Search results

This chapter is based on a self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) project that explored the pedagogical practices of a teacher educator and the impact of such practices on a teacher candidate engaged in the process of becoming a translingual teacher. This S-STEP study includes David, a professor in a teacher education program in the greater New York City metropolitan area, and Mary, a teacher candidate enrolled in the program. The purpose of the study was to discover how different class activities influenced the philosophical and pedagogical views of one teacher candidate in the program. The following are the two research questions of the study:

1. How did the class experiences that a teacher education professor, David, designed help teacher candidates conceptualize translingual approach to language and literacy development?

2. How did a monolingual teacher candidate, Mary, develop her role as a translingual English teacher through the completion of these experiences?

How did the class experiences that a teacher education professor, David, designed help teacher candidates conceptualize translingual approach to language and literacy development?

How did a monolingual teacher candidate, Mary, develop her role as a translingual English teacher through the completion of these experiences?

The findings of this S-STEP project demonstrate that the Sociocultural Reflection, the Community Study, and the Linguistic Landscape fostered a translingual approach to language and literacy in the classroom. Moreover, the findings suggest that upon the completion of the projects, one teacher education candidate was able to better define translingualism as a phenomenon of study, ideology, and pedagogy.

Since this investigation is based on a S-STEP project of a single teacher educator and a single teacher candidate, more research with larger populations is needed. Practical implications for teacher educators and teacher candidates in other settings are explored.

Creating something entirely new, something important, something for which there is no agreed upon “right way,” set model, or solid precedence is exciting – and, at times, frustrating. Developing the Adolescence and Young Adulthood assessment for science teachers (AYA/S) of students aged 14 to 18+ for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is a case in point. This chapter describes our experiences as an Assessment Development Laboratory (ADL) and looks at some of the challenges inherent in developing a large-scale assessment that is complex, strives to be innovative, and must be closely aligned with a given set of standards. Some of the external challenges we faced included shifting and unclear expectations, the conflicting needs of multiple stakeholders and a deadline that was dramatically shortened midway through the process. Within the assessment development process itself we also needed to consider how best to involve teachers, address issues of equity and standardize the process to maximize efficiency. We share some stories to illustrate not only the challenges but also the insights gained and lessons learned during the early years if the project with the hope that they provide a useful historical perspective relevant for other large-scale assessment development projects.

Purpose – To provide educators with an overview of issues and strategies important for preparing preservice teachers to plan instruction, engage students, and assess learning in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter reviews sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and cognitive literature that informs differentiated instruction for linguistic diversity. It then offers a case study example of a preservice student teaching seminar where this knowledge was put into practice.

Findings – Content provides detailed information about the design of a preservice seminar that included the role of a nationally piloted performance assessment. It demonstrates how preparing the assessment portfolio provided a vehicle for a structured and useful focus on diversity within the seminar.

Research limitations/implications – The chapter highlights literature that is specifically useful for preservice teachers and their instructors who are seeking to address the specific needs of English Language Learners and the culturally diverse population of students found in U.S. classrooms. This is important to those who seek to expand this attention to diversity within general teacher education practices.

Practical implications – This chapter serves as a resource for all clinical instructors, providing ideas for incorporation into their clinics and classrooms.

Originality/value of paper – Culturally responsive teaching and a specific focus on teaching English Language Arts for linguistically diverse students are infused in clinical teacher education practices rather than as “add-on” practices.

This chapter investigates the impact of a teacher preparation program that includes specific attention to the needs of bilingual learners on participants’ subsequent teaching practices. Specifically, this mixed methods retrospective study examines graduates’ reports of their current teaching practices as well as their perceptions of the Teaching English Language Learners (TELL) program’s impact on these practices. Multiple-choice survey data were analyzed quantitatively to identify trends among reported practices and perceptions. Open-ended survey and interview data were analyzed qualitatively to identify interrelated themes within teachers’ detailed, first-hand accounts of their pre-service and in-service experiences. The results showed that there was variety with respect to whether particular linguistically responsive practices were routine, used occasionally, or rarely. There was also a difference with respect to whether such practices were perceived to be the result of having participated in the program. Notably, the most frequently used practices attributed to the TELL program involved teaching language (TL) to facilitate content learning. Other aspects of the teacher preparation program supported effective practices for academic content learning, but only TELL coursework and experiences facilitated practices that emphasized academic language development. These results suggest that programs created to improve the preparation of teachers to work with bilingual learners in mainstream classroom contexts must make a special effort to develop teachers’ skills in regard to language teaching, especially practices that focus on language beyond the word-level. There are limitations to the study because of the small number of participants and the fact that they were self-selected as program participants.

This chapter examines in-service teachers’ transformed perspectives and practices for educating emergent bilinguals resulting from graduate study in a bilingual education graduate program in Chicago. This examination is contextualized in consideration of emergent bilinguals relative to the changing face of P-12 classrooms and gaps in teacher education. Findings from autoethnographic and discourse analytic inquiry suggest that teacher preparation in bilingual education (1) prepared and empowered in-service teachers to meet the academic, social, and cultural-linguistic needs of emergent bilinguals in their classrooms and (2) fostered a conscious inner transformation in in-service teachers that resulted in new ways and purposes of interacting with emergent bilingual students, their families, and colleagues. Findings also suggest that although there is institutional progress in meeting emergent bilinguals’ needs, it is incremental and insufficient. There are three major deficiencies: (1) new and increased teacher education standards lack the required specialized coursework in the education of emergent bilinguals; (2) teacher preparation of emergent bilinguals is inadequate; and (3) teacher preparation programs resist requiring specialized coursework in teaching emergent bilinguals.

This study aims to design and measure the effects of the culturally inclusive science teaching (CIST) model on 30 teacher candidates to teach science to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students.

The CIST model for culturally inclusive science lessons included six sessions: inquiring, questioning, interacting (online with international students who were at the beginning level of English proficiency), interacting (face-to-face with international internship students who were at the middle level of English proficiency), interacting (face-to-face with international students on campus who were at the advanced level of English proficiency) and developing lessons.

The pre- and post-self-efficacy tests, the culturally inclusive lessons and the final essay reflection resulted in an increase in teacher candidates’ confidence in teaching science to culturally diverse students and improvement in their skills to create culturally inclusive lessons.

Through the model, the teacher candidates interracted with international students with various levels of English proficiency and developed lessons for culturally diverse students. The CIST model is a prospective teaching strategy for teachers to support CLD students’ achievement in science by providing meaningful science in the context of their personal lived experiences.

In this chapter, the authors describe collaborative efforts of three teacher leaders and a college professional development school (PDS) liaison to ensure that preservice candidates and practicing teachers can effectively meet the needs of English learners (ELs). The chapter includes an introduction to the PDS’s history and mission, an overview of research on effective practices that promote ELs’ learning, a description of teacher leadership in the PDS context, examples of professional learning opportunities to help preservice candidates and practicing teachers ensure that ELs are academically successful, and a discussion of how data are being used to evaluate the impact of this work on both teachers and students.

The NEA began its ascent as a political force slowly. In the early 1960s, NEA leaders had rejected efforts to create a political role for the Association. In fact, in 1960, NEA leaders – sensitive to members’ desire for an organization focused on professionalism – summarily rejected a suggestion to adopt a theme of “Every Teacher a Politician” (Berube, 1988).

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to describe the use of narrative inquiry in a teacher education preservice course on issues in education focused on culture.

Approach – The course is positioned among the different kinds of teacher education courses and then described in terms of course assignments and categories of student response.

Findings – It is shown how reflective narrative inquiry activities work toward student understanding of idea that all students are “other” and may be understood in terms of intergenerational family educational narratives. Three specific sources of tension are discussed under three headings “My school has no newcomers and no need for inclusive lesson plans,” “They should adapt to us,” and “But I have no culture.” The ideas of a cross-cultural bridge and reciprocity in leaning between newcomers and the receiving society ties the discussion together along with the author's experience with the subject matter of the course.

Research implications – This work opens an avenue of inquiry into one of the more difficult and widely discussed areas in teacher education aimed at social cohesion and growth.

Value – The value of this work is that it extends Connelly and Clandinin's ideas on curriculum of life to specific issues faced in cultural subject matter in preservice teacher education.

This chapter explores the issue of ethnic diversity and race discrimination among elementary school teachers in Ireland. It examines both the historical precedents of this discrimination and uses the current experiences of Immigrant Internationally Educated Teachers (IIETs) living in Ireland to explore the phenomenon contemporaneously. The chapter begins by delineating the historical context of immigration in Ireland and more recent population data. It then explores the relevant legislative provisions to address employment and race discrimination in the Irish context. Owing to the deep-seated and historical origins of the current race discrimination, a particular focus is placed on delineating the evolution of the selection and recruitment of elementary teachers in Ireland imbued with the right to teach in elementary schools. Drawing on data ascertained through semi-structured interviews with a range of IIETs, positioned within the aforementioned analyses of relevant historical documents, the chapter then moves to explore some experiences of IIETs seeking to work in the Irish elementary school system. The chapter analyses these data through a Bourdieuian lens, paying particular attention to ways in which power has been, and continues to be, exercised by the State in regulating access to prestigeful mainstream teaching positions. The chapter proceeds to root these analyses within Kitching’s work on ‘race moves’, arguing that immigrant teachers have been racialized as other on the basis of an absence of proficiency in the Irish language.