Project Objectives:
To co-design, with practicing Ann Arbor Public Schools teachers (henceforth “AAPS”), an interdisciplinary curriculum for elementary- and middle school-aged English Language Learners (henceforth “ELLs”) that is founded upon principles of culturally relevant pedagogy (henceforth “CRP”). To enact a teacher education model that supports teaching interns in enacting content area instruction for ELLs that is founded upon principles of CRP. To develop and implement the use of a performance-based assessment for teaching interns that measures their performance in the teaching of ELL students and in taking up the principles of CRP. To analyze data on intern learning and teaching practice gathered during the project in order to gauge interns' understandings to modify course learning experiences in order to better support future intern learning.
Project Achievements:
A basic premise of CRP is that teachers must learn about the communities, families, and students that they serve, in order to design and provide high quality instruction. With the support of Whittaker funds, in collaboration with AAPS teachers, we have written ESL curriculum for 4th – 8th grade students that focuses on academic reading and writing skills through project-based instruction. In the first summer, the curriculum focused on biology and students studied and wrote about rescued raptors at Leslie Science Center. In the second summer, students studied art and identity and participated in integrated arts and literacy work at the University of Michigan Art Museum. Further, we have integrated new structures for partnering with families into the summer ESL endorsement program. We modified Educ 594 Education in a Multilingual Society to include family meetings, home visits, family homework and family field trips. Thus, our interns have had rich experiences learning to partner with families of ELL children in the summer program. In further grant activity, we met with an outside consultant and modified Educ 595 Second Language Assessment. This provided an authentic context in which interns learned to assess ELL student learning and to use assessment data to impact future instruction. Again, this has impacted our teaching directly as we have built practical opportunities for conducting assessment during the coursework that enriches interns' field experience with students. In addition, we have conducted research that has identified areas of challenge as interns’ grow their understandings of culturally responsive teaching practice. Our findings impacted the course design in the second year of implementation and, while we are still analyzing this data, appear to have improved our teaching practice.
Continuation:
We will continue to coordinate a summer ESL program at Scarlett Middle School in which our graduate student interns will complete their ESL field requirement. During the last two years, we used the CRLT-provided Whitaker funding to support planning for this program. As the program continues, we have now created structures where planning for the summer program is integrated into two courses taught by Khasnabis and Reischl. During these courses, we work with interns to identify methods for teaching culturally responsive pedagogy for ELLs, to plan the actual summer program curriculum, and to assess student learning on an ongoing basis during the summer. Thus, the project has proven sustainable and will continue past the initial grant period. In addition, we are submitting a Stage 2 grant proposal to extend the project and create new opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students that were stimulated by the success of our initial project.
Dissemination:
Our research aimed to identify the degree to which 3 sources of intern assessment data revealed patterns in interns’ understandings about and enactment of culturally responsive instruction. Specifically, we sought to determine the ways in which interns’ understandings about culturally responsive instruction align with their teaching practices. We conducted a close comparative case study of three interns where we analyzed results of their teaching performance assessments as well as video records of practice that recorded their teaching. We wrote and presented a conference paper titled, “A Study of Alignment: Understandings about Culturally Responsive Instruction and Teaching Practices of Beginning ESL Teachers,” which we presented at the Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment conference in April 2013. We will also be presenting our findings at a UM School of Education colloquium in October 2013. We are currently revising this paper and will submit it to a peer-reviewed journal within the next 3 months. In addition, in our Whittaker II proposal, we are seeking funds to write a professional text focused on project-based ESL instruction to be used in our coursework and to support the work of other ESL professionals.
Advice to your Colleagues:
Our study found that interns made enormous strides in their understandings about culturally responsive teaching, specifically with regard to understanding its rationale as well as the need for teachers describe their own lives from cultural perspectives. However, it was more challenging for interns to enact culturally responsive teaching. We found that it is possible for teacher educators to jump-start this process by engaging interns in a series of approximations that lead to a greater sense of understanding and also efficacy in enacting culturally responsive practices. Briefly, first, we recommend that teacher educators provide opportunities for interns to see CRP in action before enacting it. Next, we recommend that interns receive support for taking up CRP practices incrementally; and finally, we recommend that interns themselves participate in the design of the curriculum that is intended to be culturally responsive.
