Focused Discussion
Unintentional Deficit Educational Approaches for English Learners: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice
Focused Discussion Kristen Mc Inerney
Still prevalent today, these terms carry a deeply deficit connotation, a feeling of being Othered, foreign, different, and limited, and exhibit the hegemony of English as the dominant language and culture to which all others are compared. This historical and theoretical analysis argues, building on the critical voices of Chomsky, Macedo, Jennings, Freire, Moll, Vygotsky, and others, that while the U.S. educational system has made positive changes over the past several decades for English Learners (ELs) including the most recent legislation, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), education policy and classroom practices have unintentionally maintained and continue to reproduce deficit educational approaches for ELs. Relying heavily on critical theory and a call for social justice, this analysis is grounded in data and evidence such as federal educational policy documents including ESSA, critical theorist policy work by Macedo, Chomsky, and Jennings, and Supreme Court case rulings to expose a long and continuing history of unintentional deficit implications for ELs. The implications for educators and policy makers are to enact critical pedagogies to redefine classroom culture and politics, address exclusions of schooling, and dismantle the deficit perception.
Designing and Implementing Sustainable International Partnerships for Teacher Professional Development
Focused Discussion Kathy Peno, Anne Seitsinger, Theresa Deeney, Lori Ciccomascolo
As part of the University of Rhode Island’s mission to be an effective global citizen, several faculty in the School of Education have become actively engaged in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of teacher professional development programs with our international partners. Three examples of this work will be shared with participants. The first is a teacher-training program in Nairobi, Kenya, that has evolved into a sustainable approach to providing training to teachers throughout the country. The second is a partnership with vocational schools in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, still rebuilding after the devastating effects of a Tsunami in 2004. Finally, a partnership with schools in Southampton, England, who share similar methods of teacher professional development in standards-based science pedagogy, will be discussed. During this session, faculty will share the challenges involved with collaborating with international partners, including issues of language difference, funding, monitoring progress, technology, time zones, cultural differences, and teaching and learning expectations. Participants will be asked to share their experiences with teacher professional development in international collaborations and to provide input into our processes and practices.
Reconnecting with the Aesthetic: Reader Transportation and Transformation
Focused Discussion Leah Van Vaerenewyck
This paper examines and critiques current literary curricula and instruction practices in the secondary and post-secondary classroom in the United States through an interdisciplinary framework that knits together research from the fields of neuroscience, literary theory, philosophy, and critical theory. Through an exploration of the potential of the aesthetic (Rosenblatt, 1978) to transform reader behaviors and attitudes, this work attempts to develop a conceptual framework that can inform pedagogical choices in literature courses using global and multi-cultural texts. The central claim of this work is that to leverage the potential of literary narratives to cultivate culturally literate global citizenry who is both empathetic and pro-social (Barazza & Zak, 2009; Johnson, 2012), the formal study of literature must capitalize on the aesthetic experience engendered by reader transportation (Green & Brock, 2000). Developing instructional practices and assessment methods that encourage and validate the aesthetic response requires the un-privileging of the efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) that is expressed as the critical matrix (Mandel, 1979) in literary studies.
PIZZA Approach to Improving Reading Instruction:: For Early Readers
Focused Discussion Deborah Callan
The purpose of this Focused Discussion is to discuss a variety of strategies. Educators will be able to discuss strategies that can be used in whole group, small group or with individual readers in an efficient and effective way. Educators need to hone in their personal skills of observing young readers without depending on a "canned" or "purchased" program to meet the needs of every reader. Discussion will also include the importance of being able to formatively assess readers. The discussion will encompass a variety of ways that can be prescribed as part of a goal setting process so that independent readers can strengthen their personal reading skills. The methods shared will come from a variety of resources that have been effective with readers in all socio economic environments. For the last three years, these strategies have been used with a variety of settings in low performing schools and great gains have been made by most readers involved. The implications of the work will help give educators the tools and confidence they need to assess students individually. It will also help teachers set personal goals for both themselves and each individual student.
Beyond Argument: Transforming Students' Engagement with/in Writing
Focused Discussion Sarah Allen
Writing teachers across disciplines at the college level often complain about student apathy and, even, dread toward writing-intensive courses. To address that apathy and fear, I will share a series of reading and writing assignments, which could be adapted for secondary school, that can intervene in unproductive student beliefs about and relationships to their research-based writings. In particular, I will talk about how teachers can co-create topics with their students and offer low-stakes, cumulative reading, writing, and research assignments to support students' development as writers. These strategies not only intervene in students' unproductive relationships to their writings, but help students to more closely approximate the researching and writing processes of scholars.
Music, Memory, and Identity: Teaching Portuguese for Refugees in an International School in Brazil
Focused Discussion Adriana Silveira
My experience as a Portuguese teacher in an international school in São Paulo, Brazil, includes the use of songs as a didactic resource, not only for language skills development, but mainly to motivate students, promote interaction, and value each individual’s culture. Being one of the teachers in charge of coordinating a Community Service at school, oriented to the teaching of Portuguese for refugees (a pilot project organized by a group of teachers and High School students), I decided to design a program in which the learning of Portuguese is facilitated by the sharing of experiences on autobiographical memories involving songs. The background for this program is my research on Neuroscience and Education, focusing on the relations between Music, Memory, and Identity, due to the importance of music in our lives – in our mother tongue or in a second/ third language – in different ages, including moments of pleasant or tough life experiences. By valuing refugees´ culture, and interacting in an environment of shared experiences, we believe, the language acquisition, and more importantly, the integration to a new context, will be stimulated and facilitaded. This will be an important part of the project (still in the early stage), and an experimental research will be developed during the process. Refugee’s applications have been sent to us by AMIS – Morumbi´s Association for Social Integration, in São Paulo. We also have the support of ADUS, an important NGO in Brazil that assists refugees in their reintegration.
Stories in Teaching : Towards Becoming and Relationships in Context
Focused Discussion Robert Christopher Nellis
What is at stake in the stories we tell ourselves about and in our teaching? This session enquires into the stories one brings to their work, their debt and responsibility to context and personal history, and implications for spaces of pedagogical encounter. The work draws from arts-based approaches, poetic inquiry, and life writing.
