Enhancing Teacher Awareness and Professionalism through Prolonged Critical Reflection: Influences of Socializing Forces on Educational Beliefs and Practice

A graduate course in curriculum and instruction was utilized as an intervention to enhance teacher awareness about their teaching practice. The researchers employed a purposeful and prolonged critical reflection approach for graduate students, who are also teachers, over a 15-week period. The teachers juxtaposed their prior experiences against a frame of educational philosophies. The researchers found that prolonged critical reflection about educational philosophies and associated approaches increased teacher ability to discern and disentangle their teaching dispositions from their teaching practices and articulate these distinctions. Additional significant outcomes included teachers questioning of socializing forces that influence their instruction, prompting action and agency. Similarly, teachers commented about gaining increased open-mindedness and a willingness to transform schools. Triangulation of data corpuses that included journal reflections/blogs, field notes, and assignments revealed four salient phases associated with their enhanced awareness and transformation: (1) Uncertainty, (2) Development and Growth, (3) Realization and Agency, and (4) Self-Characterization associated with this critical reflection process

Middle school student-led language practice in an alternative dual language environment

The following case study provides answers to two questions, How do English Learners and Spanish Learners negotiate meaning in an alternative dual language environment? (Who are they? What do they do and how do they interact together?) and How do English Learners and Spanish Learners perceive the dual language program and working together with peers? (How do they perceive their peer interaction and the challenges, frustrations, and rewards they may have encountered?) This study focuses on the language interaction of three dyads of English Learners and Spanish Learners from a rural middle school in Northern California who met once a week to participate in an alternative dual language program. Methodically triangulating data from student journals, interviews, and taped interactions and analysis, three stages emerged during the alternative dual language program: (1) Language Apprehension, (2) Language Initiation, and (3) Language Acquisition. Within these stages, a number of corresponding themes unfolded from the analysis of journal entries, interviews, taped interactions, and field notes. These themes include Confidence, Language Practice, Frustrations and Misunderstandings, Strategies, and Perceived Language Acquisition. The stages and themes from triangulated data reveal examples of how three different dyads of students negotiate meaning in similar yet different respects depending on their personality, willingness to learn, confidence level, and the strategies they use to move language forward. The study also reveals how the alternative dual language program being studied provided newcomers a chance to associate with mainstream students on a school campus and to engage in authentic language communication and/or language practice; the importance of assigning students to intact pairs (dyads) allowing students to affectively build trust, increase confidence, and perceive language acquisition through social cognition; how an alternative dual language program can be implemented in middle or high school campuses that have a plethora of second language learners; and, how such language interaction can foster cross-cultural and multicultural education

Middle school student-led language practice in an alternative dual language environment

The following case study provides answers to two questions, How do English Learners and Spanish Learners negotiate meaning in an alternative dual language environment? (Who are they? What do they do and how do they interact together?) and How do English Learners and Spanish Learners perceive the dual language program and working together with peers? (How do they perceive their peer interaction and the challenges, frustrations, and rewards they may have encountered?) This study focuses on the language interaction of three dyads of English Learners and Spanish Learners from a rural middle school in Northern California who met once a week to participate in an alternative dual language program. Methodically triangulating data from student journals, interviews, and taped interactions and analysis, three stages emerged during the alternative dual language program: (1) Language Apprehension, (2) Language Initiation, and (3) Language Acquisition. Within these stages, a number of corresponding themes unfolded from the analysis of journal entries, interviews, taped interactions, and field notes. These themes include Confidence, Language Practice, Frustrations and Misunderstandings, Strategies, and Perceived Language Acquisition. The stages and themes from triangulated data reveal examples of how three different dyads of students negotiate meaning in similar yet different respects depending on their personality, willingness to learn, confidence level, and the strategies they use to move language forward. The study also reveals how the alternative dual language program being studied provided newcomers a chance to associate with mainstream students on a school campus and to engage in authentic language communication and/or language practice; the importance of assigning students to intact pairs (dyads) allowing students to affectively build trust, increase confidence, and perceive language acquisition through social cognition; how an alternative dual language program can be implemented in middle or high school campuses that have a plethora of second language learners; and, how such language interaction can foster cross-cultural and multicultural education

Handbook of Research on Foreign Language Education in the Digital Age

The role of technology in the learning process can offer significant contributions to help meet the increasing needs of students. In the field of language acquisition, new possibilities for instructional methods have emerged from the integration of such innovations. The Handbook of Research on Foreign Language Education in the Digital Age presents a comprehensive examination of emerging technological tools being utilized within second language learning environments. Highlighting theoretical frameworks, multidisciplinary perspectives, and technical trends, this book is a crucial reference source for professionals, curriculum designers, researchers, and upper-level students interested in the benefits of technology-assisted language acquisition. -- Provided by Amazon.comhttps://scholarworks.uni.edu/facbook/1389/thumbnail.jp

Occurrence and success of greater sage-grouse broods in relation to insect-vegetation community gradients

A community-level approach to identify important brood habitats of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) may prove useful in guiding management actions because it acknowledges that important habitat components are not ecologically independent from each other. We used principal components analysis to combine insect and vegetation variables into community gradients and used logistic regression to link these components with brood survival and occurrence. We found that brood success was higher when broods occurred in specific insect-vegetation community types. A relationship between brood occurrence and insect-vegetation gradients was not apparent. The high resolution of the data and the solid validation performance suggest that identifying insect-vegetation communities is a promising technique for quantifying sage-grouse habitat relationships. This approach offers land managers a way of identifying important sage-grouse habitat that is ecologically aligned with traditional community-level land management practices (e.g., fire management, rotational grazing, vegetation manipulation, etc.)