Piloting a Digitized Evidence-Based Assessment System

One of the most difficult challenges facing university-based teacher education programs is to document program effectiveness. Demands for supporting data come from a number of different constituencies including state legislators, hiring officials and parents, and state officials. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) survey (Wineburg, 2006) identified that institutions are besieged by the demands for data and frustrated by the time and energy required to collect and retrieve evidence. A primary recommendation emerging from the AASCU findings focused on the proactive development of institutional data systems that guide program progress and demonstrate the achievement of educational outcomes for both teacher quality and student learning. The purpose of our paper is to report on the development of a pilot effort in Pennsylvania to digitize practice-based evidence for documenting teacher candidate and program quality. [excerpt

Bridging the Gap: 21st Century Media Meets Theoretical Pedagogical Literacy Practices

In this chapter, the researchers used an ethnographic stance to demonstrate how conversation evolved within a social media platform. They investigated the online discussions and face-to-face dialogues between teacher educators and pre-service teachers. They compared the participants’ reciprocal conversations within this case study to analyze patterns in the language used in each forum in order to identify the affordances and constraints of perceived understanding. Through this discourse analysis the authors sought to identify indicators of each participant’s metacognitive development while engaging in an online book discussion through a social media platform. Data analysis indicated that there was metacognitive growth when comparing the initial reciprocal conversations with the final conversations

Making the Invisible, Visible: RtI and Reading Comprehension

For the better part of a century the educational community has had increased focus on the importance of reading. The publication of Why Johnny Can\u27t Read and What You Can Do About It (Flesch, 1955) began the surge of effort to better understand the cognitive process of reading to further examine how educators can help children become better readers. Since this 1950\u27s publication, reading research grew and philosophies developed and subsequently changed. However, one thing remained the same: understanding what we read is critically important to becoming a critical thinker. Thus, reading comprehension research continued to boom and the educational community continues to seek ways in which reading comprehension instruction can be improved. (excerpt

A Multiple Measures Model for Documenting Teacher and Program Effectiveness

One of the most difficult challenges facing teacher educators is evaluating the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary for professional growth and responsibility for teaching. Currently two viewpoints for preparing highly qualified teachers seem to be influencing policy. One view represented by Darling-Hammond’s research (1999), suggests that regulation of teacher education, state licensing, professional accountability, and compensation are important factors for strengthening teacher quality. A second view, offered by Chester Finn from research completed by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (cited in Berry, Hoke, and Hirsch, 2004), emphasizes less prescriptive paths such as alternative certification practices and aptitude testing to attract more qualified candidates to the profession. What seems to be established is that competent teachers are essential to the learning process. Sanders and Rivers (1998) found that effective teachers directly and positively impact the quality of teaching and, more importantly, student learning in classrooms. As a result, the stakes are high for students; their learning may be directly enhanced or damaged by the quality and effectiveness of their teachers’ practices. [excerpt

Comprehension Strategies for Your K-6 Literacy Classroom: Thinking Before, During, and After Reading

Teaching comprehension and insuring that students think about what they read can be a challenging task for educators. In reader-friendly terms, Comprehension Strategies for Your K–6 Literacy Classroom illustrates how teachers can effectively use six critical comprehension strategies to enhance student understanding: activating schema, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining important ideas, and synthesizing. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1010/thumbnail.jp

The Professional Learning Motivation Profile (PLMP): A Tool for Assessing Instructional Motivation

This article chronicles the collaboration of administrators from six districts and three college professors as they assessed professional learning during the first year of teaching. The examination led to the development of a Professional Learning Motivation Profile. Results from the profile indicated a traditional model of professional development was not effective in growing the professional learning motivation of beginning teachers. Anecdotal data shared includes how administrators used the data to inform conversations designed to support teachers in their journey toward courageous, effective instruction

Revisiting On-Line Discussion as Practice for Reflective Thinking in Three Sequential Classes

In a previous study, the authors questioned the potential of an on-line environment for increasing productive reflection in three sequential education classes. Of their findings, the issue of consistency stood out as particularly perplexing, namely, why did students exhibit high level reflections sometimes, but not all the time, in an on-line environment? In this follow-up study, the authors question whether in-class reflections coupled with on-line prompts could yield consistently high level pre-service teacher reflections, as measured by individual and class progress over time. This study also examines perceived relationships between the length of a student\u27s reflection and its productivity, as well as a student\u27s depth of focus and productivity. Using the same scoring approach as our previous study, our discussion of the results examines the usefulness of on-line environments for promoting consistently high level pre-service teacher reflection

Language of Harry\u27s Wizards: Authentic Vocabulary Instruction

This study was the result of a year long action research project within a middle school language arts classroom. The students showed improvement in their vocabulary skills due to this instruction using Harry Potter as a context

Using Technology to Develop Preservice Teachers\u27 Reflective Thinking

Developing high-level reflection skills proves troublesome for some preservice teachers. To examine the potential of an online environment for increasing productive reflection, students in three sequential undergraduate education classes responded to regular online prompts. We coded student comments for productive and unproductive reflection, knowledge integration, and analysis of the four aspects of teaching (learners and learning, subject matter knowledge, assessment and instruction ) as described by Davis, Bain, & Harrington (2001). We adapted a scoring approach recommended by Davis & Linn, (2000); Davis (2003) to analyze what aspects of teaching preservice teachers included, emphasized, and integrated when they reflected on their own beliefs about teaching. Discussion examines the utility of online environments for producing productive preservice teacher reflection

A Reading Apprenticeship Model for Improving Literacy: A Pre-service Teacher Case Study

A major challenge of today\u27s standards-based assessment movement targets the need to address and improve the achievement of struggling readers. As teacher education programs must prepare content teachers to address the challenges of teaching students who lack reading skills, we need to prepare out pre-service teachers to help students make meaning while reading any text. To accomplish such a goal, comprehension instruction must be explicit, direct, and effective. As VanDeWeghe (2004b) notes, even though students may still need development as readers at the secondary level, there may be confusion surrounding where reading instruction is addressed in the secondary curriculum. After talking with our cooperating teachers and tracking student teaching performances of our secondary English candidates, we believed that our pre-service teachers needed more effective preparation. To present important content conceptualizations, we realized our pre-service teachers must explicitly teach and use comprehension strategies with multiple texts at varying levels of difficulty. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the pilot of Gettysburg College\u27s redesign and implementation of a reading apprenticeship model developed in collaboration with two practicing secondary English teachers. After field testing at the secondary level, the model was transported to the college level for preparing secondary English pre-service teachers. [excerpt