Secondary Education and Teaching Commons^™

Making Room For Formative Assessment Processes: A Multiple Case Study, Rob Mcentarffer

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This qualitative instrumental multiple case study (Stake, 2005) explored how teachers made room for formative assessment processes in their classrooms, and how thinking about assessment changed during those formative assessment experiences. Data were gathered from six teachers over three months and included teacher interviews, student interviews, participant-observation notes, videos of classroom experiences, and classroom artifacts. These data were analyzed using a category construction method (Merriam, 2009) that involved open coding, axial coding, and finally a cross-case analysis that grouped axial codes according to themes relating to the two research questions. Four case studies describe the process of co-created work with …

The Power To Transform: Leadership That Brings Learning And Schooling To Life, Stephanie Pace Marshall

Stephanie Pace Marshall, Ph.D.

The Power to Transform is a call to re-conceive and re-design schooling. Rather than offer “best practices” or “prescriptive solutions,” it invites leaders of all ages and walks of life to think differently about learning and schooling. It illuminates the “why” and “what” of educational transformation and explores its deepest roots. It offers new language, new design principles, a new framework, and a new map for creating vibrant, imaginative and adaptive learning landscapes that integrate the dynamic properties of living systems with the generative principles of learning. It is from this natural integration that the new story of learning and …

Re-Imagining Specialized Stem Academies: Igniting And Nurturing ‘Decidedly Different Minds,’ By Design, Stephanie Pace Marshall

Stephanie Pace Marshall, Ph.D.

This article offers a personal vision and conceptual design for reimagining specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academies designed to nurture decidedly different STEM minds and ignite a new generation of global STEM talent, innovation, and entrepreneurial leadership. This design enables students to engage actively in the authentic work, modes of inquiry, and practices that distinguish four STEM learning cultures, environments, and communities: (a) Inquiry and Research Laboratory and Interdisciplinary Learning Center—develops disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and inquiry-based thinking; (b) Innovation Incubator and Design Studio—ignites innovative and design-based thinking; (c) Global Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Institute—nurtures change leadership and systems-based thinking; …

"Ok, I'M A Teacher Now:" Reading Young Adult Literature In A Teacher Education Program, Brittany Richer

Honors Projects

After taking a young adult literature course as part of my Secondary Education/ English program, I felt I had gained only a limited understanding of the importance of the genre to my future career. In the class, we read several popular young adult texts, learned about their authors, identified censorship issues, and mentioned a few strategies related to the teaching of the texts. Much of the “understanding” related only to future applications in imagined classrooms, which left no room for critical reflection about what we might learn from reading the texts about ourselves as students and teachers. A sense of …

Our History: Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

IMSA History

The internationally recognized Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) develops creative, ethical leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As a teaching and learning laboratory created by the State of Illinois, IMSA enrolls academically talented Illinois students (grades 10-12) in its advanced, residential college preparatory program, and it serves thousands of educators and students in Illinois and beyond through innovative instructional programs that foster imagination and inquiry. IMSA also advances education through research, groundbreaking ventures and strategic partnerships.

High Schools, Race, And America's Future: What Students Can Teach Us About Morality, Diversity, And Community, Lawrence Blum

Lawrence Blum

In High Schools, Race, and America's Future, Lawrence Blum offers a lively account of a rigorous high school course on race and racism. Set in a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse high school, the book chronicles students engagement with one another, with a rich and challenging academic curriculum, and with questions that relate powerfully to their daily lives.

Blum, an acclaimed moral philosopher whose work focuses on issues of race, reflects with candor, insight, and humor on the challenges and surprises encountered in teaching the unexpected turns in conversation, the refreshing directness of students questions, the aha moments and …