Nurturing Joy and Belonging: Practices for Rehumanizing Professional Learning

In this article the authors describe a professional learning initiative focused on joyful teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and the techniques that were used to foster a culture of belonging. The authors utilize an integrative framework for understanding, cultivating, and assessing belongingness to suggest implications for school-university partnerships. Finally, the authors pose questions for school-university partnerships to reflect upon to build an intersectional approach to professional learning in a post-pandemic educational landscape

Faculty Peer Coaching: Collaborative Partnerships for Instructional Development

Teaching in higher education can be a lonely endeavor. Oftentimes, professors find themselves alone trying to work out solutions to emerging issues of student engagement or academic struggles. As colleagues, Kristin and David came together to talk about the ways in which our experiences in leadership, coaching, and instructional design and effective teaching could support our colleagues in their development as instructors. What if we designed an opportunity and invited faculty to participate in a peer coaching community? We could provide the group with professional development about teaching and coaching, as well as space, partners and a learning community for debriefing and ongoing support. Who knew that four years ago, this small idea would turn into a university-wide initiative with 42 continuously engaged faculty participants and a growing waiting list? In this article, we walk readers through the intentional design of our faculty designed peer-coaching initiative at Sacred Heart University and share emerging findings about the impact of this initiative

Collaboration, Learning, and Leading: The Power of Field Based Literacy Methods Course in a Professional Development School. In J. Ferrara, J. Nath, I. Guadarrama, & R. Beebe (Eds.), (pp. 199-215), Expanding Opportunities for Linking Research and Clinical Practice

This chapter includes a descriptive qualitative case study of the collaboration and learning that took place during a field-based literacy methods course at a professional development school (PDS). This collaborative, generative experience allowed each of the participants to be a learner, a leader, and a collaborator--with student learning at the core of every conversation and decision

Researching and Reshaping Literacy Learning: Three Urban K-6 Teachers’ Ongoing Transformations through Everyday Action Research

Given the vast range of diversity among children’s backgrounds and needs, literacy educators must consider multiple ways in which children learn and interact with texts. Moreover, policies that increasingly require frequent assessments of children’s literacy achievement place pressure on educators to find immediate ways to impact children’s learning. This qualitative inquiry explores three graduate students’ yearlong engagement in literacy-related action research within ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, urban K-6 classrooms. Grounded in a social practice perspective on literacy and a sociocultural perspective on literacy learning, we examined participants’ constructions of action research as they developed research questions, entered various research sites, and engaged in a cyclical process of research-reflection-action in order to impact student learning in those classroom communities. With these case studies, we argue that for teachers to fully embrace and incorporate action research into their practice, they need to go beyond completing the steps to frame action research as a constant way of thinking, a daily practice, and an ongoing process of continuously spiraling mini-cycles that change instruction in incremental, yet ultimately powerful ways

Reframing How We Think About Learning: A Four-source Model

Cultivating a Culture of Learning: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy, and Research in Education illustrates portraits of practice from a variety of teacher education programs, bringing together a rich collection of voices from diverse settings. Authors share their first-hand experience of cultivating a culture of learning as teacher educators and employing contemplative practices in their work with educators. Contemplative practices, pedagogy, and research are analyzed as essential components of cultivating cultures of learning in classrooms. Several chapters offer innovative models, pedagogy, and courses utilizing contemplative practices. The authors in this book advocate and express the importance of creating spaces where the inner life and qualities such as intuition, creativity, silence, and heart-centered learning are valued and work in partnership with cognitive and rational ways of knowing and being in the world. Authors explore challenges faced institutionally, with students, and personally. The insights and challenges shared in these portraits of practice are intended to stimulate conversation and engender future pedagogy and research in the field of contemplative education

Joyful Leadership in Practice

Four steps leaders can take to become positive mentors and enact a happy and productive school culture. Research shows that our happiness as human beings leads to greater success and higher achievement (Lyumbomirsky, King, & Diner, 2005). When school leaders understand that fact and embrace it, their schools often exude positive energy. They are the kinds of schools where bold artwork lines the hallways. Where students browse the library books that are current Caldecott Award contenders, trying to decide for which picture book they should cast their vote. Where teachers know the value of making mistakes and learning from them. Where, just maybe, on a Friday morning, you might hear the guidance counselor over the loudspeaker encourage everyone—even the family members who\u27ve come to volunteer—to have a quick dance party to Pharell Williams\u27s Happy

Partnering for Change: Intentional Collaboration in a Field-based Course to Meet Rising Challenges

This chapter investigates a collaboratively planned undergraduate field-based course on language, literacy and culture. Forty-two teacher candidates were enrolled in the course and engaged in classrooms and the community of an urban elementary school. During this time, candidates began to connect theory to practice and challenge their own assumptions of children and families in urban communities. The course was an opportunity to begin to meet challenges defined by both partners through the course design that was mutually beneficial for all involved, including the children in the classrooms

Faculty Peer Coaching in Higher Education: Partnerships to Support Improved Instructional Practices

Informed by research and experience, this book is a guide to developing, launching, and refining faculty peer coaching initiatives in higher education with the goal of improving instructional practice and student learning outcomes. Peer coaching is a collaborative, reciprocal practice where faculty members observe, reflect, and improve their instructional practices leading to increased learning for all students. Research has shown that peer coaching can positively impact teaching practices, especially when coupled with other professional learning. This book provides a rationale for peer coaching as an effective strategy for faculty development, outlines a model for peer coaching, and supplies readers with support in the creation of a robust peer coaching initiative in institutions of higher education. Peer coaching has the potential for significant culture and community change for faculty members which can lead to improved student learning

A Place for Wonder: School Gardens as Sites Ripe for Learning

The excitement and joy of this moment are contagious and are a regular part of learning in school and community gardens throughout Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 2016, Sacred Heart University partnered with Green Village Initiative to harness the power of school gardens to serve area children and communities—not only by providing fresh food, but also by creating learning spaces filled with wonder and discovery. Together, the two entities coauthor grants, create lesson plans, and provide supports to local educators who are using school gardens to enhance the learning and lives of their students and families. The Green Village Initiative oversees 25 school gardens, 12 community gardens, and one community farm. It serves more than 20,000 children, about 5,000 of whom are between the ages of 3 and 7