Dancing literacy: Expanding children’s and teachers’ literacy repertoires through embodied knowing

This paper explores dance as literacy. Specifically, it examines qualitative case study research findings and student examples from a dance artist-in-residence that explored curricular content using dance as its primary mode of inquiry and expression. Throughout the residency, students constructed meaning through their dance experiences in dynamic and autonomous ways, exhibiting complex literacy practices of inquiry and communication. Focusing on the kindergarten student participants’ experiences, the authors highlight three themes in their dance literacy practices: (a) artistic autonomy, (b) embodied knowledge, and (c) multimodality. As embodied knowledge, dance innately allowed for integrative literacy possibilities in the dance residency. The dance experiences observed and referenced in this research illustrate the complexities of dance as literacy, as both a unique literacy and in meaning-making across literacies. Drawing on the findings of this study, the authors seek to inspire teachers to foster similar experiences to develop transformative literacy practices individually in their classrooms and collaboratively in their schools

Lessons Learned: Collaborative Symbiosis and Responsive Disciplinary Literacy Teaching

This paper describes a case study of how a middle school literacy coach and a science teacher attempted to improve disciplinary literacy teaching in a sixth-grade science class. The collaborative inquiry exposed the disciplinary knowledge gap of the literacy coach (a former language arts teacher) and the science teacher\u27s limited knowledge of literacy instruction. These shared disciplinary knowledge gaps necessitated the co-construction of collaborative practices to ameliorate the tension and improve disciplinary literacy instruction. Through a recognition of individual knowledge and the use of responsive disciplinary teaching, the participants created collaborative symbiosis. To improve disciplinary literacy teaching, schools should recognize teacher disciplinary knowledge and expand participation in discipline-specific collaborative inquiry

Analyzing a teacher and researcher co-design partnership through the lens of communities of practice

Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) bridge the gap between schools and universities. However, few have embraced the co-design process through a communities of practice lens and investigated how knowledge is co-constructed and negotiated. This mixed-method study explored how elementary school teachers co-construct knowledge with researchers to understand better how a community of practice can be cultivated during a co-design RPP. Findings from a survey, journal entries, observational field notes, and focus groups suggest teachers co-constructed knowledge while acknowledging and mitigating conflicts. Based on these findings, we offer ways to seed and cultivate communities of practice among teachers and researchers for co-designing educational innovations

Bop or Flop?: Integrating Music and Data Science in an Elementary Classroom

The importance of data literacies and the shortage of research surrounding data science in elementary schools motivated this research-practice partnership (RPP) between researchers and teachers from a STEM elementary school. We used a narrative case study methodology to describe the instructional practices of one music teacher who co-designed a data science curricular unit during a summer professional development program and implemented it in her 5th-grade music classroom. Data collected for this study include in-person and video observations, reflective journals, artifacts, and interviews. Findings suggest that this teacher integrated data science literacies into her classroom by supporting multiple avenues for data storytelling and relying on learners’ everyday discourse and experiences. Our study details a practical example of implementing data science with non-STEM domains in elementary classrooms

Additional file 1: of Co-Measure: developing an assessment for student collaboration in STEAM activities

Co-Measure Rubric Before Expert Panel Validation. (PDF 399 kb

Additional file 2: of Co-Measure: developing an assessment for student collaboration in STEAM activities

Co-Measure Rubric After Expert Panel Validation. (PDF 252 kb

Exploring Elementary Teachers’ Perceptions of Data Science and Curriculum Co-Design through Professional Development

Data science and computational thinking (CT) skills are important STEM literacies necessary to make informed daily decisions. In elementary schools, particularly in rural areas, there is little instruction and limited research towards understanding and developing these literacies. Using a Research-Practice Partnership model (RPP; Coburn & Penuel, 2016) we conducted multimethod research investigating nine elementary teachers’ perceptions of data science and related curriculum design during professional development (PD). Connected Learning theory, enhanced with Universal Design for Learning, guided ways we assisted teachers in designing the data science curriculum. Findings suggest teachers maintained high levels of interest in data science instruction and CT before and after the PD and increased their self-efficacy towards teaching data science. A thematic analysis revealed how a data science framework guided curriculum design and assisted teachers in defining, understanding, and co-creating the curriculum. During curriculum design, teachers shared the workload among partners, made collaborative design choices, integrated differentiation strategies, and felt confidence towards teaching data science. Identified challenges included locating data sets and the complexity of understanding data science and related software. This study addresses the research gap in data science education for elementary teachers and assists with successful strategies for data science PD and curricular design