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Teachers Without Borders

The School Leader as Bricoleur: Developing Scholarly Practitioners for Our Schools - 0 views

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bricoleur pd practitioner inquiry professional identity leadership scholarship

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 21 Aug 09 - No Cached
  • Bricoleur, as presented herein, is used metaphorically and in a postmodern or post-formal (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1999) sense to represent methods, practices and cultural materials that the scholar-practitioner uses as s/he interacts in the complex web of relationships among knowledge, inquiry, practice, and learning
  • The result of the bricoleur’s methods of practice is a bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), a construction that arises from the reflexive interactions of different types of knowledge, mediating artifacts, and methods in relation to the social contexts, cultural patterns, and social actions and activities that comprise the daily events of the school.
  • First, the construct of scholar-practitioner leadership is examined, providing a background for exploring the intricacies of scholarly practice through the metaphor of bricoleur.
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  • alternative epistemology of inquiry as practice, wherein the leader as scholar and his or her leadership practice are inseparable from scholarly and critically oriented inquiry.
  • not that of an aloof official imposing, authoritatively, educational ends and methods. He will be on the lookout for ways to give others intellectual and moral responsibilities, not just for ways of setting tasks for them . . .
  • More recently, efforts have been undertaken to reexamine the meaning of “scholar” within the context of educational leadership2 preparation and practice (Anderson & Jones, 2000; Jenlink, 2001b, 2001c; Riehl, et al., 2000). Preparing educational leaders as scholars invests largely in understanding a “scholar” as someone who values inquiry.
  • Relatedly, scholar-practitioner leadership, as a construct, represents a complex set of relationships among inquiry, knowledge, practice, and theory. These relationships have a critical intersect of the core value for and understanding of a “new scholarship”.3 This “new scholarship” defines practice, knowledge, and inquiry within the practice-based world of teachers and administrators, acknowledging the value of “local theory” and “knowledge-of-practice.” Also shaping the conceptual and practical meaning of scholar-practitioner leadership is a dimension of criticality that transforms leadership practice into leadership praxis.
  • The criticalist “attempts to use his/her work as a form of social or cultural criticism” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994, p. 139). As a criticalist, the school leader engages in his or her work through leadership praxis5 guided by inquiry that is reflective, ethical, critical, and intentional. Praxis-oriented scholarly practice refers to “activities that combat dominance and move toward self-organization and that push toward thoroughgoing change in the practices of . . . the social formation” (Benson, 1983, p. 338).
  • A central element in scholar-practitioner leadership is criticality, which, depending on the degree of criticality, transforms inquiry, knowledge and practice.
  • The ideal degree of scholarly practice for school leaders seeking to create democratic learning communities would exist at a point along the primary axis, moving outward to a level of inquiry and/or knowledge-of-practice.
  • In contrast, learning to lead for the scholar-practitioner is concerned less with transitional orientations of knowledge and inquiry and more with engaging in a “new epistemology” of knowledge and practice articulated through the inquiry as praxis.
  • A critical leadership praxis is also concerned with inequity and injustice that surface within the curricula and instructional systems of schools, as well as asymmetrical power relations that all too shape student and teacher identities along ideological lines that work to control and disadvantage some while advantaging others
  • leadership praxis is emancipatory, “grounded in a critical consciousness, which will manifest itself in action that will always be becoming emancipatory” (Grundy, 1993, p. 174). For the educational leader as criticalist, the question is not “Am I emancipated and how can I emancipate my staff?” but rather ”How can I engage in forms of critical, self-reflective and collaborative work which will create conditions so that the people with whom I work can come to control their knowledge and practice?” (p. 174).
  • The word bricoleur and its cognate bricolage come from bricole, a corruption of which is the English term brick wall. The root word of bricole means rebound. Bricoleur, as Levi-Strauss (1966) has noted, is “used with references to some extraneous movement” (p. 16)—movement in physical terms such as a ball rebounding off a wall, in sociological terms the social interaction in activities, and in psychological terms the interacting and cognitive rebounding of ideas, concepts, and feelings experienced as one individual works in relationship to others.
  • Noting the association with Baudelaire, bricolage, as Norris (1987) suggests, is a French word that refers to the “ad hoc assemblage of miscellaneous materials and signifying structures” (Levi-Strauss, quoted in Norris, p. 134). The bricoleur works in association with his or her culture and the material practices and artifacts available in the culture. Spivak (1976) says “the bricoleur makes do with things that were meant perhaps for other ends” (p. xix). Weinstein and Weinstein (1991) explain the bricoleur as a person who is “practical and gets things done” (p. 161). As Norris (1987) notes of the bricoleur, s/he is “happy to exploit the most diverse assortment of mythemes—or random combinartory elements” (p. 134).
Teachers Without Borders

Collaborate Smart: Practical Strategies and Tools for Educators | CEC Store - 1 views

www.cec.sped.org/...ProductDetail.cfm

educators collaboration teacher development book co-teaching

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Teachers Without Borders on 23 Mar 12
     
    From Susan M. Hentz, noted educational speaker and author of Teach Smart, and Phyllis M. Jones, a teacher administrator and educator; Collaborate Smart: Practical Strategies and Tools for Educators is a masterful tool for improving co-teaching and collaborative communication among members of teaching teams. The evolving process of collaboration in the classroom involves negotiation, re-negotiation, respect, trust, and the creation of a level of comfort in the partnership that allows for risk taking in thinking and practice, which yields cohesive instruction that best impacts a student's learning experience. A "how-to" guide for every educator, Collaborate Smart enhances your resources for instruction through its fully developed, comprehensive yet practical information.
Emily Vickery

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education - 0 views

www.slpbe.org

pd virtualworlds

shared by Emily Vickery on 05 Jan 09 - Cached
  • Emily Vickery on 05 Jan 09
     
    From March 27th to March 29th, 2009 - the education community of Second Life will be hosting a 3 day conference on best practices in education. This conference will promote the best and brightest from the Second Life education community in various fields of practice including everything from demonstrations to hands on theory.
Teachers Without Borders

Publications: SRN LEADS - 0 views

www.srnleads.org/...nsdc.html

professional_development teacher professional development report teacher education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 13 Feb 09 - Cached
  • United States Is Substantially Behind Other Nations in Providing Teacher Professional Development That Improves Student Learning; Report Identifies Practices that Work
  • Every year, nine in 10 of the nation’s three million teachers participate in professional development designed to improve their content knowledge, transform their teaching, and help them respond to student needs. These activities, which can include workshops, study groups, mentoring, classroom observations, and numerous other formal and informal learning experiences, have mixed results in how they effect student achievement.
  • embedded in the work of collaborative professional learning teams that support ongoing improvements in teachers’ practice and student achievement.
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  • the type of support and on-the-job training most teachers receive is episodic, often fragmented, and disconnected from real problems of practice.
  • Teachers lack time and opportunities to view each other’s classrooms, learn from mentors, and work collaboratively,”
  • “The research tells us that teachers need to learn the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job. The good news is that we can learn from what some states and most high-performing nations are doing.”
  • U.S. teachers report little professional collaboration in designing curriculum and sharing practices, and the collaboration that occurs tends to be weak and not focused on strengthening teaching and learning.
  • Research shows that professional development should not be approached in isolation as the traditional “flavor of the month” or one-shot workshop but go hand-in-hand with school improvement efforts
  • Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad
  • Teachers are not getting adequate training in teaching special education or limited English proficient students
  • United States is far behind in providing public school teachers with opportunities to participate in extended learning opportunities and productive collaborative communities. Those opportunities allow teachers to work together on instructional planning, learn from one another through mentoring or peer coaching, conduct research on the outcomes of classroom practices, and collectively guide curriculum, assessment, and professional learning decisions
  • other nations provide: • Extensive opportunities for formal and informal in-service development. • Time for professional learning and collaboration built into teachers’ work hours. • Professional development activities that are ongoing and embedded in teachers’ contexts. • School governance structures that support the involvement of teachers in decisions regarding curriculum and instructional practice. • Teacher induction programs for new teachers that include release time for new teachers and mentors, and formal training of mentors.
  • U.S. teachers average far more net teaching time in direct contact with students (1,080 hours per year) than any other OECD nation
Teachers Without Borders

middleclassgirl.com » The concept - 0 views

middleclassgirl.com/?p=73

virtualclassroomproject VCP sleducation second life

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 17 Feb 09 - Cached
  • One of the reasons I think I became a little disengaged at the end of last year with Second Life was because I had reached a ‘now what?’ stage. Having been part of the community of learners on the Islands of Jokaydia was great, but personally I felt I had plateaued in what I could offer or do.
  • ut what I began to obsess over was this: if anyone came to my plot .. why would they? Why would they come into Second Life merely to click on a few urls that would take them to the internet? To me, that wasn;t a good use of the platform.
  • How could Second Life compliment some of the traditional practices that exist at the moment? These are characteristics of the space I would like to create: Low skill level required for a new user or visitor to the space. Basic knowledge of moving, collecting and navigation required. One of the biggest obstacles is *time* - I don’t want visitors first experiences to be one of frustration or pitched at a level that they won’t be able to enjoy the experience. I want it to be ‘interactive’ by which, of course, I don’t want it to be merely a space where someone clicks on a scripted board merely to be taken to a 2D URL. Documents may be a feature, not necessarily the primary feature of the build. I would hope the space could interactive for whomever visited it. Invite collaboration, strategizing and provide points for debate.
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  • However, considering the knowledge that I have on Australian History and the fact that this is one area of history that students find ‘boring’, I have decided to make this a space for Australian History. Particularly focusing on Frontier Life.
  • My idea is that when someone first visited the site they would be faced with a simulation of the Australian bush either as it appeared pre settlement. Uncleared. Perhaps with evidence of Indigenous inhabitants. Features of the natural Landscape.
  • Once armed with some of this foreknowledge, visitors would be invited to clear the land themselves taking into account the topography, geography and physical elements of the landscape. Provided with a ‘box’ visitors would be invited to build their own hut, or settlement. Here is where the strategizing and foreknowledge will come into play. Some of the objects provided in the box will not be historically accurate, so first the visitor will have to discern which objects are a)historically representative of the period and b) whether those objects are going to be of any use.
  • I think that there is room for, later on, for another ‘box of stuff’ which would include material and cultural objects of indigenous people. What aspects of their lives changed? What was the impact of European settlement on their land?
  • When people change or clear the land (if this is possible) they will do it differently. If anything, apart from being immersed in the new learning space, we want to show that historical inquiry is often open ended – sometimes there is not one neat story that has all of the loose ends tied up.
Teachers Without Borders

Writing and practitioner inquiry: Thinking relationally - 0 views

education.waikato.ac.nz/...view.php

inquiry pd practitioner inquiry professional communities professional development teacher professional development

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 25 Mar 08 - Cached
  • Reid envisions teachers as reflexive “inquirers into professional practice who question their routine practices and assumptions”.
  • His vision appreciates the value and possibilities of practitioner inquiry for enhancing an individual’s knowledge and professional learning, while also generating knowledge and capacity for professional communities.
  • Teachers Without Borders on 25 Mar 08
     
    The value of practitioner inquiry as contribution to individual knowledge and as a generator of knowledge for professional communities.
  • Teachers Without Borders on 25 Mar 08
     
    Graham Parr (Monash University, Australia)
Teachers Without Borders

Team Up for 21st Century Teaching and Learning - 0 views

www.ascd.org/...619-carroll-abstract.aspx

practitioner inquiry communities of practice teacher development teachers research

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Teachers Without Borders on 23 Jun 11
     
    What Research and Practice Reveal About Professional Learning
Teachers Without Borders

open thinking » Visualizing Open/Networked Teaching - 0 views

educationaltechnology.ca/...1335

communities of practice practitioner inquiry professional identity teacher education pd

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 19 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Open teaching is described as the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social. Open teachers are advocates of a free and open knowledge society, and support their students in the critical consumption, production, connection, and synthesis of knowledge through the shared development of learning networks.
  • Through the guiding principles of open teaching, students are able to gain requisite skills, self-efficacy, and knowledge as they develop their own personal learning networks (PLNs). Educators guide the process using their own PLNs, with a variety of teaching/learning experiences, and via (distributed) scaffolding.
  • This metaphor projects the role of teacher as one who “knows the terrain”, helps to guide students around obstacles, but who is also led by student interests, objectives, and knowledge. The terrain in this case consists of the development of media literacy (critique & awareness), social networks (connections), and connected/connective knowledge
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