Secondary Education and Teaching Commons^™

Bridging Content, Practice, And Pedagogy In K–12 Computing Education: A Review Of Computer Science In K–12: An A To Z Handbook On Teaching Programming, Matthew Priem

Essays in Education

This book review examines Computer Science in K-12: An A to Z Handbook on Teaching Programming, a resource designed to support K-12 computer science educators. Bringing together contributions from forty authors, the book integrates content knowledge, computational practices, and pedagogical strategies for teaching programming across grade levels. The review highlights the text’s emphasis on addressing student misconceptions, connecting research to practice, and balancing teacher guidance with student autonomy. Although the alphabetical organization may not always reflect pedagogical progression, the modular structure allows for flexible use. Overall, the handbook is a valuable professional resource for both aspiring and practicing computer …

Student Teachers Are Watching: What Are They Seeing?, Sarah J. Kaka, Taylor M. Kessner

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This article examines the apprenticeship of observation that shapes preservice social studies teachers during clinical placements. Grounded in Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation and Bourdieu’s habitus, we draw on classroom observations collected by student teachers across several states. Findings suggest that cooperating teachers most often modeled traditional, teacher-centered instruction, including lecture and textbook-based work, while offering fewer examples of inquiry, discussion, or primary-source analysis. We argue that these everyday observations shape preservice teachers’ professional dispositions and that teacher educators, cooperating teachers, and field personnel should more intentionally provide access to ambitious, student-centered social studies practice.

A Pedagogical “Eras” Tour: Thirteen Years Of Evolving As A Writing Methods Instructor [Special Issue], Susanna Benko

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

ABSTRACT: This reflective essay uses Taylor Swift's Eras Tour as a conceptual framework for examining thirteen years of teaching a writing methods course for preservice teachers. Drawing on longitudinal reflection, I identify four distinct pedagogical eras in my practice, each representing shifts in how I conceptualize what preservice teachers need to learn about teaching writing and how clinical experiences shape that learning. Through this extended reflection, I argue that meaningful pedagogical change becomes visible only across time, not semester-to-semester. Key insights include the sustained centrality of writing practice in methods courses and the influence of institutional changes on course design. …

"We Can't Shut The Classroom Door": Crossing Borderlands Of Practice In The Writing Methods Course, Vanessa C. Sullivan

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article shares the findings of a qualitative study that engaged ten writing teacher educators from across the United States in interviews, curriculum submission, and a mapping practice to explore the ways that they perceive and enact the teaching of the writing methods course within dynamic and complex settings. Using a conceptual framework of borderlands of practice to gain insight into the discourses and value systems that surround the course, findings revealed the overlapping domains that impact the preparation of teachers in the field of writing, the key values that guide the way that participants approach their teaching, and the …

Teaching (In) Community: Reflection And Relationship In The Writing Methods Course, Kristie Jolley, Emily Stephens Kasper, Meridith Reed

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, three writing teachers, one a writing teacher educator, reflect on how the writing methods course has shaped their work as teachers and helped them build community and identify resources to adapt to new teaching contexts and challenges.

Our Journeys As Teachers Of Writing: Learning From Our Mentor, Tracey T. Flores, Cecilia Espinosa

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Written in two voices, we reflect on our journeys as teachers of writing and teacher educators shaped by transformative mentoring in literacy methods courses at Arizona State University and community embedded learning at William T. Machan School. Weaving together sociocultural and translanguaging theories, we explore how being invited to write from our lives reshaped our identities as writers and educators. In our work, we draw on strength-based approaches to teaching writers that centers voice, meaning making, multilingualism, and funds of knowledge. In the midst of an increase in the use of a scripted curriculum, we argue for reclaiming writing as …

Writing Workshop Methods Course As Catalysts For Long-Term Pedagogical Identity: A Co-Authored Narrative Of Resonance, Resilience, And Effects, Elsie L. Olan Dr., M.Priscilla Develder

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Writing workshop methods courses introduce teachers to foundational practices for teaching writing, yet their long-term influence on teacher identity and instructional decision-making often remains underexamined. This co-authored narrative explores how experiences within a graduate-level writing workshop shaped the pedagogical development of two educators: a professor who designed and facilitated the course and a former graduate student who went on to teach English Language Arts (ELA) in both elementary and higher education settings. Drawing on a 60-hour shadowing experience, the narrative analyzes classroom observations, reflective writing, and dialogic exchanges to illuminate three central themes: resonance, resilience, and effects that demonstrate how …

Strengthening Our Pedagogy Together: A Methods Instructor And Her Former Student Partner To Promote Agency In The Secondary Writing Classroom [Special Issue], Michael Rojas, Kate Sjostrom

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In many English classrooms today, writing instruction is reduced to templates and formulas, robbing students of agency, voice, and transferable skills. This article describes a collaboration between a writing methods course instructor and one of her former students bent on proving that what they believe makes for solid writing instruction—a sometimes messy process involving choice and authentic purpose and audience—works. Documenting development of a new secondary writing course and a project to introduce the course’s methods to pre-service teachers, the authors recount barriers they encountered, strategies they developed for overcoming them, and issues they are still grappling with. In the …

“Ummm I Don’T Know If I Took A Writing Methods Course”: Learning From In-Service Teachers Revisiting The Methods Course, Christina Saidy, Isabelle Alize Meza, Talia Baca

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article two teachers and their writing methods professor explore the challenges of the traditional methods course. In sharing the teachers’ experiences of retaking the methods course, they argue for the need to consider ways that practicing teachers can revisit the methods course to develop sustainable practices for the teaching of writing in secondary schools.

The Good Ghosts Of Process And Models: What Endures From The Composition Methods Course [Special Issue], Rebecca Powell, Jonathan Rivera, Heather Serpas

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article examines how secondary English teachers understand and implement writing pedagogy in their classrooms years after completing a writing methods course. Through reflective interviews and written responses from teachers in their fifth through seventh years of practice, we explore the tensions between pedagogical ideals learned in teacher preparation and the institutional pressures of contemporary schooling. Key themes include the influence of standardized testing on writing instruction, the challenge of maintaining process-oriented approaches amid curriculum standardization, and the ways teachers adapt their methods course learning to their specific school contexts.

What Are You Writing? The Hopes And Hurdles Of Transitioning From Writing Methods To Teaching Writing, Rebekah Buchanan, Darrin G. Ross

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This co-authored piece examines how the writing methods course impacts teaching and thinking about writing through the lenses of a writing methods professor and a former student/current teacher. In writing and thinking together we found that a mutual grounding in liberatory education, using writing as a tool for social action and critical thinking, and teaching writing as a political act we see how the writing methods course and the relationships built through writing create a basis for future decision making and inspiration in the high school classroom.

Everyone Is A Writer: Building Writer Identities And Writing Communities In Preservice And English Language Arts Classrooms, Amber Warrington, Hanna Burns, Allie Zimmerly

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, a teacher educator and two early-career teachers reflect on a Teaching Writers methods course the teachers took as part of their teacher education program. In the course, the two teachers developed their own writer identities and took part in a writing community. The teachers discuss ways they have brought those experiences into their classrooms and adapted the experiences for their students and contexts.

“I Want To Teach That Way”: What We Learn In A Writing Methods Class [Special Issue], Brad Jacobson, Ana S. Muñoz, Paola Vianney Trevizo

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this dialogic essay, a teacher educator and two early career teachers discuss the influence of a writing methods course on their pedagogy in practice. The conversation focuses on a digital testimonio task that instilled values the early career teachers continue to bring to their teaching, including an expanded conception of what counts as writing and a critical, humanizing approach to literacy education. Moreover, the challenges they experienced as preservice teachers when composing a digital text helped them to see the value of a scaffolded writing process, demonstrating the value of experiential learning. While the digital testimonio project itself was …

Expertise, Ideals, And The Ecology Of Learning To Teach: A Conversation About The Transition From The Writing Methods Course To Student Teaching [Special Issue], Jessica Rivera-Mueller, Josie Clark

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Writing pedagogy educators need approaches for designing the writing methods course in ways that will make a positive impact on practicing teachers’ decision-making. In this article, the co-authors—a writing pedagogy educator and a former student—address this need by providing a reflective conversation about the former student’s transition from the writing methods course to the student teaching experience. Together, the co-authors explore the extent to which a hands-on learning experience built into the writing methods course (designing and hosting an online writing competition for middle and high school students) impacted the former student’s experience of teaching writing as a student teacher. …

Writing From Our Lives: From Reading Like Writers To Personal Narrative Writing, Julianna Kershen, Sarah Relja, David Mackowski, Grace Rhodes

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article describes the design and use of writing opportunities for preservice teacher candidates enrolled in English Language Arts education coursework. Based in the practice-based teacher education principle that preparatory coursework include implementation activities, we describe how preservice candidates engaged in the study of writer’s craft through immersion in mentor texts through close reading, annotation, and free response writing. This article highlights the benefits of such opportunities for preservice teacher-writers, as they (re)see themselves as active writers and reflect on their personal writing histories. Three preservice candidates share their writing as a means of celebrating their own beliefs and experiences …

From Prompts To Invitations: Rethinking The Genre Of The Writing Assignment Sheet, Amber Jensen, Annika Peacock

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, a university-based teacher educator and a first-year middle school ELA teacher examine how their experiences in the writing methods course (as teacher and student) unsettled and expanded their thinking about assignment sheets and about themselves as teacher-writers. The course prompted questions about how ELA teachers might craft assignments that modeled rhetorically-relevant writing while also eliciting rhetorically-relevant writing from student-writers. The authors describe the genre inquiry they conducted that led to developing a heuristic for writing prompts as invitations that they have used to guide their own assignment sheet creation. Finally, they reflect briefly on how reframing this …

From Corrector To Reader: Pre-Service Teachers’ Writing Values And Feedback, Amanda Brewer

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This study investigates the written feedback practices of secondary English Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs) to understand how their values regarding "good" writing influence their comments on student work. Through analysis of feedback on 10th-grade writing samples and value-sorting surveys, the study examines their feedback tendencies and the links with their values. Findings indicate a significant shift over the semester from a directive, deficit-based "corrector" stance to a facilitative, asset-based "reader" stance. The data suggests that when PSTs lack specific metalinguistic language, they default to generic advice or mechanical correction. However, when instructed to align their feedback with their core writing values, …

Building A Foundation: Preservice Teachers' Exploration Of Writing Studies - Special Issue, Ellen Shelton

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article examines the Concept Exploration Essay assignment in a writing studies course that encourages PSTs to explore and question writing theories as they connect to their own experiences and understandings. The focus of the course is to develop an understanding of the self as a writer and as a future writing teacher through practical application of composition theory. Students are invited into the Burkean Parlor and enter the conversation as scholars. The students explore, question, and trouble complex writing theories in a dialogic classroom. PSTs leave the course empowered with the knowledge they can allow their future students the …

Introduction: Echoes, Effects, And Resonance: Examining The Writing Methods Course, Elizabeth Thackeray Nelson, Erinn Bentley, Jonathan E. Bush

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

Listening To Learn: Preservice Teachers’ Voice On What Matters Most In Their University Preparation Programs, David Wolff, Scott Klimek, Elizabeth Y. Dale

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

This study explores the perspectives of preserviceteacher candidates on the topics in education they perceive as the most important and urgent as they prepare for their first year of teaching. Utilizing quantitative methodology, the study aims to identify and prioritize educational topics sixty (n = 60) preservice teacher candidates believed were critical to their professional development. Participants are asked to rate the topics based on two criteria: urgency and importance. Each topic is rated on a scale from 0 to 5, where 0 indicated unfamiliarly with the topic, 1 indicated low urgency or importance, and 5 indicates high urgency …

Preparing Teachers To Read The Data: Strengthening Data Literacy For Early Literacy Decision-Making, Tevia Q. Strand

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

Teachers are increasingly expected to use literacy screening and benchmark data to guide instruction, identify student needs, and participate in multi-tiered systems of support. However, pre-service and early-career teachers may enter the profession without sufficient preparation to interpret assessment data or connect benchmark patterns to instructional action. This white paper examines the gap between teacher preparation and the realities of K-12 data use, with particular attention to early literacy decision-making. Drawing from Bradbury’s discussion of teacher preparation and the changing realities of education, this paper argues that data literacy is an essential part of preparing teachers for equitable classroom practice. …

The Role Of Perceived Academic And Peer Support In Mitigating Imposter Syndrome Among Adhd Students, Eden Morley Dr

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Background: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in higher education is associated with significant executive functioning deficits and performance inconsistencies. These challenges, alongside heightened rejection sensitivity, may predispose students to the Imposter Phenomenon (IP)—the persistent belief that one’s success is undeserved. While social and academic supports are known to buffer psychological distress, their specific role in mitigating IP within the ADHD student population remains under-researched.

Objectives: This study investigated the severity of IP among undergraduate students with ADHD and examined the protective roles of Perceived Social Support (PSS) and Perceived Academic Support (PAS), while exploring gender as a potential moderator.

Methodology: A cross-sectional …

How Does An Advanced Educator Utilize Digital Language Teaching And Learning By Integrating Linguistic, Cultural, And Business Life Perspectives?, Hely Westerholm, Pirjo Takanen-Körperich, Ph.D.

International Journal for Business Education

This paper explores advanced educators’ digital working capabilities in online language teaching, with a particular focus on sharing Finnish language and culture in a foreign context. Cultural and linguistic knowledge play a significant role in enhancing students’ motivation to study foreign languages. In today’s educational environment, digitalisation and globalisation exert an increasing influence on foreign language teaching and learning.

The digital learning environment has brought about a paradigm shift in foreign language didactics. Digital language learning is both challenging and holistic in nature. Continued foreign language learning is simultaneously an individual and a social process, as digital learning cultures impose …

How Grades Changed Before, During And After Covid-19 In A Business College, Douglas R. Moodie, Alison Keefe, Robin Cheramie

International Journal for Business Education

Purpose: This study examines how undergraduate business student grades changed before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic using a large institutional dataset from a business college in a US university between 2015 and 2024.

Method: The analysis includes over 390,000 student-course observations and incorporates instructional modality, student demographics, course characteristics, and prior academic performance.

Results: Results show a substantial increase in mean course grades during the COVID-19 period, followed by a partial reversion post-pandemic to levels that remain above pre-pandemic trends. These patterns are consistent across modalities, demographics, and departments.

Implications: The findings raise important questions regarding the interpretation of …

Thinking Local Through Sources: Implementing Place-Based Education & The Inquiry Design Model, Kelli L. Knight

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

Place-based educational methods are utilized across subjects to connect students with their local communities, and tasking them to grapple and solve real-world issues. Since place-based education (PBE) centers the students’ sense of place, this allows for the social studies disciplines to provide opportunities for place-based practices to take root. Through the use of the Inquiry Design Model (IDM), specifically through source material, place-based methods can be incorporated into the social studies classroom. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical way in which, both pre-service and in-service, can modify IDMs to make them place-based by using local sources. …

Preparing Teachers Where Teaching Happens: Designing Embedded Assignments In A School-University Partnership, Michael Dicicco, Shawn A. Faulkner

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

School-University partnerships (SUP) allow more opportunities for teacher candidates to bridge theory and practice. Working together teacher candidates gain valuable experience applying concepts in their classes with classroom teacher mentors. However, these partnerships can be complex and highly context dependent. Developing university course assignments for a SUP can be difficult. This article highlights a set of intentionally designed assignments the authors have developed over the last 8 years within an SUP. The goal is provide practical examples for those who are creating their own SUP.

Exploring The Interactions Between Student–Teacher Relationships, Teacher Passion, And Student Intrinsic Motivation: A Critical Examination Of The Hierarchical Model Of Inspirational Teaching, Stephen W. Rowcliffe

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

This study critically examines the Hierarchical Model of Inspirational Teaching (Rowcliffe, 2022), a conceptual framework proposing that pedagogical competence, student-teacher relationships, and teacher passion are associated with student intrinsic motivation. Although the model has previously been presented conceptually, it has not been subjected to quantitative scrutiny.

Data were collected from 369 students and 33 teachers across two international post-16 schools. Student questionnaires assessed perceptions of student-teacher relationships, teacher passion, and intrinsic motivation, while teacher questionnaires examined burnout. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine construct structure, followed by correlation, regression, and mediation analyses to explore relationships among variables. …

‘It’S A Win-Win Situation’— Cultivating University & School Partnerships, Emily Wisniewski, Kelly Virgin, Pauline Skowron Schmidt

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This qualitative case study examines Writing Zones, a fifteen-year university–high school partnership that embeds preservice English teachers in secondary classrooms as writing mentors. Drawing on surveys from 20 preservice teachers and eight high school teachers, along with follow-up interviews, the study explores perceptions of preparation, support, and program impact. Findings highlight Writing Zones as a mutually beneficial model that enhances student writing through individualized support while providing authentic, field-based learning for preservice teachers. However, effectiveness was conditional, shaped by mentor preparedness, clarity of roles, communication, and scheduling. The study underscores the importance of intentional training, sustained relationships, and institutional alignment …

Dismantling Future Writing Teachers’ English-Only Assumptions: Composing Videos To Learn The Value Of Linguistic And Cultural Inclusion, Ann N. Amicucci

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article presents the results of a study of 12 students’ video composing assignments and accompanying reflections in which students, all of whom were future writing teachers enrolled in an undergraduate TESOL course, examined how well public spaces acknowledged and included multilingual individuals. Students’ videos and reflections demonstrated that the assignment dismantled these future writing teachers’ assumptions that multilingual writers learn best in an English-only environment but perpetuated perceptions of languages as discrete rather than intertwined. Findings are discussed within the context of scholarship on writing teacher education and English-only policy and practice in the U.S.

Who We Are, How We Teach: Writing Teacher Identity In The Secondary Ela Classroom, Danielle Alexander

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The journal submission guidelines stated not to include an abstract.