of …

Survey Of Changes In Science Teacher Preparation Programs Responding To Performance-Based Science Standards, Steven Gilbert, Jon E. Pedersen, Cheryl Mason

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

This study presents the results of two web-based surveys of 23 science teacher preparation programs having functional standards-based candidate performance assessment systems recognized by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) through the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Our goal was to determine the degree and nature of changes made to these programs as they sought to gain NSTA-NCATE program recognition. The results indicate that most programs made major changes as they implemented performance assessment systems, now pay more attention to documenting candidate performances in all areas of concern covered by the standards, and believe the changes …

A Proactive Strategy For Teaching Evolution, Lawrence C. Scharmann

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

Biology teachers are fortunate when topics to be addressed possess inherent qualities that interest students. Classical genetics rarely fails to interest secondary school students because it is introduced at a time when they are self-absorbed with their nascent physical characteristics, emerging sexuality, and/or future athlet- ic potential. A topic like genetics is always an easier sell than would be taxonomy, for instance. How should one treat topics that traditionally are tougher to teach? A simple but effective method for self-assessing readiness to teach a particular topic is to be prepared to respond to the questions, "Why do I have to …

Improving Teacher Quality Through An On-Line Professional Development Course: A Research Study, Ekaterina Koubek, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

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

This study investigated how in-service teachers of foreign languages constructed knowledge, and how this knowledge transformed their teaching, their beliefs, and their sense of themselves as professionals in an on-line professional development course based on a constructivist approach. This article provides an overview of research on distance education, constructivism, and teacher education with findings from a multiple case study of an on-line graduate course on Instructional Planning offered through GOLDEN (German On-line Distance Education Network; http://manila.unl.edu/amoeller/golden), a collaborative professional development project of the AATG (American Association of Teachers of German; http://aatg.org/member_services/lists/aatg-l.html ), the Goethe Institut of Washington DC ( …

Meeting The Literacy Development Needs Of Adolescent English Language Learners Through Content-Area Learning - Part Two: Focus On Classroom Teaching And Learning Strategies, Julie Meltzer, Edmund T. Hamann

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

Today, English language learners (ELLs) represent an increasing proportion of U.S. middle and high school enrollment. As a result, mainstream content-area teachers are more likely than ever to have ELLs in their classrooms. At the same time, education policymakers and researchers are increasingly calling for improved academic literacy development and performance for all adolescents. The research on recommended practices to promote mainstream adolescents’ academic literacy development across the content areas and the research on effective content-area instruction of ELLs in middle and high schools overlap substantially, suggesting that mainstream teachers who use effective practices for adolescents’ content-area literacy development will …

Evaluative Case Study Of A Summer Academy Program, Elizabeth Wallace, Jon E. Pedersen

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

The demands for technological workers have prompted a national effort to encourage all sectors of the population to consider careers in mathematics and science (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, NCTM, 1989; NSF, 1988; Task Force, 1989). Yet students are not electing to enroll in science in school. One possible solution to increase interest in science is through summer programs. The Summer Academy in Plant Biology and Transgenics hosted by the Western Oklahoma State College, the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, is an intervention program in science for talented students and, in particular …

The Flight From Experience To Representation: Seeing Relational Complexity In Teacher Education, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta, James C. Field

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

Gaining access to the inherent relational complexity of teaching/learning situations is essential to learning to teach. As teacher educators our work with prospective teachers indicates that opportunities to develop the capacity for relational knowing are increasingly being denied and dismissed. Specifically, we are concerned with what we perceive to be a flight from the experience of relational complexities, demanding constant discernment in the concrete situated dimensions of teaching and learning, into representative certainty and singularity in ways of seeing, thinking, and doing in classrooms. This paper documents this concern and explores the consequences of such disregard.

An Action Research Project On Preparing Teachers To Meet The Needs Of Underserved Student Populations, Gayle A. Buck, Jeanene G. Cordes

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

The focus of this action research study was on the initial stage in reforming our teacher preparation programs. We designed, conducted, evaluated, and revised the components of our teacher preparation programs that were aimed at providing preservice teachers with the confidence and knowledge needed to meet the needs of youth populations underserved in science education. The conceptual framework of this study predicted that providing preservice teachers with experiences in teaching science to at-risk youth in a nonformal educational setting and that exploring these experiences in a seminar setting will increase the teachers’ confidence and knowledge in regard to teaching science …

Lessons From The Interpretation/ Misinterpretation Of John Ogbu’S Scholarship, Edmund T. Hamann

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

In November 2003, the Council on Anthropology and Education honored John Ogbu with the George and Louise Spindler Award, for exemplary and long-term contributions to educational anthropology. But in March 2003, a noted economist condemned Ogbu’s work as serving an “oppressive function.” In this paper, such contradictory instances are cited as the author recounts his encounters with Ogbu’s scholarship. Disparate assessments of Ogbu’s ideas and legacy raise important questions. What responsibility do educational anthropologists have for how their research is understood? Which aspects of Ogbu’s legacy should we hold onto as his work is interpreted in politicized and polarized ways?

Reframing For Decisions: Transforming Talk About Literacy And Assessment Among Teachers And Researchers, Loukia K. Sarroub

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

Education research in the 21st century can be characterized by at least four dynamic, interpretive movements that include the critical analysis of pedagogy, schools, and communities; the politics of representation; the textual analyses of literary and cultural forms; and the ethnographic study of the production, consumption, and distribution of these forms in everyday life. Although these issues are beyond the scope of this chapter (see Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, for an extensive discussion), in large part the basis of these movements in the field of education grows out of a struggle among researchers and educators to make sense of competing …

Retrieving Possibilities: Confronting A Forgetfulness And Deformation Of Teaching/Learning Methodology, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

This paper draws on data collected in a one-year research project focusing on elucidating theory/practice relations in learning to teach. As a teacher educator I grapple with the nature and role of teaching methodology. The notion of method, with its implied order and certainty, is confronted alongside prospective teachers throughout their coursework and student-teaching experiences. Reflexivity is considered essential to this research process, providing a means to address the interface between the empirical data collected alongside student-teachers and its interpretations. In this regard I draw on the historical writings of Dewey and Bakhtin, found to provide insights into theory/practice relations. …

The Roles Of State Departments Of Education As Policy Intermediaries: Two Cases, Edmund T. Hamann, Brett Lane

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

As the variety of state education agency (SEA) responses to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 demonstrates, different SEAs interpret the same federal educational policy differently. Nonetheless, little research has depicted how federal policies are changed by SEA-based policy intermediaries. Using an “ethnography of educational policy” approach, this article offers two illustrations of mediation processes at the SEA level: Maine’s and Puerto Rico’s initial attempts to implement the federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program. Both attempts show that the mediation process is inevitable and that its general direction can be predicted: Policies will be adapted in ways that …

The Role Of State Departments Of Education In Comprehensive School Reform, Edmund T. Hamann, Brett Lane

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

States have the legal responsibility and authority to provide public education for their citizens. How each state fulfills its responsibility varies. Whether state education agencies (SEAs) are supporting school reform efforts, providing technical assistance, defining and controlling educational content, or assessing the outcomes of education, it is generally agreed that SEAs are there to assure that districts and schools are providing quality opportunities to children, and in a manner that meets the standards the state has set for achievement. With that in mind, this article addresses some of the specific ways SEAs set out to accomplish these goals. Having worked …

Raising The Bar: Encouraging High Level Thinking In Online Discussion Forums, Mary M. Christopher, Julie A. Thomas, Mary K. Tallent-Runnels

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

More universities are offering online instruction for students though we know little about effective online learning. Some have found online instruction increases student participation while others have reported that students prefer the traditional face-to-face format This study of gifted education graduate students follows the expectation that online students ought to have time to be more thoughtful with online course interactions as compared to the time-constrained interactions in a face-to-face course. Researchers evaluated students’ thinking levels (as per Bloom’s Taxonomy) in the online discussion forums required by a graduate course in gifted education. Results indicate there was no relationship between the …

Attunement To The Creating Process In Teaching & Learning, Margaret A. Macintyre Latta

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

Aesthetic play requires all participants to remain faithful to the intricacies and intensities of human experience. Teachers and students continually improvised within relations, adapting, building, and changing meaning. The indeterminate nature of aesthetic play assumes teaching/learning is complex and individual. All oriented toward sensitivity to the many relations present in teaching/learning situations deliberately seek out fragility’s presence, in order to honor the existing complexity and individuality. Eliot Eisner explains, “What is mediated through thought are qualities, what is managed in process are qualities, and what terminates at the end is a qualitative whole. . . .” Discerning between these qualitative …

Practitioner Sensibility And The Negotiation Of Contradictory School Reforms, Edmund T. Hamann

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

Martin Packer's book, Changing Classes: School Reform and the New Economy, is humane, straightforward, and accessible. It is also important, but perhaps not mainly for the reasons that one might infer from its title or its inclusion in Cambridge University Press's series, "Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives." Although this book will be of interest to those interested in situated cognition, cultural-historical theory, and cultural psychology—three domains in which Packer overtly locates his book (p. 7)—it does not explicitly advance any of these areas. Indeed, Packer notes (p. 8) his "downplay of theoretical discourse," and the book …