bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How Important is Where you Start? Early Mathematics Knowledge and Later School Success
Authors: Claessens Amy , Engel Mimi
Published: November 2021

Background

Children's early skills are essential for their later success in school. Recent evidence highlights the importance of early mathematics, relative to reading and socioemotional skills, for elementary school achievement. Key advocacy groups for both early childhood and mathematics education have issued position statements on the importance of early mathematics, arguing that mathematics education for 3- to 6- year-olds is essential to promoting future mathematics achievement.

Focus of Study

Despite the fact that advocates and researchers are focusing on early math skills, we are still learning about the mathematics knowledge and skills young children typically have and how these early skills affect later academic achievement and school success. This study aims to address these gaps in the extant research by investigating how early math skills predict later school success. We explore how early math skills relate to achievement, from kindergarten through eighth grade, across reading, math, and science test score outcomes, as well as grade retention and teacher-reported academic achievement. We also explore whether there is variation in the relationship between early math skills and later outcomes for children who enter school with limited math skills.

Research Design

We conduct secondary analysis with data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort, a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten in 1998–1999 and were followed through eighth grade.

Results

We find that early math skills predict reading, math, and science achievement as well as grade retention from kindergarten through eighth grade. Results show that kindergarten math skills in pattern recognition, measurement, and advanced number are most predictive of eighth-grade outcomes overall and for subgroups including students who enter school with low math skills. The importance of these math skills for subsequent achievement increases or is maintained over time.

Conclusions

The results reported here have implications for education policy regarding mathematics instruction in the earliest years of schooling. The fact that early mathematics knowledge and skills are the most important predictors not only for later math achievement but also for achievement in other content areas and grade retention supports a greater emphasis on mathematics than is currently the case in many kindergarten classrooms. It also suggest the possibility that focusing more on advanced number, pattern recognition, and measurement might develop skills that will benefit students in the later years of schooling.
Alternative Teacher Certification and the New Professionalism: The Pre-service Preparation of Mathematics Teachers in the New York City Teaching Fellows Program
Authors: Brantlinger Andrew , Smith Beverly
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

For more than a decade, large alternative teacher certification programs (ATCP) such as the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) have provided qualified applicants with fast-track or “early entry” routes to paid teaching. While early-entry ATCPs enjoy powerful support in the public and private sectors, critics (e.g., Zeichner, 2010) claim that early-entry ATCPs are aligned with a “new professionalism” which views teaching as a technical undertaking and teachers as easily replaceable implementers of others’ prescriptive ideas. Yet little is known about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions these programs seek to develop in teachers during pre-service preparation.

Purpose/Focus of Study

This study seeks to understand the nature of teacher preparation in early-entry ATCPs and how this reflects both the trends associated with the new professionalism and broader traditions of teacher education. The paper focuses on preparation of pre-service mathematics teachers who began the NYCTF program in the summer of 2007.

Research Design

Results for this paper are based on a mixed-methods analysis of curriculum and survey data. Curriculum data included course materials, journal entries and daily audio reflections, and exit interviews for nine mathematics teacher candidates who began NYCTF in the summer of 2007. The two authors coded this qualitative data with a high degree of inter-rater reliability. Survey data was collected from 90% of the approximately 300 mathematics candidates who began NYCTF in the summer of 2007. The analysis focused on responses to Likert-scale survey items that inquired about the focus of pre-service coursework. The Mann Whitney test was used to gauge the statistical significance of curricular differences reported by mathematics candidates in different sections of the NYCTF program.

Findings/Results

We find that only some of the major components of NYCTF summer preparation were well aligned with the expectations of the new professionalism. In particular, the curriculum delivered by NYCTF staff and staff at one of the four university coursework providers seemed to meet these expectations. Whereas, to varying degrees, the curriculum delivered by staff at the three other university partners did not. We also find that pre-service preparation was subject-general and featured little in the way of mathematics-specific teaching methods.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The results simultaneously support, extend, nuance, and challenge the hypothesis that such early-entry ATCPs such as NYCTF prepare program participants to meet the expectations of the new professionalism. The conclusion includes discussions of both the promise of early-entry ATCPs and how schools of education might respond to the rise of early-entry ATCPs and the trend of the new professionalism.
Micropolitical and Identity Challenges Influencing New Faculty Participation in Teacher Education Reform: When Will We Learn?
Authors: Yendol-Hoppey Diane , Hoppey David , Morewood Aimee , Hayes Sharon B. , Graham Meadow Sherrill
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Teacher education faculty face increasing pressure to simultaneously strengthen and reform teacher education programs while maintaining research productivity. The demands placed on teacher education programs to increase relevancy by strengthening clinical components of teacher preparation has once again reached the fore. The energy for this reform often rests on the shoulders of tenure-earning faculty who have developed as Engaged Scholars during their doctoral preparation and wish to continue this work as they enter the professoriate.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article investigates and describes the experiences of new, tenure-earning faculty who sought working conditions that would support their involvement in reform oriented, clinically rich teacher education, and Engaged Scholarship.

Population/Participants/Subjects

This is a qualitative study with seven participants who worked as assistant professors across four different research-intensive state universities. Each university has a history of involvement in either the Holmes Partnership or the National Network for Educational Renewal, organizations that target integrating faculty members into partnership schools making this a part of their teacher education work.

Research Design

This qualitative self-study, guided by a constructivist epistemology (Crotty, 1998, 2005), seeks to understand tenure-earning faculties’ experiences as they enter the professoriate. This study makes use of interpretivism (Crotty, 1998) as a theoretical perspective.

Data Collection and Analysis

This research uses focus group transcripts as the primary data source. Additional data sources include program artifacts such as meeting agendas and minutes, blog entries, and field notes that were used during the four taped focus groups to generate discussion related to research questions.

Findings/Results

The study describes six challenges faced by new faculty who assume leadership in clinically rich teacher education reform, and identifies faculty identity and micro-political concerns as central to navigating challenges. These challenges include: (a) complications associated with negotiating workload, (b) entrée to schools, (c) negotiating roles, (d) negotiating Internal Review Boards and school district research policies, (e) influencing promotion and tenure policies, and (f) facilitating pockets of program renewal and innovation.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study suggests that while doctoral programs are now preparing new faculty who embrace clinically rich teacher preparation, they do not receive adequate support as they enter academia. Discussed are three assertions that must be resolved by university, college, and department leadership, as well as tenured colleagues, to support new faculty involvement in developing clinically rich teacher education reform.
Teaching Bodies in Place
Authors: Jones Stephanie , Woglom James F.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This piece draws on literature in justice-oriented teacher education, feminist pedagogy, and postmodern notions of bodies and place to make sense of data generated from a three-year study of an undergraduate teacher education course. A feminist lens was used to engage a body- and place-focused pedagogy that aimed to engage students in recognizing themselves as full-bodied and cultured beings who can work to better understand and expand their perceptions of themselves and others in place.

Purpose

The authors argue that postmodern theories of bodies and place can provide complex insights for both theorizing and practicing teacher education. Readers have the opportunity to experience alternative community-based teacher education practice through a graphic presentation and consider both the theoretical and practice implications in the broader field of education.

Research Design

This three-year study is an arts-based qualitative inquiry into the experiences of a course where feminist and postmodern notions of bodies and place informed the pedagogical decision-making of their professor (Stephanie Jones). Data were generated across three years and those focused specifically on or around the community bus ride were used to ask questions about how bodies and places interact with one another to produce sense-making about people, places, and the purposes of education. As part of the inquiry, Stephanie produced visual images in comics-form presenting pedagogical interactions and experiences that illuminated theoretical insights and then engaged Jim in conversations and sketch-sharing about theory and practice related to the data and how it was experienced in real-time by Stephanie. After numerous conversations looking over each panel and analytical discussions about bodies, place, and pedagogies as they were produced on the page and multiple revisions of both images and print text, Stephanie and Jim settled on the graphic production published here as both a representation of the research and a provocation for reimagining teacher education practice and scholarship.

Conclusions

The study is an example of how pedagogies informed by theoretical understandings of bodies and place can produce practices that help teacher education students recognize their bodies as central sites for critical change inside and outside institutions. Tending to, documenting, and discussing their bodily-ways-of-being in different places and how bodies/places produce perceptions of others were powerful practices that helped students think deeply about power and their roles as future teachers.
Bad Tests or Bad Test Use? A Case of SAT Use to Examine Why We Need Stakeholder Conversations on Validity
Authors: Chatterji Madhabi
Published: November 2021

Background

Much is still unknown or unclear about how and where validity issues arise in high stakes testing situations in education, and ways by which we can rectify validity problems in practice and policy contexts.

Purpose

This paper is the Foreword to the special issue of the Teachers College Record, When Education Measures Go Public – Stakeholder Perspectives on How and Why Validity Breaks Down.

Method

The paper analyzes a recent case involving an application of the SAT to highlight tensions between validity and test score use in high stakes school accountability environments driven by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. It uses the case study as a vehicle to introduce the individual papers and authors in the section.

Conclusions

There are information and power gaps among those who set societal priorities for using tests for high stakes purposes, those who design and conduct psychometric research on tests and testing programs, and those who could eventually face consequences of assessment misuse. These gaps could be addressed through thoughtful exchanges among key assessment stakeholders, as this special issue shows.
Consequential Validity and the Transformation of Tests from Measurement Tools to Policy Tools
Authors: Welner Kevin G.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Recent U.S. policy has brought a shift in assessment use, from measurement tools to policy levers. In particular, testing has become a core part of teacher evaluation policies in many states, with test results becoming akin to a job evaluation.

Purpose

To explore the notion of consequential validity in assessment use and examine the implications of using an assessment more as a policy tool than a measurement tool.

Research Design

This is an essay concerning how assessment measures are used in educational policy contexts.

Conclusions

Meaning is created by use, and the intense push for test-based accountability policies in the U.S. has fundamentally changed the nature of test use. The core meaning of tests and testing has accordingly been qualitatively changed. Attention to consequential validity counsels against use of tests to drive policy unless, and until, the results that process itself have been validated for their furtherance of recognized goals.
Validity for What Purpose?
Authors: Shepard Lorrie A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The evolution of validity understandings from mid-century to now has emphasized that test validity depends on test purpose—adding consequence considerations to issues of interpretation and evidentiary warrants.

Purpose

To consider the tensions created by multiple purposes for assessment and sketch briefly how we got to where we are; furthermore, to address two critically important purposes: the accountability purpose versus the learning purpose for assessment.

Research Design

This is an analytic, closing commentary to this special section.

Conclusions

When a test is used as an educational reform, the theory of action behind the reform should be made explicit and that theory or series of claims and assumptions is what should be examined in the validity evaluation. As to the prospect of improving the teaching profession by the use of value-added methods, I believe that this is an overly ambitious use of a potentially useful statistical tool. As these systems are being implemented, we can and should conduct validity studies designed to detect plausible shortcomings and side effects as well as intended outcomes.
Educational Opportunity and Immigration in México: Exploring the Individual and Systemic Relationships
Authors: MartÍNez JosÉ Felipe , Santibanez Lucrecia , Mori Edson E. Serván
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Much research has investigated the complex interplay between education and migration. Education has been alternatively conceptualized as playing an important role as motivator or deterrent of future migration. This relationship, however, is often investigated in terms of coarse indicators of educational attainment.

Purpose

In this paper we investigate a less commonly explored side of the link between education and immigration. Our study estimates the relationship between immigration and educational quality and opportunity for the case of Mexico and the United States. Using these indicators we are able to delve deeper into how education affects migration decisions. Studying the relationships between immigration rates and aggregate indicators of education quality and opportunity can shed light into the ways in which education systems and governmental structures may influence or react to immigration patterns among school-age children.

Research Design

Data for this study come from three different sources: The Mexican Family Life Survey (MXFLS), which contains information on individual migration decisions; the Oportunidades program, which contains extensive family socio-economic characteristics and school quality indicators; and data from the National Population Council of Mexico, which contains socio-economic and demographic information about communities. Taking advantage of this data, we use logistic and linear regression models to estimate the relationship between education quality and migration.

Results

Our results suggest significant relationships between individual decisions to migrate and indicators of educational access, quality, and opportunity, suggesting that the experiences and opportunities afforded to individuals and families in school throughout the years can be of consequence for explaining immigration decisions and patterns.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our analyses raise questions for delineating a framework for studying the relationship between educational quality and immigration. Such a framework should consider that not only individuals may have a lower incentive to further their schooling, but communities and even authorities may also have a lower incentive to improve school quality and opportunity.
Educational Leadership and Racism: A Narrative Inquiry into Second-Generation Segregation
Authors: Brooks Jeffrey S. , Arnold Noelle W. , Brooks Melanie C.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In-school racial segregation, also called second-generation segregation, is a social dynamic that is manifest in different and complicated ways in schoolhouses across the United States. This study sought to investigate how building-level leadership facilitates or impedes the practice of racial equity in an urban high school, from teachers’ and administrators’ perspectives.

Purpose

The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how educational leaders perceive and influence second-generation segregation in urban secondary schools.

Research Design

As the purpose of the study was to ascertain leaders’ perspectives, we followed a dialogic methodological approach used in studies seeking to investigate similar perceptual phenomena. This methodology emphasizes both personal narrative and dialogue. This study took place in a single urban high school in the southeastern United States over the course of two academic years.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The study revealed that both formal and informal leadership influenced second-generation segregation in the school. The authors conclude with recommendations for improving future research focusing on the topic and with recommendations for improved practice. As a beginning teacher, I was given low-level classes. Kids that need remedial help. They were predominantly Black. As I gained years there, I started getting honors classes. They were overwhelmingly White. Right now, I have one Black child in my honors class, out of twenty-seven. Teacher Peter Soderstrom, quoted in Studs Terkel's Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession (1992, p. 192).
The Romance Quest of Education Reform: A Discourse Analysis of the Los Angeles Times’ Reports on Value-Added Measurement Teacher Effectiveness
Authors: Gabriel Rachael , Lester Jessica Nina
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This paper illustrates how the media, particularly The LA Times, entered the debate surrounding teacher evaluation, resulting in a storyline that shaped how the public perceives teacher effectiveness. With their series of articles in 2010, The LA Times entered the conversation about the place and value of value-added measurement (VAM), arguing that it is a tool to root out the presumably ineffective teachers. Research examining education policy is often represented by the media in ways that direct the public to take up specific positions and assign responsibility to particular parties. In this paper, we build upon research around the power of news media to create common knowledge and shape a prevalent worldview.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question

We gave particular attention to the ways in which the media discourse functioned to politicize and (over)simplify issues related to VAM and teacher evaluation. We sought to understand the ways in which discourse choices worked to construct a certain version of policy issues related to teacher quality, positioning some individuals and even national groups on either side of a polarized debate.

Research Design

We conducted a discourse analysis of 52 articles published between 2009 and 2011 that were from or related to a series on VAM initially published in 2010 by The LA Times.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We argue that the striking similarities between the story of VAM in education reform, as told by The LA Times, and the culturally familiar storyline of a quest romance or wish-fulfillment narrative give this particular version of VAM a sense of familiarity, veracity and therefore power over the public imagination. We discuss the discursive features used to accomplish this and suggest the need for continued analysis of the role of the media in shaping public opinion on education policy.
The Moral Vacuum in Teacher Education Research and Practice
Authors: Sanger Matthew , Osguthorpe Richard
Published: November 2021

This chapter examines the gap between the widespread acknowledgment that teaching is a moral endeavor, on the one hand, and the lack of explicit, systematic teacher education research and practice to support preparing teachers for the moral aspects of teaching. After providing an initial description of the aforementioned gap, the chapter surveys the evidence that such a gap exists, then takes up a number of themes found in the literature bordering the gap. It concludes with a discussion of possible paths for teacher education research and practice to move forward.

Teachers do not lack moral sophistication because they are not moral people. Just the opposite, most teachers are drawn to teaching because of their moral commitments. Moral language is missing in classrooms, but it is also missing in the seminar rooms and lecture halls of teacher education. (Sockett & LePage, 2002, p. 171)
Ethical Teaching and the Social Justice Distraction
Authors: Campbell Elizabeth
Published: November 2021

This chapter presents a conceptual argument that positions two broad areas of educational scholarship—the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching and social justice education—as being quite separate, different, and ultimately antithetical, despite contemporary trends towards merging them in both theoretical and practical ways. It argues that an emerging tendency in social justice education to position its political agenda as a moral or ethical endeavor, especially within teacher education, is problematic in that it complicates, rather than enhances, the conceptualization of teaching as moral practice; it further distracts teachers and student teachers from fully engaging with the ethical aspects of their daily professional work.
Designing for Productive Adaptations of Curriculum Interventions
Authors: Debarger Angela Haydel , Choppin Jeffrey , Beauvineau Yves , Moorthy Savitha
Published: November 2021

Productive adaptations at the classroom level are evidence-based curriculum adaptations that are responsive to the demands of a particular classroom context and still consistent with the core design principles and intentions of a curriculum intervention. The model of design-based implementation research (DBIR) offers insights into complexities and challenges of enacting productive curriculum adaptations. We draw from empirical research in mathematics and science classrooms to illustrate criteria for productive adaptations. From these examples, we identify resources needed to encourage and sustain practices to promote productive adaptations in classrooms.
Caught in a Vise: The Challenges Facing Teacher Preparation in an Era of Accountability
Authors: Ginsberg Rick , Kingston Neal
Published: November 2021

Background

Despite polling data that suggests that teachers are well respected by the general public, criticism of teacher preparation by various organizations and interest groups is common, often highlighting the perceived need for increasing their rigor and performance. A number of studies and reports have critiqued teacher preparation, and high-profile leaders like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have called for substantive changes. At the same time, the field of teacher preparation has been embracing change with the idea of accountability based on student performance. Indeed, recently released evidence suggests that in the area of clinical preparation, education programs require many hours of field placement experiences, countering one of the key criticisms of the preparation programs.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the field of teacher preparation in the current era of accountability and testing. After a brief overview of the current context facing teacher preparation, the issue of outcome measures for varying professions is explored by comparing accreditation outcome measures utilized in selected professions. Then, the strengths and weaknesses of currently emerging assessment models are explored. Finally, a discussion of potential ways to assess teacher preparation program performance with an array of sources and measures is presented.

Research Design

The study is a combination of a secondary analysis and analytic essay. The use of outcomes associated with 10 professions was examined by reviewing accreditation standards and documentation from published reports available on websites for the specific measures used to assess student success and program outcomes. As a means of validating findings, feedback was obtained from accreditation coordinators and/or other leaders in each profession. The analysis of currently emerging assessment models for teacher preparation was based upon a review of literature on value added and other similar assessments.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The review of professions found that all are struggling with better means for assessing program outcomes, with a great deal of similarity in the processes currently in place used across fields. Teacher education was found to include more of the different ways for assessing outcomes than any other profession. Significant concerns with currently promoted value-added models for assessing outcomes of teacher preparation were identified, with the use of multiple measures of evidence suggested as the best means for moving forward. We argue that teacher preparation programs are caught in a vise—with an appreciation and desire among those in the field for greater accountability while being squeezed by a sense that the approaches being suggested are prone to error and misuse.
Putting Growth and Value-Added Models on the Map: A National Overview
Authors: Collins Clarin , Amrein-Beardsley Audrey
Published: November 2021

Background

Within the last few years, the focus on educational accountability has shifted from holding students responsible for their own performance to holding those shown to impact student performance responsible—students’ teachers. Encouraged and financially incentivized by federal programs, states are becoming ever more reliant on statistical models used to measure students’ growth or value added and are attributing such growth (or decline) to students’ teachers of record. As states continue to join the growth and value-added model movement, it is difficult to find inclusive resources documenting the types of models used and plans for each state.

Objective

To capture state initiatives in this area, researchers collected data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide others with an inclusive national growth and value-added model overview. Data yielded include information about the types of growth or value-added models used in each state, the legislature behind each state's reform efforts, the standardized tests used for growth or value-added calculations, and the strengths and weaknesses of each state's models as described by state personnel.

Method

This article synthesizes qualitative and quantitative themes as identified from data collected via multiple phone interviews and emails with state department of education personnel in charge of their own state's initiatives in this area, as well as state websites. These data provide the most inclusive and up-to-date resource on national growth and value-added data usage, noting however that this is changing rapidly across the nation, given adjustments in policies, pieces of legislation, and the like.

Conclusions

Findings from this study provide a one-stop resource on what each state has in place or in development regarding growth or value-added model use as a key component of its state-based teacher evaluation systems. Despite widespread use, however, not one state has yet articulated a plan for formative data use by teachers. Federal and state leaders seem to assume that implementing growth and value-added models leads to simultaneous data use by teachers. In addition, state representatives expressed concern that the current emphasis on growth and value-added models could be applied to only math and English/language arts teachers with state standardized assessments (approximately 30% of all teachers). While some believe the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and its associated tests will help to alleviate such issues with fairness, more research is needed surrounding (the lack of) fairness and formative use associated with growth and value-added models.
Proposing a Knowledge Base for Teaching Academic Content to English Language Learners: Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge
Authors: Turkan Sultan , De Oliveira Luciana C. , Lee Okhee , Phelps Geoffrey
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The current research on teacher knowledge and teacher accountability falls short on information about what teacher knowledge base could guide preparation and accountability of the mainstream teachers for meeting the academic needs of ELLs. Most recently, research on specialized knowledge for teaching has offered ways to understand the tasks of teaching that constitute the work of teaching a subject and a set of content-based problems. However, in this paper, we have argued that this domain does not address whether or not teaching academic content to English language learners (ELLs) involves any specialized knowledge for teaching. We sought to understand what specialized knowledge base for teaching, if any, is included in the work of teaching content to special student populations such as ELLs. In this exploration, we drew on the main perspective from literature about Systemic Functional Linguistics and academic language.

Purpose

Grounding the theoretical argument based on these two areas of research, we propose the teachers’ use of Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge (DLK) for academic discourse of a discipline or content area. DLK is proposed as the knowledge base needed to facilitate ELLs’ understanding of oral and written discourse within a discipline and their accurate use of language to engage them in the disciplinary discourse.

Findings/Results

DLK refers to teachers’ knowledge of a particular disciplinary discourse and involves knowledge for (a) identifying linguistic features of the disciplinary discourse and (b) modeling for ELLs how to communicate meaning in the discipline and engaging them in using the language of the discipline orally or in writing. We offer examples illustrating how teachers’ knowledge of Disciplinary Linguistic Knowledge might manifest itself when teachers engage in the work of teaching content to ELLs.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The use of DLK as a specialized knowledge base for teaching content to ELLs might help to further specify the role of teachers’ knowledge of students within the larger research area of content knowledge for teaching. Also, operationalizing DLK as an assessment construct could address the need for next generation teacher assessments that aim to measure teachers’ knowledge base for teaching content to ELLs.
School, Activism and Politics at the Movies: Educator Reactions to the Film Waiting for “Superman”
Authors: Powell Christy Wessel
Published: November 2021

Context

The documentary film about U.S. education reform, Waiting for “Superman,” was met with acclaim and controversy when released to theaters in 2010, and again when launching its grassroots “host a screening” campaign in 2011. The campaign ran concurrent with 2011 state legislative sessions, during which several states (e.g., Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, and Wisconsin) voted on education reform bills regarding teacher merit pay, probationary teacher contracts, school vouchers, changes to the school funding formula, charter school funding, and limiting teachers’ (and public workers’) collective bargaining rights—all issues touched on in the film.

Purpose

To shed light on the relationship between popular media, public opinion, and social action regarding education, I examine responses to Waiting for “Superman” across different viewer demographics and relate responses to educational policy stances. The following research questions are considered: 1. Why did people watch Waiting for “Superman” ? 2. How did different education stakeholders (preservice teachers, current teachers, academics, community members, etc.) react to the film? Were some groups more likely to accept, negotiate with, or oppose the film's message? 3. What role, if any, did the film play in viewers’ stances on education reform or intention to take social action in the education reform movement?

Participants

Participants include 168 self-selected audience members attending free public film screenings at a midwestern university.

Research Design

Mixed methods research design compares audiences’ descriptive statistics alongside open-ended survey responses and interview data.

Results

Viewers were majority young and female. Most attended because they were interested in the topic, wanted to learn more, or came with a friend. Audience responses were complex and nuanced, i.e., 38% volunteered positive reactions to the film and 30% criticized it in some way (not mutually exclusive). Emotional reactions were common (38%). Audience members tended to respond to the film based on their direct prior experience (or lack thereof) with the U.S. public education system. The majority of current teachers in the audience chose not to participate in the study, perhaps because of the contentious political climate. Fifteen percent of audience members were “inspired” to act after viewing, and half of those were preservice teachers, but none were current teachers.

Conclusions

In vilifying teachers’ unions, thereby marginalizing some great teachers, the film's producers may have missed the chance to effect lasting change in the education system. While potentially polarizing, popular film may be an effective way to engage preservice teachers in complex education topics. Contextualizing discussion with a multiperspective panel afterward is recommended.
Predictors of the Instructional Strategies that Elementary School Teachers Use with English Language Learners
Authors: Rader-Brown Lucy , Howley Aimee
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

According to demographers, the number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools has been increasing and is likely to continue to increase in coming years. For various reasons relating to language acquisition, cultural adjustment, and persistent discrimination, these students tend to experience academic difficulties. Improvement in their performance depends on teachers’ use of effective instructional strategies, but few surveys have investigated the extent to which teachers use such strategies or the conditions that encourage them to do so.

Focus of Study

This study addressed the following research questions: (a) To what extent do elementary content-area teachers use various research-based practices for teaching ELLs? (b) In consideration of appropriate statistical controls, to what extent are elementary content-area teachers’ professional training, attitudes, bilingualism, and their schools’ characteristics, singly and in combination, associated with their reported use of a set of research-based strategies for teaching English language learners?

Participants

Participants were a random sample of Ohio elementary school teachers (n = 419) in schools in the highest quartile of ELL enrollment.

Research Design

The current study surveyed elementary teachers in Ohio and then used multiple regression methods to identify significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs.

Findings

Findings showed that teachers reported frequent use of research-based strategies, but their preference was for strategies recommended for all learners. They were less likely to use strategies specifically intended for ELLs. In addition, regression results showed that teachers’ attitudes and the percentage of ELLs in their schools were significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies—a positive predictor in the first instance and a negative predictor in the second. Ancillary analyses revealed that teachers’ years of experience and bilingualism, as well as the schools’ resources, were significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes toward ELLs, with more experienced teachers exhibiting more negative attitudes, and bilingual teachers and those in higher resource schools exhibiting more positive attitudes.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Findings point to the likelihood that continued efforts to prepare elementary school teachers to work with ELLs will entail the provision of additional resources to schools with large and increasing ELL populations. In addition, efforts to increase teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs will involve professional preparation powerful enough to change attitudes. Instruction in a second language appears to be an approach that bears consideration.
Heritage, History, and Identity
Authors: Levy Sara A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Prior research indicates that students’ ethnic, religious, national, and racial identities often impact their interest in, emotional connection to, and knowledge about histories specific to those groups with which they identify.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

(a) What meaning do students attach to events with which they have a heritage connection? (b) How do students’ identities impact their connection to, interest in, and understanding of events with which they have a heritage connection?

Population/Participants/Subjects

This study focuses on three groups of secondary students (Hmong, Chinese, and Jewish) that studied a seminal event (respectively, the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution, and the Holocaust) with which they may be considered to have a heritage connection. Therefore, the students could not have been involved in the event itself, but their parents, grandparents, other family members, or other members of an affinity group (racial, ethnic, national, or religious) to which they belong were involved.

Research Design

This qualitative study uses a multiple-case study design to interrogate the ways in which students (n=17) identify with heritage histories.

Findings/Results

Findings reveal that students who have heard about family members’ experiences during these events identify strongly with the events prior to learning about them in school. However, school knowledge was a powerful tool that enabled the students to create more lasting connections to the past.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study revealed that students connect with and understand heritage histories in multiple ways. Students whose families share personal stories about their own experiences during a specific time seem to have strong connections to heritage histories. However, some of their peers may have a strong connection to their heritage without access to the narratives associated with that heritage, leading to feelings of embarrassment or confusion. Other students’ connections to heritage histories may be enhanced by the inclusion of the heritage history in the official knowledge of the classroom, which may also lead them to develop a stronger sense of identification with more multidimensional historical actors.
The First Campaign and the Paradoxical Transformation of Fundraising in American Higher Education, 1915–1925
Authors: Kimball Bruce A.
Published: November 2021

Background

Comprehensive, multi-year mass fundraising campaigns in American higher education began with the Harvard Endowment Fund (HEF) drive, which extended from 1915 to 1925. Notwithstanding this prominence, the archival records of the campaign have never been studied closely, and in the absence of archival research, scholars have misunderstood the HEF campaign. According to the received and presentist view, the university president initiated the HEF campaign, which professional consultants then directed to a swift and successful conclusion, drawing on their expertise.

Focus of study

The fundamental purpose was to learn from the archives what actually happened in this pathbreaking campaign. The research soon revealed that the unpaid organizers had to negotiate virtually all aspects of this novel venture among competing and conflicting groups of alumni, units of the university, and university administrators, including the president. The purpose then became to understand the divergent values and interests of the participants and how those perspectives contributed to the new goals, strategies, tactics, and practices introduced by the campaign.

Setting

The research was conducted primarily in the Harvard University Archives and the Special Collections of Harvard Business School library.

Research Design

The archival records comprise some fifty three boxes containing about forty thousand unindexed sheets of letters, memos, drafts, minutes, accounts, pamphlets, and other materials reposited in the Harvard University Archives. A chronological and topical examination of these materials over the past five years provides the research for this essay, which also draws upon a review of related collections in the Harvard University Archives and the Special Collections of Harvard Business School library.

Conclusions

The research led to several surprising conclusions: that the landmark campaign failed to meet its goal, that professional consultants did not organize or run the campaign but emerged from it, that now long-standing features of university fundraising resulted less from deliberate planning than from contentious negotiations among conflicting groups, that the campaign prompted the university administration to centralize and control alumni affairs and development efforts for the first time, and, above all, that a central ideological tension arose between mass fundraising and the traditional approach of discretely soliciting wealthy donors. The unintended and unofficial outcome was to establish today's ubiquitous episodic pattern of continuous fundraising, in which mass comprehensive campaigns alternate with discrete solicitations of wealthy donors, whose dominant roles have never changed.
Teachers’ Autonomy-Relevant Practices within an Inquiry-Based Science Curricular Context: Extending the Range of Academically Significant Autonomy-Supportive Practices
Authors: Rogat Toni Kempler , Witham Shelly Anne , Chinn Clark
Published: November 2021

Background

Research in traditional classrooms and laboratories has indicated that autonomy support by teachers is infrequent and focused on the narrow provision of choice. One explanation for the limited autonomy support in classrooms is that typical school resources and tasks limit the availability of experiences that are interesting, relevant, with meaningful choice. Accordingly, it is critical to extend observation to contexts that enhance the likelihood of detecting significant autonomy support. In this way, it will be possible to (a) determine whether existing conceptualizations map onto behaviors in real classrooms and (b) enrich our understanding of the variety of ways in which teachers provide autonomy when the curriculum is designed not to constrain it but to expand it.

Objective

In the current study, we extend and develop conceptualizations of autonomy support based on our observations within an inquiry context that offers a broad range of forms of autonomy, thus gaining access to a more elaborated understanding of how real teachers offer this support. We elaborate on and richly describe how classroom teachers support autonomy in ways that extend the range of current conceptualizations, with implications for lending validity to the construct and providing concrete description for practitioners.

Research Design

Qualitative analyses were conducted based on videotaped observations of four 7th-grade science teachers, each enacting five inquiry-based science lessons designed to encourage scientific reasoning. We developed a coding protocol grounded in theoretical conceptualizations organized around five autonomy-support dimensions (i.e., procedural and organizational support, rationale and relevance, responsiveness, feedback, cognitive autonomy support). We were exploratory in our use of content analysis in ways that evolved our initial codes, given our aim to enrich and extend available characterizations of autonomy-supportive practice to incorporate new conceptualizations of higher quality practice.

Conclusions

Observed enactments provide support for modifying our conceptualizations of the upper end points of autonomy support to include more academically significant forms as well as for making new distinctions in forms of autonomy support. This high quality and multifaceted enactment was possible because practice was embedded within an inquiry-based curriculum context that expanded opportunities for student agency. Implications for supporting educational leaders in facilitating teacher practice using this thick description and set of exemplars are discussed.