Browsing by Subject "Culturally relevant pedagogy"
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Item Culturally relevant pedagogy in multicultural teacher education: a paradoxical objective(2014-06) Smith, CheldaWidespread under-representation of teacher candidates of color in schools, set against the backdrop of a rapidly increasingly diverse student body, has resulted in a national effort to diversify the teaching force. Additionally, national accrediting agencies have charged teacher education programs (TEPs) with the responsibility of preparing all teachers to meet the needs of all students. However, much of the research on multicultural teacher education focuses on White pre-service teachers and their assumed cultural incompetency. One popular approach to addressing the cultural disparities in classrooms is developing teachers as culturally relevant pedagogues who are able to develop and maintain cultural competency, critical consciousness, and academic proficiency with traditionally marginalized populations. Empirical research explicating the preparedness of faculty to do such work is lacking. Moreover, the experiences of pre-service teacher candidates of color (TCCs) are under-explored. This study seeks to explore how one teacher education program worked to develop culturally relevant TCCs. It explicates how TCCs enacted resistance to specific pedagogy, curriculums and content, but also the ways they negotiated engagement in multicultural education courses. Additionally, the study illuminates effective pedagogies employed by a teacher educator to facilitate transformations of consciousness that led to empowerment. Broadly, this project responds to gaps in education research regarding the academic and sociocultural experiences of TCCs and the salience of culturally relevant pedagogy in higher education.Item Out-of-School Learning: An Exploration of Children’s and Teachers’ Perspectives(2015-12) Felber-Smith, AbigailIn this study I argue that an important narrative is all but missing from the discourses around school-community relationships; that is, children’s perspectives are rarely considered. This project—a grounded theory case study—seeks (at least in part) to fill this gap by exploring what can be learned as students assume the agency for teaching practitioners about their out-of-school learning experiences via a photovoice project, referred to in the study as the Community Exploration Project (CEP). I used theories of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and Authentic Pedagogy (Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1996) along with research on the Funds of Knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), developmental assets (Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000) and social capital (Coleman, 1988) as conceptual tools. In addition, I applied Weick’s (e.g., Weick & Sutcliffe, 2005) notion of sensemaking in analyzing how teachers and students interpreted new learning from the CEP. For the CEP fifth grade students collected photographs of their communities around a series of prompts (e.g., Where do you learn in your community? What do you learn?). They then had opportunities to share their work (to varying degrees) with their teachers and peers. Data collection primarily included student and teacher interviews before and after the CEP, classroom and school observations, and student photographs and captions. Data analysis led to an emerging theory of school-community relationships (as mediated by children). All participants to varying degrees valued the CEP experience; many described new learning from the project. What emerged, however, is that at least in this case new information was filtered through existing mental models, stereotypes, and personal experiences, which in some cases prompted additional reflection, but in others seemed to constrain the sensemaking process.Item Schooling culturally relevant pedagogy: one story about tension and transformation(2013-05) Mason, Ann MogushThe need for multifaceted analyses of the relationship between how the United States acknowledges racism and how schooling can be structured to mitigate its negative impacts has never been greater, especially given the rising and often simplistic attention to the racial “achievement gap.” In suburban, elite Pioneer City, a series of initiatives I refer to as “the transformation” aimed to eliminate the racial achievement gap in that school district through simultaneous efforts to redistribute students from a racially and economically isolated elementary school and to train all district staff in a particular brand of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP; Ladson-Billings, 1995). In this yearlong study, I used critical ethnographic methods to explore some tensions between a goal of systemic change and the reproductive forces at play in schools. My findings complicate preexisting ways of theorizing how CRP can be part of practical efforts to transform schooling and they identify new possibilities for CRP as a way to reenvision teaching and teacher education toward deep and enduring change.Item Teacher experience, learning, and change: an investigation of the effects of long-term professional development.(2012-03) Coffino, Kara LeeAs US public schools become increasingly diverse and teachers are expected to teach across cultural differences, teacher educators must consider how different professional development models shape teacher learning and practice. This study explores how a cohort of 55 P-12 teachers experienced and perceived long-term professional development focused on literacy instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners. Specifically, it examines characteristics of the process of change for the collective case of participants during their participation in three literacy courses facilitated on-site in the district. The study also provides a close look at the experiences of four upper elementary teachers throughout coursework and in the semester following their completion of the final course. Using grounded theory and symbolic interactionism as a methodological framework, the study utilized and explored data from a three-year professional development program enacted through a partnership between a rural school district and a major university. Data collection tools include surveys, reflections, course artifacts, focus groups, observations, interviews, fieldnotes, and questionnaires. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method associated with grounded theory research to determine categories of interest and inductively generate theory. The impact of coursework can lead to small or significant changes in mindset and practice. Study findings indicate that change happens both incrementally, as a result of on-going support and repeated exposures to ideas, as well as resulting from single, pivotal moments. Course design, duration, and structure were key factors in supporting teacher change.