To our blog readers who are celebrating Christmas, we want to wish you a
Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
The Literacy Teaching Research Team
(Clive, Cathy, Pooja, Yiola, Lydia, and Clare)
Ice Storm
Our blog has been a bit quiet for the last few days because I did not have internet. Southern Ontario and th
e east coast of Canada and US have been hit by a huge ice storm. The storm raged for a few days which knocked down power lines and has devastated some communities. Attached is a picture of a tree limb that fell on a car parked in front of our home. Luckily, we had power but no internet, phone, or cable TV. Interestingly, when our system went down, I stood in the kitchen and just looked around, somewhat like a lost soul. The internet is so integrated into my daily life, I felt like part of me was missing. I do not want to say that I am “dependent” on the internet because that seems to have a negative connotation; rather, digital technology is just part of my day to day life. Wanting to check the progress of the storm, remaining current with the advisories from the government (re: power outages), and being able to check on family and friends were suddenly not available. Eventually, it dawned on me to switch my phone and IPad over to 3G which I did so I was semi “back in business.” But the experience reminded me how much my communication patterns have changed in just a decade. We need to be preparing teachers and students for 21st century communication processes and patterns. For those of you who experienced this major ice storm, I hope that you are safe and that your home was not damaged. Clare
Informal Teacher Learning. Teachers as Experts.
This past week we’ve been writing a paper on ongoing teacher learning, based on our 9-year longitudinal study of 42 teachers. What has struck me is the amount teachers learn after their initial preparation, mainly through experience in their own classroom and other informal means (e.g., chatting with colleagues, professional reading, searching the internet). As Marisa said at the end of her sixth year:
When I started teaching, I soon realized there was so much I didn’t know. The first couple of years I struggled, and had to work really hard on my programming. But over time I’ve become more confident…I try new things, work with other teachers, and use what I learn to improve my program.
External input by formal means is potentially very important, but at present not much happens. And if and when we finally get around to it, it has to be done in dialogue with teachers, building on the approach they have already developed. Teachers are truly key experts, perhaps the main experts, on teaching. Clive
Philomena
I saw the movie Philomena and was blown away by it. The story is powerful, the acting strong, and the direction very subtle. In the movie the main character, Philomena, is sent to a home for unwed mothers run by Catholic nuns who arrange for her son to be adopted by an American family. 50 years later she decides to search for her son. Having gone to Catholic elementary and secondary school, I was quite interested in the “Catholic aspect” of the movie That aside, I felt that the movie addressed so many issues which I think that we should be addressing in schools. As Clive noted in an earlier blog post about relevance, including popular culture in our curriculum can allow for discussion of issues which students face. This movie raises questions about power (institutional power), societal norms, religion, and relationships. When do we forgive and forget? When do condemn and expose? When should we question the power of religion? When should we keep a secret? Who has the right to decide what is “right”? After the movie my book club and I had a spirited discussion of some of the dilemmas that Philomena faced, the decisions that the nuns made (in whose interests were they made), and the relationship between Philomena and the journalist who helped her. I highly recommend the movie (it requires two hankies) and would love to hear your views of the movie. Should a movie like this be included in our secondary school curriculum? Clare
Now linked to FB and Twitter!
Our blog is now linked to FB and Twitter!
Clare
Writing = Thinking
As a doctoral student, learning to write academically has been a challenging process. My doctoral supervisor shared a piece of wisdom, but it was not until I began writing on a daily basis that I understood what she meant. “Writing is thinking,” she often said. As a novice writer, a blank page was a daunting and, often, an overwhelming sight. Through practice, I have learned that getting my ideas out on paper as soon as possible (without worrying about style, grammar, or clarity) is an invaluable strategy for me as it kick-starts the writing process. Once I see my ideas on the page, I begin to make more sense of them and begin the revision process. I have come across two helpful books related to academic writing: 1) Style: Lessons in clarity and grace (Williams, M. & Colomb, G., 2010) and 2) The clockwork muse: A practical guide to writing theses, dissertations, and books (Zerubavel, 2001). Both booka emphasize and articulate my supervisor’s advice that writing is thinking. Zerubavel notes: “One of the most common misconceptions inexperienced writers have of writing is that it is simply a mechanical process of reproducing already-formed ideas on paper. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, writing is virtually inseparable from the process if developing our ideas.” (p. 48). Pooja
Classroom Teachers and Critical Literacy
I am fascinated with classroom teachers’ pedagogy. In particular, how elementary school teachers teach critical literacy to young children. How teachers plan, what materials they choose and the discussions they facilitate in the classroom were some of the areas I asked classroom teachers in relation to their efforts to build critically literate students. My research team spent half of the school year observing classroom teachers` daily practices with a special focus on critical literacy. We also interviewed the teachers to gain an understanding of their thinking about their practice. One interesting finding is the close connection between content (often driven by narrative texts) and pedagogy. That is, teachers (in the early primary grades) focused heavily on narrative texts to relay information about critical social issues and designed learning opportunities (discussions, extensions) based on the texts. This process resulted in children sharing their own stories and understandings of the critical social issues (i.e. identity and exclusion, inequitable distribution of resources, class). Understanding teachers` classroom practices is connected to phase two of our study on literacy teacher educators. I want to know how the two sets of pedagogical practices connect: how does the pedagogy of literacy teacher educators who have a critical stance transfer to classroom teachers’ practices?
By: Yiola Cleovoulou
Attention AERA Division K New Faculty!
The deadline for Applications for the Division K New Faculty Preconference has been extended to January 31, 2014!
The pre conference starts on Wednesday, April 2 at 4:00. We meet again on Thursday, April 3 from 9:00 – 12:00.
This Division K New Faculty Seminar is an exciting opportunity to dialogue, socialize, and share with other new faculty and the facilitators and is designed to:
• Provide support for new teaching and teacher education faculty,
• Engage Division members with each other and with the Division’s activities,
• Examine various methodological approaches to research,
• Create professional networks that will last a lifetime, and
• Make important scholarly connections that create a community of new scholars.
The preconference organizers are established scholars who will discuss ways to thrive in your career. Our division is committed to supporting new faculty! There is a maximum of 25 participants.
To apply for the pre-conference submit a two-page letter of application that includes a description of: (a) applicant’s background; (b) the applicant’s current position and years of service; (c) research interested and methodological approaches to research; and (d) one or two problems of issues in transitioning from being a graduate student to the role of faculty member.
Send your application and questions to Clare Kosnik at ckosnik@oise.utoronto.ca
The Pre-conference Facilitators are:
Renée T. Clift, University of Arizona
Tom Dana, University of Florida
Valerie Kinloch, The Ohio State University
Clare Kosnik, University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Rich Milner, University of Pittsburgh
Anita, Math Teaching, and the System
I had coffee today with Anita, one of the year 10 teachers in our longitudinal study. She was in my School & Society course (foundations course) in initial teacher education and I have observed and interviewed her each year since. She is a very strong teacher in every way, but has just moved to a new school and is facing some challenges. She said about 40% of her grade 4/5 class have very low SES backgrounds and the government is reducing special education support, ostensibly to promote inclusion but actually to save money. One thing she talked about relates to how difficult it is to teach math skills and concepts without concerted system direction and teacher training (as noted in my previous posting about the PISA results). She said it will probably take most of the year to teach her class how to do a 3-part math lesson (direct instruction/group work/whole-class discussion), whereas if the whole school was doing it and all the teachers had been trained in it she could have used this approach immediately. We also talked about how the principal needs to provide leadership in getting all the teachers pulling together around such pedagogy, but principals aren’t being trained in this role or receiving a consistent message that it’s a major part of their job. Anita, then, has to fine-tune and prioritize her teaching activities largely on her own (there are effectively 2 PD days a year), hoping to survive and thrive as a teacher and be there for her students. Clive
More Commentary on PISA
We thought you might find these excerpts from two scholarly papers on PISA interesting. Clare
Professor Gemma Moss and colleagues, London Institute of Education
Some features of [high PISA performing] education systems are not suitable for borrowing; for instance, pupils in Korea and Japan also spend substantially more time being privately tutored outside of school hours. This would not be acceptable to parents in the UK. Education systems are deeply linked to local political as well as educational cultures. No one would want to import an authoritarian one-party system of government from China, yet that may be a key ingredient in how their education system runs. [Further] it is not clear whether or how performance in PISA relates to the economy. China’s economic growth has not been driven by uniform access to high quality education; rather high quality education in Shanghai has followed economic growth. Britain remains amongst the top-performing economies, out-performing our PISA rankings in education.
(Excerpt from a brief for UK politicians)
Professor Paul Morris, London Institute of Education (formerly Dean of Education, Hong Kong University, and President, Hong Kong Institute of Education)
[In Hong Kong] reforms have been both developed and implemented over long time periods [and] the direction of reform has been developed through fairly nonpartisan discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, including school principals, local and overseas academics, and draws upon a range of sources of evidence…. [Further] in Hong Kong the good Math’s results in PISA 2012 have been attributed by their Government to teachers using ‘project work and exploratory activities’ and the good science results to the promotion of ‘scientific literacy and generic skills (e.g. critical thinking and problem-solving skills)’. Not exactly an endorsement of [UK Education Secretary] Gove’s direction of travel!
(Excerpt from: PISA 2012: What can we learn from East Asia?)
Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education 