Learning to Facilitate Highly Interactive Literary Discussions to Engage Students as Thinkers

Helping novices learn to facilitate interactive whole-class discussions is an important “high-leverage practice” for becoming an effective teacher due to its strong potential to increase students’ learning opportunities. A semester-long classroom-based assignment in a senior-level elementary literacy methods course supported preservice teachers in developing the practice of leading one text-based interactive literary discussion, along with learning to establish norms and routines for discussions, and to analyze instruction for the purpose of improving it. Analysis of 83 preservice teachers’ written work investigated their learning during the beginning stages of developing the complex practice of leading discussions. We propose a learning trajectory outlining three areas of development that may offer direction for helping preservice teachers improve in specific areas and provide a focus for future research

A Framework for Analysis of Case Studies of Reading Lessons

This paper focuses on the development and study of a framework to provide direction and guidance for practicing teachers in using a web-based case studies program for professional development in early reading; the program is called Case Studies Reading Lessons (CSRL). The framework directs and guides teachers’ analysis of reading instruction by focusing their attention to three critical dimensions of the process of teaching; in theory, analysis of a wide variety of reading lessons, using this framework, should contribute to teachers’ expertise. We report on a study of the Thinking Questions, which scaffold teachers’ analysis of the reading lessons, to determine the extent to which their responses meet theoretical expectations. Results suggest that teachers’ ratings of lessons tap their overall expertise in analysis of reading instruction, such that the three dimensions and features that represent these do not constitute separate factors. However, performance on the Thinking Questions differentiated more and less experienced teachers. As expected, less experienced teachers wrote longer and more specific comments about the instruction than more experienced teachers, who tended to highlight effective principles. The results suggest that an analytic framework of the kind used in CSRL holds promise as an effective component of a case-based professional development program. However, they also point to the need for further study of the framework and its influence on teachers’ own teaching practices

Making Sense of Classroom Diversity: How can field instruction practices support interns\u27 learning?

Because many American teacher education internships take place in suburban schools that are adjacent to large teacher education programs in need of many practicum placements, it is critical to consider what messages about diverse student populations are perceived in what may appear to be relatively homogeneous contexts. This year-long self-study of field instruction practices, grounded in a sociocultural perspective, investigated how five interns in a suburban school understood diversity, how their conceptions influenced their relationships with students and their curricular and instructional choices, as well as the strategies a field instructor used to support interns\u27 learning to respond to student diversity

Coming to Critical Engagement: An Autoethnographic Exploration

Engagement is the label increasingly embraced by higher education to describe activities associated with serving the public interest. What had been viewed previously as service to, extension of, and outreach from is now engagement with as faculty members, students, and staff collaborate with partners in community affairs. This book describes how members of a faculty learning community have come to understand engagement as both intellectual endeavor and scholarly practice at the interface between academy and citizenry. Coming to Critical Engagement argues that the academy has a moral imperative to participate deliberately and consistently in democratic and systemic discourse with the public

A model of engaged learning : frames of reference and scholarly underpinnings

If the engagement movement is to mature, scholars need to document and share the values, beliefs, and approaches that guide their work. Otherwise, engagement efforts will be buried in unarticulated perspectives and characterized by unexamined practices. The purpose of this article is to make explicit our engagement model. First, we share and discuss what engagement means to us. Then, we share interpretations of the conceptual, philosophical, and normative underpinnings of our work. By sharing our model, we hope to stimulate conversation about the models guiding others’ work. Extended conversation is needed to inform and guide the engagement movement, including the leadership necessary for moving the work forward in institutional settings

Outreach as scholarly expression : a faculty perspective

The outreach and engagement movement of the 1990s has had a demonstrable impact on American higher education. Today, outreach is recognized as a legitimate form of scholarship on many campuses, and numerous colleges and universities are taking actions as “engaged institutions.” In large measure, this progress is testimony to the vision, courage, and tenacity of executive-level academic leaders, including presidents, provosts, and deans. Faculty members play vital roles, too. One of those roles is to deepen our understanding of the work itself—the never-ending quest to comprehend outreach more completely and deeply. The purpose of this essay is to stimulate national dialogue about this domain, which we call outreach as scholarly expression. In this essay we explore several complexities associated with understanding outreach as scholarly expression; interpret contemporary perspectives on scholarship with outreach in mind; and discuss three areas we believe are fundamental to advancing outreach as scholarly expression