Showing papers in "Teachers College Record in 2002"

Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking

Abstract: Thinking, particularly reflective thinking or inquiry, is essential to both teachers’ and students’ learning. In the past 10 to 15 years numerous commissions, boards, and foundations as well as states and local school districts have identified reflection0 inquiry as a standard toward which all teachers and students must strive. However, although the cry for accomplishment in systematic, reflective thinking is clear, it is more difficult to distinguish what systematic, reflective thinking is. There are four problems associated with this lack of definition that make achievement of such a standard difficult. First, it is unclear how systematic reflection is different from other types of thought. Second, it is difficult to assess a skill that is vaguely defined. Third, without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it has lost its ability to be seen and therefore has begun to lose its value. And finally, without a clear definition, it is difficult to research the effects of reflective teacher education and professional development on teachers’ practice and students’ learning. It is the purpose of this article to restore some clarity to the concept of reflection and what it means to think, by going back to the roots of reflection in the work of John Dewey. I look at four distinct criteria that characterize Dewey’s view and offer the criteria as a starting place for talking about reflection, so that it might be taught, learned, assessed, discussed, and researched, and thereby evolve in definition and practice, rather than disappear.

Conditions for Classroom Technology Innovations

Abstract: This article reports on a study of the complex and messy process of classroom technology integration. The main purpose of the study was to empirically address the large question of “why don’t teachers innovate when they are given computers?” rather than whether computers can improve student learning. Specifically, we were interested in understanding the conditions under which technology innovation can take place in classrooms. For a year, we followed a group of K–12 teachers who attempted to carry out technology-rich projects in their classrooms. These teachers were selected from more than 100 recipients of a technology grant program for teachers. The study found 11 salient factors that significantly impact the degree of success of classroom technology innovations. Some of these factors have been commonly mentioned in the literature, but our study found new dimensions to them. Others have not been identified in the literature. Each factor can be placed in one of three interactive domains, the teacher, the innovation, and the context. The article discusses the 11 factors in detail and proposes a model of the relationship among the different factors and their domains.

What large-scale survey research tells us about teacher effects on student achievement: insights from the prospects study of elementary schools

Abstract: This report is about conceptual and methodological issues that arise when educational researchers use data from large-scale, survey research studies to investigate teacher effects on student achievement. In the report, we illustrate these issues by reporting on a series of analyses we conducted using data from Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of Educational Opportunity. This large-scale, survey research effort gathered a rich store of data on instructional processes and student achievement in a large sample of U.S. elementary schools during the early 1990s as part of the federal government's evaluation of the Title I program. We use data from Prospects to estimate the "overall" size of teacher effects on student achievement and to test some specific hypotheses about why such effects occur. On the basis of these analyses, we draw some substantive conclusions about the magnitude and sources of teacher effects on student achievement and suggest some ways that survey-based research on teaching can be improved. Disciplines Curriculum and Instruction | Educational Administration and Supervision | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Education Policy Comments View on the CPRE website. This report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_researchreports/31 What Large-Scale, Survey Research Tells Us About Teacher Effects On Student Achievement: Insights from the Prospects Study of Elementary Schools Brian Rowan, Richard Correnti, and Robert J. Miller CPRE Research Report Series RR-051

Conflict Amid Community: The Micropolitics of Teacher Collaboration

Abstract: A major reform surge that began in the mid-1980s has generated a renewed interest in fostering teacher community or collaboration as a means to counter isolation, improve teacher practice and student learning, build a common vision for schooling, and foster collective action around school reform. The term community often conjures images of a culture of consensus, shared values, and social cohesion. Yet, in practice, when teachers collaborate, they run headlong into enormous conflicts over professional beliefs and practices. In their optimism about caring and supportive communities, advocates often underplay the role of diversity, dissent, and disagreement in community life, leaving practitioners ill-prepared and conceptions of collaboration underexplored. This article draws on micropolitical and organizational theory to examine teacher communities. Building from case studies of two urban, public middle schools, this article shows that when teachers enact collaborative reforms in the name of community, what emerges is often conflict. The study challenges current thinking on community by showing that conflict is not only central to community, but how teachers manage conflicts, whether they suppress or embrace their differences, defines the community borders and ultimately the potential for organizational learning and change.

Developing Communities of Instructional Practice

Abstract: Many reforms today—including the small schools movement, efforts to build small learning communities, and teacher teaming structures—are based on the theory that organizing schools into smaller educational environments will help to build more collaborative and collegial communities of teachers, providing them with the autonomy and motivation to make better curricular and pedagogical decisions in the interests of their students and therefore improving student learning. Using multiple sources of data from a 4-year evaluation of a team-based schooling initiative in a medium-sized urban district, this study tests many of the assumptions underlying this theory. The results suggest that although these types of organizational reforms may succeed in improving the culture within which teachers teach, they alone are unlikely to improve instruction and student learning. The communities that develop are often not communities engaged in instructional improvement. For teacher communities to focus on instructional improvement, the author argues that communities need organizational structures, cultures of instructional exploration, and ongoing professional learning opportunities to support sustained inquiries into improving teaching and learning.

"Lost at Sea": New Teachers' Experiences with Curriculum and Assessment.

Abstract: ed by Benjamin Dotger Results of this study were published in Teacher College Record, 104, 273-300.

Is There A Place for Me? Role Models and Academic Identity among White Students and Students of Color

Abstract: Role models have long been thought to play an important role in young peoples’ development. The present study explores the ways that race- and gender-matched role models can provide young people with a greater sense of the opportunities available to them in the world. A longitudinal study of young adolescents ( N 5 80) revealed that students who reported having at least one race- and gender-matched role model at the beginning of the study performed better academically up to 24 months later, reported more achievement-oriented goals, enjoyed achievement-relevant activities to a greater degree, thought more about their futures, and looked up to adults rather than peers more often than did students without a race- and gender-matched role model. These effects held only for race- and gender-matched role models—not for non-matched role models. Finally, the results held irrespective of the educational achievements of the specific role model. Data are discussed in terms of their implications for our understanding of the ways that young people become invested in academic pursuits and the means by which we might be able to assist goal development among young people.

A Different Kind of Child Development Institution: The History of After-School Programs for Low-Income Children.

Abstract: Over the past decade politicians and policy makers, the media, child development professionals, and parents have focused increasing attention on the after-school hours of children aged 6 to 14, coming to view this daily time period as one of unusual “risk and opportunity” (Hofferth 1995). Attention to the after-school hours has led in turn to renewed interest in a longstanding child development institution, afterschool programs, particularly those serving lowand moderate-income children. This article examines the historical development of after-school programs serving lowincome children, including objectives and practices in each era, formative influences, implementation challenges, and role in children’s lives. In a final section. the author discusses the current pressures facing the after-school field and suggests an appropriate set of purposes and expectations for the coming years.

Assessment as Inquiry.

Abstract: For more than 10 years now, arguments have been constructed regarding the need for new forms of educational assessment, and for a paradigm shift with a focus on supporting learning rather than on sorting and selecting students. The call for change in assessment follows an almost unanimous recognition of the limitations of current measurement theory and practice. The conceptions of learning represented by theories of learning and cognition appear strikingly different from those implied in current educational assessment and measurement practices. Indeed, most educational measurement specialists are still working from century-old understandings and behaviorist perspectives. Although the call for change is clear, the proposals and recommendations being put forward have limitations of their own and are unlikely to yield the kinds of fundamental changes envisioned by researchers. These limitations lie either in the focus of the work, in the lack of a clear articulation of the theories and concepts, in the nature of the assumptions made about learning (many of which remain implicit and unchanged), in the exclusion of certain conceptions of learning, or in some combination of these problems. This article explores the possibility of using inquiry as a way to understand, and hence to assess, learning. After an initial review of the assessment literature in which the need for change has been asserted and analysis of the theoretical and epistemological foundations that seem to undergird these writings, the focus shifts to the meaning of learning, knowing, and teaching implied in this literature and to the limitations of its recommendations. Later sections consider notions of learning that seem to be excluded from current assessment practices and begin to uncover similarities between learning, knowing, and inquiring that could make inquiry an appropriate metaphor for what we currently know as educational assessment. Finally, there is discussion of important issues that would need to be considered in an inquiry framework for assessment.

The Hunt for Disability: The New Eugenics and the Normalization of School Children

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to reconsider issues of sameness, difference, equality, and democracy in present public school systems. It focuses on the question of (dis)ability and the implications of rethinking (dis)ability as an ontological issue before its inscription as an educational one concerning the politics of inclusion. The everyday dividing, sorting, and classifying practices of schooling are reconsidered through an analysis of old and new discourses of eugenics as “quality control” of national populations. The paper suggests that in the transmogrification of old to new eugenic discourses, disability becomes reinscribed as an outlaw ontology reinvesting eugenic discourse in a new language that maintains an ableist normativity. The paper concludes by considering the very difficult question of trying to imagine alternatives to sending the posse out in schools. Thoughtful students . . . of the psychology of adolescence will refuse to believe that the American public intends to have its children sorted before their teens into clerks, watchmakers, lithographers, telegraph operators, masons, teamsters, farm laborers, and so forth, and treated differently in their schools according to the prophecies of their appropriate life careers. Who are to make these prophecies? Charles Eliot ~1905, pp. 330‐331; original emphasis!

Local Theories of Teacher Change: The Pedagogy of District Policies and Programs

Abstract: This paper examines district officials’ theories about teacher learning and change, identifying and elaborating three perspectives—behaviorist, situated, and cognitive— based on a study of 9 school districts. The behaviorist perspective on teacher learning dominated among the district officials in the study. The author also considers whether the prominence of the behaviorist perspective on teacher learning among district officials may be cause for concern when it comes to the classroom implementation of the fundamental changes in instruction pressed by state and national standards.

Knowledge Management for School Leaders: An Ecological Framework for Thinking Schools.

Abstract: Although there has been a great deal of recognition in the business world that information and knowledge management can be vital tools in organizations, it is only recently that educational administrators and teachers have begun to look at how they might use information systems to assist in creating effective learning environments. In the business research environment, the evolution from data to information and from information to knowledge plays a leading role in shaping how organizations develop strategies and plans for the future. Using examples from schools, this paper illustrates how knowledge management can enable schools to examine the plethora of data they collect and how an ecological framework can be used to transform these data into meaningful information.

Can Groups Learn

Abstract: This is a study of assessment of the work of creative problem-solving groups in sixth-grade social studies. We test the proposition that providing students with specific guidelines as to what makes an exemplary group product (evaluation criteria) will improve the character of the discussion as well as the quality of the group product. To assess the group’s potential for successful instruction, we examine the character of the group conversation as well as the quality of the group product. We present a statistical model of the process of instruction that connects the use of evaluation criteria, group discussion, creation of the group product, and average performance on the final written assessment. This is a study of assessment of the work of creative problem-solving groups in sixth-grade social studies classes. We test the proposition that providing students with specific guidelines as to what makes an exemplary group product ~evaluation criteria! will improve the character of the discussion as well as the quality of the group product. To assess the group’s potential for successful instruction, we examine the character of the group conversation as well as the quality of the group product. We present a statistical model of the process of instruction that connects the use of evaluation criteria, group discussion, creation of the group product, and average performance on the final written assessment.

Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science: An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Two Instructional Elements

Abstract: This small-scale, exploratory study examines the effectiveness of two teaching elements (the artistic crafting of content and the modeling and scaffolding of perception and value) at fostering transformative experiences. The construct of a transformative experience was derived from Dewey’s work and is defined as an expansion of perception and value resulting from active use of a concept. The elements were used in teaching a unit on adaptation and evolution in a high school zoology class. Student outcomes were compared with those of students in a roughly equivalent (as determined by a preintervention survey) class in which the same unit was taught using a case-based model of instruction. Results indicate that a significantly greater percentage of students in the experimental class (52.9%) than students in the control class (22.7%) engaged in some degree of transformative experience. Further, it was found that students from both classes who engaged in at least some form of transformative experience scored significantly higher than other students on a follow-up assessment of understanding but not on a postintervention assessment of understanding. Many have argued that science education should enrich students’ everyday experience. This argument is inherent in the rhetoric of various science education reforms ~DeBoer, 1991! and in prominent views of scientific literacy ~Chun, Oliver, Jackson, & Kemp, 1999; Laugksch, 2000!. Indeed, one would likely be hard-pressed to find a teacher, student, parent, or science educator willing to argue that science education should not enrich students’ everyday experience. Thus, it is surprising that we have not developed a body of research that examines the issue of how, or if, science concepts enrich the quality of students’ immediate, everyday experience. In general, the various perspectives on science education have focused more on how engagement in enriching experience fosters conceptual development0 change and less on how engagement with concepts fosters enriched experiences.

Requirements for an Assessment Procedure for Beginning Teachers: Implications from Recent Theories on Teaching and Assessment

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the best approach to the development of procedures to assess beginning teachers. First, studies on teacher thinking, teacher development, teacher learning and teacher knowledge were reviewed to obtain information on the most current views on the nature of teaching. Second, studies on new approaches to teacher assessment and on issues of validity and reliability were examined. An analysis of these topics yielded a set of implications that could be used as a basis for an adequate evaluation procedure. We propose a framework that consists of 15 implications for the development of beginning teacher assessments. We illustrate how the framework was applied in the development of an assessment procedure for beginning teachers. As in other industrialized countries, policy makers in the Netherlands are continually involved in efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools. These efforts rest on the general conviction that the teacher is at the center of any attempt to attain this goal. School restructuring and innovations in the curriculum ultimately rely on the professional development of teachers ~Calderhead, 1996!. Reform initiatives include the formulation of standards for both experienced and beginning teachers. As a result, beginning teachers will—in the future—be awarded their teaching certificate after demonstrating that they meet teaching standards and not because they have successfully completed teacher education programs ~Darling-Hammond, 1999!. At the same time, a shortage of teachers in the Netherlands makes it necessary to attract more people to the teaching profession and to provide shortcuts to certification. Formulating standards for beginning teachers opens the door to alternative routes to certification and to different ways to prepare for it. Standards for teaching, however, rely heavily on the possibilities of developing evaluation procedures that

Inquiry At the Crossroads of Policy and Learning: A Study of a District-Wide Literacy Initiative.

Abstract: The literacy improvement efforts of New York City’s Community School District #2 serve as the locus of a study into the relationship between educational policy and practice. Based on 100 observations of classroom literacy instruction, a review of documentation related to the district’s Balanced Literacy Program, and interviews with teachers, staff developers, and district leaders the investigators found strong parallels between how the district children learn to read and district teachers learn to teach. These parallels are due in part to the ways in which District #2’s professional development system is anchored in the Balanced Literacy Program. They also stem from District #2 leaders’ beliefs in authentic and social forms of learning, beliefs that researchers found to have resonance with sociocultural theories of how individuals develop complex knowledge and skills. The result is a coherent system in which district policy regarding student learning is consistent with that of teacher learning.

The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Behavior in Adolescents

Abstract: Many adolescents are experiencing a reduction in sleep as a consequence of a variety of behavioral factors (e.g., academic workload, social and employment opportunities), even though scientific evidence suggests that the biological need for sleep increases during maturation. Consequently, the ability to effectively interact with peers while learning and processing novel information may be diminished in many sleepdeprived adolescents. Furthermore, sleep deprivation may account for reductions in cognitive efficiency in many children and adolescents with special education needs. In response to recognition of this potential problem by parents, educators, and scientists, some school districts have implemented delayed bus schedules and school start times to allow for increased sleep duration for high school students, in an effort to increase academic performance and decrease behavioral problems. The long-term effects of this change are yet to be determined; however, preliminary studies suggest that the short-term impact on learning and behavior has been beneficial. Thus, many parents, teachers, and scientists are supporting further consideration of this information to formulate policies that may maximize learning and developmental opportunities for children. Although changing school start times may be an effective method to combat sleep deprivation in most adolescents, some adolescents experience sleep deprivation and consequent diminished daytime performance because of common underlying sleep disorders (e.g., asthma or sleep apnea). In such cases, surgical, pharmaceutical, or respiratory therapy, or a combination of the three, interventions are required to restore normal sleep and daytime performance.

When State Policies Meet Local District Contexts: Standards-Based Professional Development as a Means to Individual Agency and Collective Ownership

Abstract: CIERA Inquiry 3: Policy and ProfessionHow does a statewide reform initiative, when envisioned as a professional development opportunity, affect teachers' capacity to become change-agents in their classrooms and districts? How do individual district contexts shape the development of those capacities?

Rewriting Race and Gender High School Lessons: Second-Generation Dominicans in New York City.

Abstract: At high school graduation ceremonies across the country, a curious gender gap has emerged-more women graduate than men, particularly in Latino and Black communities. This trend begs several questions: How do formal and informdl institutional practices within high schools \"race\" and \"gender\" students? How do racializ(ing) and gender(ing) processes intersect in the.classroom setting? How can principals, school administrators, and teachers work toward dismantling race, gender; and class oppression in their schools? Drawing on 5 months of participant observation in a New York City public high school that is 90% Latino, mostly second-generation Dominicans, Ifound that both formal and informal institutional practices within schools, \"race\" and \"gender\" students in ways that significantly affect their outlooks on education. Young men are viewed as threatening and potential problem students, whereas young women are treated in a more sympathetic fashion. If our goal is to improve the education attainment of all students, we must become aware of the invisible race(ing) and gender(ing) that takes place in. the classroom, as well as in the everyday institutional practices of schools.