Supporting the Literacy Development of Children Living in Homeless Shelters

Insights into how educators can create greater classroom support for homeless children, particularly in literacy learning and development, are provided in this article

Systems Thinking in a Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged to Address a Statewide Drought

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students’ ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in an interdisciplinary project-based curriculum. Through reflection and investigations, students devised solutions and used innovative approaches to publicly engage peers and family members in taking action to address an environmental crisis

The construction of systems thinking pedagogy during a professional development institute

The prevalence of systems thinking pedagogy is growing in classrooms because of its inclusion in the Next Generation Science Standards and its potential as a tool for addressing complex, global problems. While most of the research on systems thinking targets the ways students develop system thinking skills, this qualitative study explores teachers' construction of systems thinking as a pedagogy in a professional development context. With this paradigm-shifting pedagogy, teacher learning in professional development is a critical piece of understanding how the practice is taken up. Using social constructionism, discourse analysis, and systems theory, we conducted a holistic case study to analyze how teachers privileged language and ways of knowing during a professional development institute on systems thinking. We found that the teachers considered systems thinking as a catalyst for shifting their thinking, curriculum, and classroom dynamics; imperative to this shift was the implementation of systems mapping as the central activity of the pedagogy. Their model of systems thinking pedagogy respected both teachers and students as capable academics; additionally, it privileged a professional development culture of “becoming” in which the power of the collective was a point of leverage for teachers to disrupt what can be perceived as low expectations for their students and themselves as professionals

Systems Thinking in a Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged to Address a Statewide Drought

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students' ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in an interdisciplinary project-based curriculum. Through reflection and investigations, students devised solutions and used innovative approaches to publicly engage peers and family members in taking action to address an environmental crisis

Delivery of drugs, proteins and genes into cells using transferrin as a ligand for receptor-mediated endocytosis

Transferrin, an iron-transporting serum glycoprotein, is efficiently taken up into cells by the process of receptor-mediated endocytosis. Transferrin receptors are found on the surface of most proliferating cells, in elevated numbers on erythroblasts and on many kinds of tumors. The efficient cellular mechanism for uptake of transferrin has been subverted for the delivery of low-molecular-weight drugs, protein toxins, and liposomes by linkage of these agents to transferrin or to anti-transferrin receptor antibodies. Linkage may be via chemical conjugation procedures or by the generation of chimeric fusion proteins. Transferrin conjugated to DNA-binding compounds (e.g. polycations or intercalating agents) has been successfully used for the import of DNA molecules into cells. High-level gene expression is obtained only if endosome-disruptive agents such as influenza hemagglutinin peptides or adenovirus particles are included which release the DNA complex from intracellular vesicles into the cytoplasm

Tacit shared understandings of a first-grade writing community

This study examined first graders\u27 tacit shared understandings about composing as related to expectations about the processes and meaning of writing. Data were gathered in one first-grade classroom during the 2 1/2-hour reading/writing block over a 20-week period. The 19 students were ethnically diverse and ranged in SES from low to middle income. Domain, typological, theme, and reconstructive intersubjective analysis were all used in analyzing the following sources of data: field observations gathered by a participant observer; informal talk with students and the teacher; formal interviews with the teacher, students, and parents; and regularly collected samples of the students\u27 writing and drawing. Two levels of student assumptions emerged from the data. The first level addresses the community\u27 assumptions about composing which evolved through daily interactions. Specifically, it was alright to compose in one\u27 own way, but the writer had to be able to interpret it and attending to audience interest is more important than exact decoding. The second level includes the cultural themes regarding the meaning of writing: (a) Illustrations and text reference three different virtual realities that can mediate relations with others, (b) writing is for exploring self and issues, and (c) writing can be an act of unity with others. These assumptions have implications for the research and teaching of writing at all levels. © 1994, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Do what I say, not what I do: An instructor rethinks her own teaching and research

This article focuses on the role of self-reflexivity in challenging traditional academic assumptions about learning, teaching, and appropriate ways for students and teachers to interact. In attempting to implement a critical pedagogy in two undergraduate reading classes for preservice teachers, I ended up reinforcing much of what I had attempted to disrupt. Multiple sources of data inform this descriptive study: students\u27 written assignments, exit cards, two sets of focused class writes, my journal, and my recollections. This article explores the way in which my unacknowledged biases/expectations sabotaged my conscious attempts to change the traditional power structures created in college classrooms. I also aim to further the discussion of unsettling traditional methods of analyses by sharing how I moved through the actual process and fought my own biases about what was valid. Similarly, I seek to show how the process of implementing a critical (liberating?) pedagogy can be as much of an internal struggle for the teacher as one of teacher against the system and/or the students. © 1997 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Published by Blackwell Publishers

“I’ve seen you read”: Reading strategies in a first-grade class

This study reports on first-graders\u27 differentiated values of reading strategies that emerged within a multiethnic urban classroom over the course of 20 weeks. The researcher served as a participant observer during the language arts block four days a week, conducted formal interviews with each child, and met weekly with the teacher. At the end of the study, the findings were shared with the children. They responded in writing, orally in a whole class discussion, and orally in small group meetings with the researcher. The paper focuses on the ways students revealed their assumptions about appropriate reading strategies through both behavior and reflective talk. Tensions that developed during these weeks between strategies that rely on the “pieces” of language, such as phonics, versus those that relied on the “wholes,” like memory, are also addressed. © 1997 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Literacy in Times of Crisis: Practices and Perspectives

On the frontline of critical issues in education today, this volume covers new ground for teachers and teacher educators for whom crisis is a daily part of their work. It explores the relationship between crisis and literacy in order to: • improve educators’ ability to recognize, cope with, and avoid crisis; • advance understanding of the dynamic relationship between crisis and cultural, historical, and political literacy practices; and • contribute to a deeper theoretical understanding of literacy practices as they are situated in social practices. The types of crises addressed are diverse, including natural disaster, cultural and community disjuncture, homelessness, family upheaval, teen pregnancy, and disability. Along with nine empirical studies, a teacher early in her career, a veteran teacher, and a teacher educator share their perspectives in commentary sections at the opening and conclusion of the book in order to provide applications to their specific fields

“Hallelujah! : Bible-Based Literacy Practices of Children Living in a Homeless Shelter

Six-year-old Jonathon wrote this in his journal when his parents were fighting for custody. Antagonistic divorces, especially those played out in the court system can bring about an intense period of crisis for a family. As I was going through a divorce, journaling with my children was a positive experience as I found it to be with other parents dealing with divorce related crises. Yet, I could not find any research on the potential of children composing and divorce