Creative literacy: A new space of pedagogical understanding

This research has begun to examine how teachers in Maine meaningfully infuse art and Native American epistemologies through visual arts and writing across curricula to enhance student learning and engagement. Teachers explored a perceived new space of pedagogical possibility within visual arts and American Indian curricula as crossdisciplinary models through a project entitled Many Hands. This new space was largely facilitated by the act of writing, once it was realized that writing deepens and enhances the practice of noticing and describing, both in the visual arts and in culture-based curricula. Just as visual art posits that art making can promote critical thinking in all subject areas and encourage intellectual curiosity, the inclusion of writing in art and academic classrooms similarly promotes exploration and risk-taking, as well as the appreciation of multiple perspectives

Preservice teacher learning in an urban school-university partnership: Understanding the complexity of urban teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teacher learning in an integrated course and field experience in an urban school-university partnership. Study participants included two cohorts of preservice teachers at a large, northeastern research university who were completing a semester-long experience of site-based coursework and fieldwork at an urban high school. Analysis of multiple data sources suggests that participants changed their unidimensional, deficit view of urban teaching evident at the beginning of the experience and learned about the complexity of urban teaching, including the various elements that distinguish urban teaching from teaching in other contexts

Urban teacher education in partnership: An inquiry stance sustains collaboration

The relationship between Brighton High School (BHS) and Boston College (BC) spans several decades. Professors from multiple departments at the university--not only teacher educators but professors of psychology, measurement, and arts and sciences--have walked, as regular parts of the school community, the halls of the gothic-style high school building on a side street in Boston\u27s Brighton neighborhood. As school teachers and administrators have cycled through their careers at BHS, so too have BC professors; yet, the school-university partnership remains solid through changes in personnel, politics, and policies. As those who are deeply committed to the promises and potentials of collaborative work between schools and universities are acutely aware, these collaborations are successful for the long-term only when they do not rely on particular people to continue operating but when they are founded on solid, shared, theoretical commitments. The theoretical commitment that has driven the simultaneous renewal of BHS and BC is that of inquiry as stance. Inquiry as stance necessitates that educators approach dilemmas of practice as problem posers who have the knowledge, skills, dispositions to resolve dilemmas in contextually appropriate ways

The Learning and Practice of Preservice Teachers in an Urban School-University Partnership: The Struggle to Enact Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

This paper reports on an interpretive, collective case study that examined preservice teacher learning and practice in an urban school-university partnership. Multiple data sources were collected from 55 predominantly White middle-class preservice teachers at a predominantly Black and Latino high school, including pre- and post-surveys, coursework, lesson observations, interviews, and artifacts. Findings suggest participants clearly articulated their learning about culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), but they struggled to apply their learning in practice. This study confirms that important preservice teacher learning can take place in urban school-university partnerships, especially if the teacher education experiences make explicit applicable theories such as CR