Category Archives: curriculum; teachers

A multitude of communication resources

curriculum; teachers, education, literacy, Literacy teacher educators, research, Teacher education, teacher educators, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

cartoon_newliteracies

When I saw this comic it made me chuckle.  I enjoyed the comic’s gentle reminder that children/youth routinely engage with and expertly navigate a variety of communication tools. Clare and I (Lydia) conducted a two-year collaborative self-study of our efforts to incorporate various technological resources (e.g. a wiki) into our pre-service literacy methods courses. This research helped us identify both the challenges and successes we encountered along the way.  Our research efforts also made us more mindful of why we chose to incorporate certain technological resources into our pedagogical practice — questioning for what purpose and to what end.   Through the analysis of our efforts we realized that we had initially seen technology as an end in itself, not as a tool to support learning. In the second year of the study, we focused much more on student learning and became more systematic in our efforts. Over the two years of the study, our identities as teacher educators shifted as our pedagogies became richer, our use of technology more fully integrated into our literacy courses, and we received validation from others and from each other.

Teachers’ Broad Conception of Their Role after Several Years

classroom teachers, curriculum; teachers, education, literacy, , , ,

I (Clive) have been working with Clare and Elizabeth on a paper on teacher identity, based on our longitudinal study of teachers. One thing we’ve noticed over the years is how broadly our teachers view their role.
Elizabeth has just developed a table showing what the teachers give priority to in their teaching. In spring 2012 (year 8 for cohort 1 and year 5 for cohort 2) we asked 39 of the teachers:
·      What do you think are the most important aspects of your role?
·      What are your main goals for your students?
The top 8 priorities in each case were as follows:
Most Important Aspects of My Role

Provide engaging lessons

18

Build a community, and a caring and safe environment

16

Develop a relationship with students

15

Be a role model

6

Involve parents

 

4

Teacher reflection and ongoing learning

 

4

Advocate for student needs

3

Foster strong literacy abilities in students

2

Most Important Goals for My Students

Social development

 

 

18

Love of learning

 

 

11

Development of self

 

 

11

Sense of community

 

 

10

Problem solving and critical thinking

 

 

6

Progress in learning

 

 

6

Literacy

 

 

6

Curiosity

 

 

4

Having such a broad role may appear burdensome for teachers. However, based on the teachers’ comments and our reading of authors such as Mary Kennedy and Nel Noddings, we argue that approaching teaching broadly is in fact more feasible and satisfying. Students are more engaged, understand more deeply, and develop across many aspects of their lives. And teachers are also enriched and find the daily interaction with students more enjoyable.

Studying Beyonce… in Higher Ed?

curriculum; teachers, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Lately, Beyonce has been in the news a lot more than usual. Recently, without any warning(or PR), she released a self-titled  album to the public. She was also, debatably, the most talked about performance at the 2014 Grammy’s a few weeks ago. However, the most interesting news I (Pooja) have recently read about Beyonce has to do with the world of academia.

Rutgers University now offers a course called “Politicizing Beyonce,” in which her musical career is used as a lens to investigate“race, gender, and sexual politics.”  The instructor of the course, a Ph.D. student, says “he’s seeking to help students think more critically about media consumption.”

I am intrigued by this course, yet not sure what to make of it. Is this a relevant and contextualized way of studying issues of race and gender or is this normalizing our (society’s) idolization of celebrities by creating a place for it in higher education?

What do you think?

Read more about this course:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/30/rutgers-beyonce-course_n_4697541.html

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/27/rutgers-beyonce-course-5-potential-lessons-on-the-syllabus/

Source: www.policymic.com
Source: http://www.policymic.com

Narratives of Teacher Educators

critical literacy, curriculum; teachers, education, Literacy teacher educators, Reflections, , , , ,

Book cover

I (Pooja) recently finished reading Negotiating critical literacies with teachers: Theoretical foundations and pedagogical resources for pre-service and in-service contexts (Vasquez, V.M., Tate, S.L, & Harste, J.C., 2013). This book provides a theoretical framework, insightful examples, and pedagogical resources for ways to incorporate critical literacy practices into pre-service and in-service teacher education. The final chapter of this text entitled “Teaching and living critical literacies” especially interested me. This concluding chapter focused on the narratives of the authors who are all teacher educators. They shared early childhood memories, classroom teaching experiences, and turning points (e.g. being the first in the family to attend college; protesting the Viet Nam War). Much of what the book’s authors shared in their written narratives reflected closely what many of our critical literacy participants in our SSHRC study have expressed. Many can identify turning points and life events in their early childhood, which contributed significantly to their philosophy and stance towards teaching and learning. Maya from our study identified being placed in a low-track after immigrating to the U.S. as a defining moment. This has influenced her practice because she now focuses on having her student teachers understand multiple perspectives and interrogate their assumptions of students, curriculum, and schooling. Providing a specific example of this pedagogical stance, Maya told us about how she conducts an entire lecture in Spanish, locating student teachers as second language learners.

This final chapter reinforced how meaningful it is to create space for the voices of literacy teacher educators.  The narratives of our participants are rich with experiences that influence their practices in the classroom. Stacie L. Tate, book author and teacher educator, articulates this well: “When people ask how I decided to become a teacher and researcher, I always reply, “I was groomed for this.” (p. 99).

If You Build It: Documentary on Making Teaching Relevant

curriculum; teachers, education, Social Justice, , , , , , , ,

If you live anywhere in the Toronto region you might be interested in this documentary, IF YOU BUILD IT. The film  is a captivating look at a radically innovative approach to education. The film follows designer-activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller to rural Bertie County, the poorest in North Carolina, where they work with local high school students to help transform both their community and their lives. Living on credit and grant money, and fighting a change-resistant school board, Pilloton and Miller lead their students through a year-long, full-scale design and build project that does much more than just teach basic construction skills—it shows ten teenagers the power of design-thinking to reinvent their town and their own sense of what’s possible. IF YOU BUILD IT offers a compelling and hopeful vision for a new kind of classroom in which students learn the tools to design their futures. Here is the link to a clip from the movie: http://www.hotdocs.ca/docsoup/doc_soup_toronto/
The documentary is being shown in a number of cities in Canada. To find out where click on this link: http://www.hotdocs.ca/docsoup/doc_soup_toronto/ and it is probably being shown in cities world-wide. Even if you cannot attend the documentary, watching a clip of the movie is fascinating.
Hot Docs is pleased to announce that February’s Doc Soup will present the Canadian premiere of IF YOU BUILD IT (D: Patrick Creadon, USA, 85 min.) An official selection of the 2013 Full Frame Documentary Festival, IF YOU BUILD IT will screen on Wednesday, February 5, at 6:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., and on Thursday, February 6, at 6:45 p.m. at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema (506 Bloor St. West).
Filmmaker Patrick Creadon will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer questions following the screenings. For more information please visit: http://www.hotdocs.ca/docsoup/doc_soup_toronto/
We look forward to seeing you at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Wednesday, February 5, and Thursday, February 6 for IF YOU BUILD IT!

 If you have any questions regarding your tickets or any questions or comments about Doc Soup, please email our box office bloorboxoffice@hotdoc s.ca, or call 416.637.5150.

 

Truly Engaging Students and Meeting Their Needs: Reconciling Our Ideals with Their Realities

curriculum; teachers, education, , , ,

 

John LoughranAs our team continues its research and writing on teaching, I (Clive) have been re-reading John Loughran’s wonderful book What Expert Teachers Do (Routledge, 2010). http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415579674/
This week I came across a section that reports a common gap between teacher and student views of good teaching (pp. 210-11). For example:
Teacher view:
Students should have opportunities to be active and think about their learning experiences
Student view:
Learning is associated with gaining right answers, and thinking and personal understanding are just different and often frustrating ways of achieving required outcomes
Teacher view:
Linking experiences from both within and outside school greatly assists learning
Student view:
The final grade is the critical outcome and the basis by which progress is judged

Loughran’s colleague Jeff Northfield, on whose teaching experiences these findings were based, was able to bridge the gap to a degree, but only by “listening carefully to his students [and] capitalising on opportunities as they arose.”Cover of What Expert Teachers Do
This helped me see that in developing ideas about good teaching (and good teacher education) we must work closely with our students, listening to them as they describe the realities of their world. Together we must come up with a pedagogy they understand and accept, one that both meets their immediate needs and ensures deeper gains for the long-term. We need to reconcile broader ideals with hard realities.
I think this can be done; but we must actually do it. Part of what is involved is practicing with our students the constructivism and dialogical teaching we believe in, and that really does work.  Clive

International Baccalaureate symbol

IB schooling in Mumbai

curriculum; teachers, education, Reflections, Social Justice, , , ,

While in Mumbai, I (Pooja) had some candid conversations with my cousins (who now have school-aged children) about schooling. The International Baccalaureate (IB) has quickly become the new standard. My cousins spoke highly about the IB curriculum, noting that it encouraged students to view themselves as “global citizens.”  The curriculum, they commented, deviated away from that of traditional schooling in India. The skills were now focused on: critical thinking; intercultural awareness; independent learning; evaluating and constructing arguments; and independent learning.

The pressures to get their children into an International Baccalaureate (IB) program were high. My cousins already had aspirations of sending their young children to top-performing universities outside of India (mostly in the U.S., Canada, and U.K.).   A major concern I heard was that if they did not get into an IB program, how would they compete in this highly globalized world? I understood this to mean that in order to be competitive one had to be complete their formal education outside of India. This  was concerning  because competition aside, IB schools are extremely expensive, and so, not available to the vast majority of families in India. While very few are privileged to apply and possibly attend IB schools in India, most school children in India still attend public school. I am interested in learning more about the public school curriculum in Mumbai? How are public schools currently preparing their students to be  “global citizens?” or is this a notion that is still intangible for most? Pooja

Winter Clothing is a Basic

classroom teachers, curriculum; teachers, education, Social Justice, , ,

thermometer with snowflakesMany of us in North America are enduring the coldest weather in decades. This morning it is -39 Celsius (= -40 F). Bone chilling does not even begin to describe the experience of being out in this weather. Whenever we have frigid weather like this I recall my time as a classroom teacher. I taught in very high needs schools and when winter roared in, many of the children suffered terribly because they did not have adequate winter clothing. Last night on Chris Matthews’ show, Hardball, on MSNBC http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/the-need-to-sustain-the-social-safety-net-108521539760
there was talk about the American Congress wanting to end welfare benefits. All those politicians who vote to end or reduce welfare benefits they should visit an urban school in the depths of winter and tell some children that they do not deserve a winter coat and mittens.

When I was a teacher, every year I would go to children’s clothing stores and beg for winter gear (coats, mittens, boots) for my students who were so inadequately dressed. Never once did I leave a store empty-handed. Many of the teachers on staff engaged in similar missions and many who were moms or dads would bring in winter clothes that their own children had out-grown. So those politicians who want to micro-manage teachers and impose an array of  standards should accompany those teachers to children’s stores to beg for donations. I am sure this reality-check would have a real influence because they would learn what teaching is all about. Their view that teachers need to be told what to do and should be penalized for not focusing solely on the “basics” might change. Aren’t winter clothes a basic? I think so. Stay warm! Clare

What To Do Until the Evidence Arrives

assessment, curriculum; teachers, , ,

A common refrain internationally today is that teaching should be evidence-based, and certainly, that is the ideal. However, it will be a long time before all the evidence is in. It can take millions of dollars and many years to test the impact of just a few teaching strategies; yet teachers must daily use a large repertoire of strategies. So what to do in the meantime?checkmark images

Teachers must rely largely on their judgment about what is most likely to have a positive impact (drawing of course on their training, PD, and years of experience). This isn’t ideal, but it’s better than waiting until the evidence is complete.

We commonly use our judgment in evaluating teachers and teacher candidates. We say things like “So and so is one of the best teachers I’ve seen,” without having detailed student outcome data. Equally, we must let teachers exercise judgment about what and how to teach. We should give them our advice, evidence-based or not; but it should build on their current judgment and practices. Clive