Culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy: case studies of rural elementary teachers

Over the last decade, the face of the American classroom has changed dramatically. As the number of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students continues to grow, teachers are challenged to work with a larger number of children of varying backgrounds in their classrooms, pertaining not only to language and cultures, but also with regard to their proficiencies and experiences, ideas and interests. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine inservice elementary school teachers’ culturally and linguistically responsive (CLRP) teaching practices (Gay, 2010; Lucas & Villegas, 2002) in rural elementary schools experiencing an increase in diverse populations. The study was designed to understand how these teachers’ beliefs regarding working with CLD students and other competing factors might impact the implementation of this pedagogy. Guiding the study was a conceptual framework that identified the observable interactions between teachers, students, and content. Three teachers who had been nominated by district and school level administrators as enacting this pedagogy participated in the study. Teacher interviews, classroom observations, and classroom artifacts were collected and analyzed to examine the supports and barriers these teachers encountered as they attempted to enact culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices. Three descriptive cases were provided. Findings revealed that these teachers engage in a culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy in similar ways. Barriers included institutional requirements, peer pressure, limited teacher preparation and training, and testing mandates. Based on the findings, suggestions for teacher educators, school communities, and ways to support the enactment of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices were discussed

Eye on Collaborative Creativity : Insights From Multiple-Person Mobile Gaze Tracking in the Context of Collaborative Design

Early Career WorkshopNon peer reviewe

Teacher roles during amusement park visits – insights from observations, interviews and questionnaires

Amusement parks offer rich possibilities for physics learning, through observations and experiments that illustrate important physical principles and often involve the whole body. Amusement parks are also among the most popular school excursions, but very often the learning possibilities are underused. In this work we have studied different teacher roles and discuss how universities, parks or event managers can encourage and support teachers and schools in their efforts to make amusement park visits true learning experiences for their students

Practitioner Inquiry Communities: Re-Mediating Language Ideologies

*English Learners in secondary school settings often face discrepancies in opportunities and outcomes. Methods to address these discrepancies are grounded in an instrumental approach to instruction, wherein educational practitioners are understood to require methodological intervention in the form of professional development by a more experienced expert. However, repositioning practitioners as knowledge generators who understand their contexts as potential sites of inquiry is seen as a more humanizing and democratic approach to professional learning. This qualitative Practitioner Inquiry study explored the language ideologies articulated and embodied within the context of a Practitioner Inquiry Community by practitioners supporting *English Learners at a Northern California high school. It also sought to understand how participation in a Practitioner Inquiry Community mediates language ideologies. This study utilized Cultural-historical activity theory, critical post-structural sociolinguistics, ideology-in-pieces, and inquiry as stance as frameworks for analyzing data. Findings demonstrated that practitioners draw on language ideologies across a continuum ranging from more hegemonic to more counterhegemonic throughout their participation in an inquiry community. This study concludes that participation in a practitioner inquiry can mediate language ideologies and conceptualizations of support for *English Learners

Social and cultural relevance of aspects of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), meteorological literacy and meteorological science conceptions

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis research study examines those aspects of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) that could be socially and culturally relevant in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, for teaching meteorological science concepts in a grade 9 Social Science (Geography) classroom using dialogical argumentation as an instructional model (DAIM). The literature reviewed in this study explains the use of argumentation as an instructional method of classroom teaching in particular dialogical argumentation, combined with IKS (Indigenous Knowledge Systems), which in this study is seen as a powerful tool both in enhancing learners’ views and positively identifying indigenous knowledge systems within their own cultures and communities, and as tool that facilitates the learning of (meteorological) literacy and science concepts. With the development of the New Curriculum Statements (NCS) and the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) for schools, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) of South Africa acknowledges a strong drive towards recognising and affirming the critical role of IK, especially with respect to science and technology education. The policy suggests that the Department of Education take steps to begin the phased integration of IK into curricula and relevant accreditation frameworks. Using a quasi-experimental research design model, the study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods (mixed-methods) to collect data in two public secondary schools in Cape Town, in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. A survey questionnaire on attitudes towards, and perceptions of high school, of a group of grade 9 learners, as well as their conceptions of weather, was administered before the main study to give the researcher baseline information and to develop pilot instruments to use in the main study. An experimental group (E-group) of learners were exposed to an intervention - the results were recorded against a control group (C-group) that were exposed to no intervention. Both the E-group and C-group were exposed to a Meteorological Literacy Test (MLT) evaluation before and after the DAIM intervention. The results from the two groups were then compared and analysed according to the two theoretical frameworks underpinning the study, namely, Toulmin’s Argumentation Pattern - TAP (Toulmin, 1958) and Contiguity Argumentation Theory - CAT (Ogunniyi, 1997). The findings of this study revealed that: Firstly, the socio-cultural background of learners has an influence on their conceptions of weather prediction and there was a significant difference between boy’s and girls’ pre-test conceptions about the existence of indigenous knowledge systems within the community they live in. For instance, from the learners’ excerpts, it emerged that the girls presented predominantly rural experiences as opposed to those of the boys which were predominantly from urban settings. Secondly, those E-group learners exposed to the DAIM intervention shifted from being predominantly equipollent to the school science to emergent stances and they found a way of connecting their IK to the school science. The DAIM model which allowed argumentation to occur amongst learners seemed to have enhanced their understanding of the relevance of IK and how its underlying scientific claims relate to that of school science. Thirdly, the argumentation-based instructional model was found to be effective to a certain extent in equipping the in-service teachers with the necessary argumentation skills that could enable them to take part in a meaningful discourse. The study drew on the personal experiences and encounters from a variety of sources. These included storytelling-and sharing, academic talks with local community members recorded during the research journey, formal round table discussion and talks at international and local conferences, conference presentations, informal interviews, indigenous chats at social event-meetings, and shared experiences at IKS training workshops as a facilitator. These encounters lead to the formulation of the research study and occurred throughout the country in various parts of the Southern African continent including: Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Tanzania and Mozambique

The effect of simulated clinical experience on knowledge, near transfer, and far transfer in nursing education

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Role of an artefact of Dynamic algebra in the conceptualisation of the algebraic equality

In this contribution, we explore the impact of Alnuset, an artefact of dynamic algebra, on the conceptualisation of algebraic equality. Many research works report about obstacles to conceptualise this notion due to interference of the previous arithmetic knowledge. New meanings need to be assigned to the equal sign and to letters used in algebraic expressions. Based on the hypothesis that Alnuset can be effectively used to mediate the conceptual development necessary to master the algebraic equality notion, two experiments have been designed and implemented in Italy and in France. They are reported in the second part of this pape