A subcategory of computer-assisted instruction (CAI), games have additional attributes such as motivation, reward, interactivity, score, and challenge. This study used a quasi-experimental design to determine if previous findings generalize to non simulation-based game designs. Researchers observed significant improvement in the overall population for math skills in the non-game CAI control condition, but not in the game-based experimental condition. The study found no meaningful, significant...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Mathematics Skills, Computer Simulation, Quasiexperimental Design,...
Every school that attempts to integrate technology into its curriculum knows that this effort consumes dollars in the school budget and hours of teacher time. School leaders invest in these resources because they believe that technology can help address meaningful learning problems. Yet, in many cases, their beliefs about the potential of technology are primarily supported by anecdotal evidence. The authors believe that schools should do a better job of providing rigorous research that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Problems, Technology Integration, Educational Technology, Teacher Educators,...
Evidence to validate the use of fixed-time (FT) reinforcer delivery (i.e., noncontingent reinforcement) with typically developing populations has been relatively rare in the behavioral literature. In those studies that have provided validation, reinforcer delivery schedules appeared to be prohibitively dense for sustained implementation of procedures. This study demonstrated the efficacy of using FT reinforcer delivery to reduce off-task behavior of 2 typically developing third graders using a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Behavior Problems, Reinforcement, Grade 3, Developmental Disabilities, Program...
In this article, the authors present a case study of preservice teachers engaged in service-learning in an after-school program while concurrently enrolled in science and language arts methods courses. Two interdisciplinary education faculty worked collaboratively to connect language arts and science methods content with service-learning experiences. Preservice teachers provided a service to elementary school students by developing and teaching integrated, inquiry-based lessons. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teachers, Methods Courses, Language Arts, After School Programs, Service...
Much has been written about the value of teacher research for inservice teachers. Despite the existence of several studies affirming these words, studies that richly describe how student teachers learn to do teacher research and then investigate the impact of inquiry on student teachers and teacher educators, particularly in culturally and linguistically diverse settings are rare. The study described in this article provides a description of two models of preservice inquiry and an analysis of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Teachers, Student Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Educators, English Instruction,...
In the United States in the last few years, a considerable amount of attention has been given to literacy programs as a way to close the academic gap between English-only (EO) students and English language learners (ELL). Teacher education programs around the country have been dealing with issues of academic inequity for some time. There are no recipes for effective teacher education programs. Classroom inquiry, however, has been identified as a useful approach that assists teacher candidates...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Student Needs, Teacher Education Programs, Second...
In Single Subject preservice programs across the U.S., literacy professors are coping with the demands of preparing their candidates to teach reading and writing across the content areas. The professors are challenged to establish a credible rationale for why teachers in content areas such as physical education, art, and music should be required to take a course in content literacy. While many candidates wonder why they must take a course in reading, many professors wonder how that course can...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Literacy Education, Methods Courses, Secondary School Teachers, Reading Skills,...
Students and teachers at Hand Middle School in Columbia, South Carolina, were in the midst of a two-year, comprehensive renovation and construction project in which some sections of their 75-year-old, historic building were being renovated and new sections added. When parts of the school were boarded up and oversized machinery first moved onto campus, approximately half of the students moved into portables. Classrooms and other academic areas were closed, including the school's media center,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Resources Centers, Media Specialists, Middle School Students, Middle School...
The goal of the middle school organization is to create a learning environment that matches the developmental abilities and needs of young adolescents. This research attempts to operationalize that goal by integrating reading and English classes in large urban middle schools. The Student Team Reading and Writing (STRW) program reconfigured instruction to actively engage students in learning. The program used cooperative learning processes to take advantage of the cognitive, social, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Reading Comprehension, Cooperative Learning, Learning Processes, Teaching Methods,...
Eisner, Gardner, and others have argued that the arts should be better integrated into the K-12 curriculum. In this study we examine three high school senior boys who, as part of a unit of instruction on identity, each produced a mask through which he artistically expressed his sense of self. Using a sociocultural framework based in the work of Vygotsky, we analyzed the boys' composition of their masks in terms of their goals for working on the project, the material and psychological tools they...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Literacy Education, Males, High School Seniors, Art Products, English Instruction,...
An analysis of English/language arts standards development in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the late 1990s and early 2000s shows a process of compromise between neoliberal and neoconservative factions involved in promoting and writing standards, with the voices of educators conspicuously absent. Interpretive and critical discourse analyses of versions of English/language arts standards at the high school level and of public documents related to standards promotion reveal initial conflicts between...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Arts, State Standards, Political Attitudes, Conflict, Politics of Education,...
Many new teachers in urban settings understand that the ways in which they are required to teach stem from local implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), entitled "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB). Unfortunately, they find the legislation confusing, the implementations baffling, and the effect on the practicing and pre-service teachers disheartening. This study presents the thoughts, feelings, and understandings of new teachers in Language Arts (LA) classrooms...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Urban Teaching, Elementary Secondary Education, Federal Legislation,...
In this article, the authors explore the ways in which a selection of student teachers from two universities in Canada expressed their feelings of preparedness to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. The student teachers had experienced various approaches to literacy teaching as they progressed through their teacher education program. These student teachers had been in either cohort-based programs or a course-based program. The authors present the student teachers' voices, taken from...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Preservice Teachers, Literacy, Teacher Education...
The author teaches a high school program called Commercial Foods which is designed to prepare students for careers in the food service industry. The majority of students are special needs youth who generally will not go on to postsecondary education, so her emphasis is placed on workforce development and life skills. Students have resource classes; they do not have many academic classes in the areas such as the core four: science, math, social studies and English. In this article, the author...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Food Service, Vocational Education, High School Students, Special Needs Students,...
A first glance into the classroom where Phillip Tillery teaches may leave visitors overwhelmed due by the array of high-tech equipment wired and ready for access by his students. Some students are working independently at computers while others are immersed in teams at a green screen and motion-capture setup. Various computer programs with myriad graphic images are visibly running while some students are recording music or their own voices. The initial impression is one of a classroom of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Language Arts, Language Skills, Story Telling, Technology Integration,...
This article presents student experiences within an 11th- and 12th-grade language arts course as a lens to examine how language arts teachers might embed multimodality, an awareness of student learning through not only print and verbal language activities but also visual, kinesthetic, aural, and spatial activities, in their courses as a means of developing stronger critical thinking. Examining these students' responses to the course highlights a need to rethink a tacit hierarchy within language...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Arts, Grade 11, Grade 12, Critical Thinking, Teaching Methods, Learning...
This article integrates findings from earlier research (Roessingh & Kover, 2003; Roessingh, Kover, & Watt, 2005) linking distinct patterns of achievement for diverse age-on-arrival (AOA) cohorts of ESL learners on the grade 12 Alberta English language arts (ELA) examination to their vocabulary and reading comprehension scores on a standardized measure over time. Recasting the data and conducting simple statistical procedures can offer further insights into the features of cognitive...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Discourse, Reading Comprehension, Foreign Countries, Grade 12, Vocabulary...
This study examined the extent to which ethnic-based differences exist in teacher ratings of African American students and White students on the language and literacy domain of a curriculum-embedded performance assessment for students in grade 1. It extended previous research on performance assessments to focus on issues related to equity in teacher ratings on a curriculum-embedded performance assessment of young children in an urban school district. The major findings of this study are...
Topics: ERIC Archive, African American Students, Urban Schools, Performance Based Assessment, Academic...
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics calls for students to see relationships and connections with mathematics (2000). This study examined the influences on eight pre-service elementary school teachers' beliefs and knowledge of teaching mathematics through literature. The semester long project involved both the language arts and elementary mathematics methods courses, and involved the designing and implementation of mathematics lessons based around a young adult novel. Through...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Interdisciplinary Approach, Language Arts, Preservice Teacher Education, Methods...
Burnout is a concept which was born in the mid 1970s in the USA and with astonishing rapidity has become a catch-word to convey an almost unlimited variety of social and personal problems afflicting workers. It describes a specific dysfunction among helping professionals, believed to be the result of excessive demands made upon their energy, strength and resources. Although a clearly agreed upon definition does not exist, burnout is characterized by the inability to be sufficiently concerned...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Burnout, Secondary School Teachers, Depression (Psychology), Self Efficacy,...
In the fall of 2005 the principal and teachers at Knickerbacker Middle School (KMS) were worried. KMS was a "School in Good Standing" but had not hit federal or state benchmarks because of low subgroup scores on the English Language Arts (ELA) test--especially scores received by economically disadvantaged students, about half of this urban school's student population. KMS would be identified as a "School in Need of Improvement" in 2006 if the ELA scores did not improve. This...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Economically Disadvantaged, Middle Schools, Middle School Students,...
This exploratory analysis examines the text selection practices of four pairs of pre-service and in-service teachers during a course on content area reading instruction in English language arts. Each pair independently negotiated responsibilities for selecting the texts used in a series of four lessons. Results of this analysis identify several factors in the process of text selection that may influence the kinds of texts teachers choose for their classrooms, including teacher knowledge of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Characteristics, Content Area Reading, Reading Instruction, Language Arts,...
Rhetoric is a discipline with a long and storied past with its roots in the seminal moments of democracy. In the incipient democratic societies of ancient Greece, rhetoric grew out of the new need to persuade large groups of people to come to a consensus. Public speaking, though featured prominently in many states' standards, is rarely a required part of any high schools' curriculum. Standards include it as part of Language Arts, but the art goes largely ignored to allow for more time to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Speaking, Rhetoric, Democracy, Standardized Tests, Foreign Countries, Civil...
With increased emphasis on test-based accountability measures has come increased interest in examining the impact of technology use on students' academic performance. However, few empirical investigations exist that address this issue. This paper (1) examines previous research on the relationship between student achievement and technology use, (2) discusses the methodological and psychometric issues that arise when investigating such issues, and (3) presents a multilevel regression analysis of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Arts, Grade 4, Correlation, Research Methodology, Psychometrics, Academic...
This article describes a case study that explored relationships between theory and practice in a teacher candidate's learning to teach. Using a personal, narrative style, it explores one teacher-candidate's reflections about her learning with a Grade 4 student. The study was part of an innovative, inquiry-driven collaboration between school and university, and occurred during a course about teaching language and literacy in the early years (kindergarten to Grade 4) at the University of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Arts, Theory Practice Relationship, Foreign Countries, Grade 4, Preservice...
Research has demonstrated that poor readers may demonstrate a variety of language deficits (e.g., Adams, 1990), and children with language difficulties have difficulty reading later in life (e.g., Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999). Teachers are likely to be faced with the challenge of implementing programming to meet the needs of children with varying language needs. Therefore, teachers' knowledge of language is essential (e.g., Moats, 1994; Wilson, 1999). This study investigated which...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Characteristics, Preservice Teachers, Phonology, Semantics, Syntax, Oral...
A goal of this double issue of English Teaching: Practice and Critique is to collectively consider what we mean when we talk about knowledge about language. How have our understandings changed over time? What are the implications of these new understandings for pedagogy in the field of language teaching? These are necessary and important questions. This article, however, does not attempt to address them. Rather, it focuses on the power of standardized assessment in language education and on its...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Writing Evaluation, Writing Tests, High School Students, Standardized Tests, Foreign...
This article assumes the value of a scientifically grounded, rhetorically focused, professionally supported, and publicly embraced grammar within the public schools and examines the past century of practices within the United States from that perspective. It describes a brief renaissance in the 50's and early 60's, inspired largely by the structural grammar of C. C Fries, and examines the confluence of forces that brought that budding change to an abrupt close--the ascendancy of generative...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching (Occupation), Grammar, Structural Grammar, Generative Grammar, Language...
In this interview, Gunther Kress proposes how English needs to expand beyond its traditional linguistic frame into a semiotic frame which recognizes not only the visual but other modes. He argues also for a shift to forms of production in which the acts of reflection and meaning-making are fused, rather than separating the production of new meanings from a retrospective critical process. These and other changes, he suggests, will make possible new, more profound understandings of language, as...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Semiotics, English Instruction, Language Usage, English Curriculum, Language Arts,...
In this article we examine student performance on mandated tests in grades 3, 4, and 5 in one state. We focus on this interval, which w e term "the fourth grade window," based on our hypothesis that students in grade four are particularly vulnerable to decrements in achievement. The national focus on the third grade as the critical benchmark in student performance has distracted researchers and policy makers from recognition that the fourth grade transition is essential to our...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, Intervals, Poverty, Academic Achievement, Norm Referenced...
English language arts, often conceived of as reading, writing, speaking, listening, performing, and thinking, are shifting in response to emerging technologies and the new literacies they inspire. Emerging technologies and the new literacies they enable provide new modes and media for communication and, likewise, create new opportunities and challenges for teaching the English language arts today. Digital video is one particularly dynamic technology with compelling implications for the English...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Story Telling, Video Technology, Technology Uses in Education, Writing (Composition),...
The shift from analog to digital video transformed the system from a unidirectional analog broadcast to a two-way conversation, resulting in the birth of participatory media. Digital video offers new opportunities for teaching science, social studies, mathematics, and English language arts. The professional education associations for each content area are devoting extensive thought to ways digital video might be used to strengthen student learning. The affordances of digital video that appeal...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Photography, Language Arts, Social Studies, Professional Education, Teacher...
The purpose of this study was to determine how contributing to a class wiki affected the learning of preservice teachers enrolled in a language arts methods class. Participants included 37 preservice teachers enrolled in three sections of a field-based language arts methods class during two semesters. Data collection included online observations of the development of the wiki pages, students' reflections periodically posted in WebCT, final reflections, e-mail correspondence, interview...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teachers, Methods Courses, Language Arts, Preservice Teacher Education,...
In this inquiry, I examine the evidence of student learning in an elementary education language arts methods course. Students completed concepts maps that represented their understanding of effective writing instruction at the beginning end of the course. Eighty-one pairs of concepts maps were scored according to established methods. Students included 122% more concepts on their post-course concepts maps; links between concepts increased by 134%. I also analyze a typical student's beginning-...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Concept Mapping, Methods Courses, Language Arts, Concept Teaching, Teacher Education...
With few exceptions, accountability systems for programs for English language learners (ELLs) have focused on the achievement patterns of ELLs who are still considered "limited English proficient" and program evaluations have been unable to answer the question whether ELLs actually catch up with English proficient peers after attending a bilingual or English as a Second Language (ESL) program. Disaggregating data for former ELLs can therefore provide important information for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Language Arts, Academic Achievement, Second Language Learning, Accountability,...
This pilot study investigated the effects of allowing sixth-grade students in a rural south Georgia school to use stress balls during direct instruction and independent practice. Data from learning style inventories, surveys, journals, teacher observations, and formal assessments were collected for 29 sixth-grade students in a language arts class. Students were videotaped and observed for three weeks before the intervention and for seven weeks when they used the stress balls. The frequency of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cognitive Style, Student Attitudes, Writing Ability, Teaching Methods, Rural Schools,...
School districts write mission statements about creating citizens of the world, but more and more, they want teachers to become robotic hands who deliver education programs designed and shipped from sites outside of classrooms. If people want an educated citizenry, they need teachers who know how to think about their students' needs and write their own curriculum in community with others. When high school language arts teachers in Portland were asked by the Professional Development Committee--a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High School Students, Language Arts, Professional Development, Faculty Development,...
The Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools provide literacy-rich, summer experiences for both the K-12 children they serve and the servant-leader interns who serve as teachers. In this article, the author expands upon the scholarship of preparing teachers to be culturally responsive pedagogues of language arts instruction by illuminating components of the Freedom Schools' curriculum, teacher-activist preparation, and the servant-leader interns' perceptions of language arts. The preparation of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Language Arts, Culturally Relevant Education, Teacher...
This article offers three case studies of teachers who have been specially prepared to serve diverse students and examines their interpretations and instantiations of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)-driven language arts reform in "underperforming" schools, largely composed of Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs). Drawing on literature that focuses on unique barriers faced by equity-minded agents of change, teachers' experiences are examined through technical, political, and normative...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Second Language Learning, Educational Change, Accountability,...
Study in language, literature, and culture has long been a defining feature of education in the liberal arts. Speaking, reading, and writing have traditionally stood at the heart of education because the arts of language and the tools of literacy are key qualifications for full participation in social, political, economic, and cultural life. Today the hallmarks of a liberal education--communication, critical analysis, and creativity--are more important than ever as prerequisites for success in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Majors (Students), Cultural Literacy, Cultural Awareness, Academic Achievement,...
As teachers, an important part of planning curriculum is considering the relevance of what they teach their students. The author believes that project-based learning that integrates technology, language arts, and critical media literacy can be a powerful tool for learning. Not only does this kind of work connect students to the curriculum, it also connects them to their community by involving them directly in learning about local issues. The author decided, therefore, to focus her curriculum on...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Projects, Production Techniques, Active Learning, Media Literacy, Video...
Video is a powerful tool, and it can be used to motivate student achievement and learning. One of the greatest advantages in getting students to work with digital media is that they can retake and re-edit a project until they are satisfied with it. Students become very occupied in applying what they have learned by producing mini-documentaries, commercials, public service announcements, news stories, and informational presentations. Students learn to succeed by learning from other students'...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Scoring Rubrics, Documentaries, Public Service, Video Technology, Hawaiians, Student...
This manuscript describes the efforts of several instructors who incorporated videoconferencing in their teacher education courses at two large universities in the southeastern United States. Professors preparing teachers to teach elementary and middle school examined their interactive videoconference experiences linking preservice teachers with students in real classroom settings. Three projects are described. The first project involved "teleobservation" whereby professors co-taught...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Preservice Teachers, Education Courses, Middle Schools,...
School districts throughout the country are considering how to best integrate technology into instruction. There has been a movement in many districts toward one-to-one laptop instruction, in which all students are provided a laptop computer, but there is concern that these programs may not yield sufficiently improved learning outcomes to justify their substantial cost. And while there has been a great deal of research on the use of laptops in schools, there is little quantitative research...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Writing Strategies, Academic Achievement, Statistical Analysis, Grade 5, Literacy,...
In this analytic conceptual essay, and from her standpoint as an African American woman teacher/researcher, the author presents a rich description of a personal sensibility and promising professional practice for literacy educators and those who prepare Reading/English/Language Arts teacher candidates for service among students who are historically marginalized and underserved by schools and communities. First, the author examines some of the literature on the racial and gender identities of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Popular Culture, Ideology, Gender Bias, Teaching Methods, Racial Bias, Language...
The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of teaching by utilizing cartoons on student success in the Turkish language courses in primary school secondary level students. Working group of the study consists of 54 students studying in primary state school in Sakarya province Hendek district. In the study, the "Rule and Concept Test on Sound Knowledge" was used with Cronbach alpha value of 0.72. Mann Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Test were used in analysis of the data....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cartoons, Content Analysis, Test Construction, Teaching Methods, Foreign Countries,...
This article presents the authors' critique of lessons proposed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). The authors initiate a discussion about content that they hope will play out in schoolhouses and statehouses across the country. They take on a different task: they present a handful of lesson ideas from P21 that could enhance studies of academic content. They present examples of content-rich education in which they hope P21 will use as models to revise its current skills maps....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Public Schools, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary...
Background: Elementary classroom teachers must overcome a number of instructional barriers, including time constraints and professional preparation, if they are to deliver effective health education and enhance health literacy among youth. Purpose: This study examined the direct impact of a long-term professional development program on integrating health education and literacy instruction on third-grade teachers' confidence and practice and its indirect effect on student learning. Methods: Data...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Comprehensive School Health Education, Program Effectiveness, Literacy, Professional...
To help underscore the importance of giving the arts an integral place in the literacy continuum of secondary school language arts, I immersed myself in a careful reading of twenty teacher candidates' transactions in the art of body biography for novel study for intermediate students (grades 7-10). Coming together in groups of five, the teacher candidates used life-size body outlines drawn on oversized paper, along with a myriad of found and stocked materials, such as fabric, pens, and paint,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teachers, Methods Courses, Preservice Teacher Education, Adolescent...
Because of the global status of the English language, and the cultural and linguistic qualities of English literature, English teachers are at the fulcrum of educational debate. As global curriculum expands and refocuses the challenges and possibilities of multicultural education, teachers, schools, and communities are challenged to reexamine the traditional English curriculum and articulate rationales for change. For this study I interviewed 15 teachers from different schools and school boards...
Topics: ERIC Archive, English Literature, English Curriculum, Multicultural Education, Linguistics,...