Allison Ward Parsons

The ABCs of Student Engagement

Teachers can increase all-important student engagement by being aware of its affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions.

Barriers to Change: Findings From Three Literacy Professional Learning Initiatives

ABSTRACT In this article, we describe lessons learned from three separate literacy professional learning initiatives that took place in elementary schools in three different locations: high-poverty urban, medium-poverty rural, and low-poverty suburban. The professional learning initiatives were also diverse in scope: one was a three-year, school-wide partnership; one was a multiyear collaboration with two teachers; and one was intensive coaching of an individual teacher. Each initiative was (a) informed by previous research on literacy professional learning, (b) grounded in social constructivism, and (c) a design-based research study. Through collaborative analysis of data, we discovered shared barriers that impeded each of the initiatives from promoting substantial change. We suggest ways to improve literacy professional learning to better increase the odds of success and lasting change in literacy instruction.

Teachers’ Instructional Adaptations: A Research Synthesis:

Researchers recognize adaptive teaching as a component of effective instruction. Educators adjust their teaching according to the social, linguistic, cultural, and instructional needs of their students. While there is consensus that effective teachers are adaptive, there is no consensus on the language to describe this phenomenon. Diverse terminology surrounding the same phenomenon impedes effective communication and comprehensive understanding of this important aspect of classroom instruction. Moreover, researchers have studied this phenomenon using a variety of methods, in various disciplines, with different results. Therefore, our research team completed a comprehensive literature review of the empirical research studying adaptability across academic disciplines. In this article, we describe how adaptive teaching is defined and conceptualized in the education research literature from 1975 to 2014, the methods used to study instructional adaptations, and the results of these studies.

Sixth-grade students’ engagement in academic tasks

ABSTRACT Student engagement is important for teachers and researchers because it is associated with student achievement. Guided by self-determination theory, this year-long case study used observations and interviews to examine six students’ behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement in integrated literacy and social studies tasks. Task differences were rated according to the degree to which tasks were authentic, collaborative, challenging, student directed, and sustained. Results demonstrated that, overall, students were more engaged in tasks that include a higher degree of these elements. In particular, students reported that they were engaged in tasks that included collaboration, new learning, and teacher support.

Becoming a literacy specialist: Developing identities

ABSTRACT This paper describes findings from the first cohort of an ongoing longitudinal study investigating the impact of master’s coursework and related coaching experiences on in-service teachers’ coaching skill development leading to literacy specialist identity. The study follows literacy specialist candidates through coursework and into their first year post-graduation. Analysis suggests contextualized coaching experiences encourage literacy professional identity development. Participants in their first coaching course demonstrated pedagogical knowledge and provided partners with feedback and support, suggesting an emergent stage of identity development. Participants in their second course utilized targeted feedback, improved conversational flow, and knowledge of coaching practice and research, suggesting a novice stage of identity development. Post-graduate interviews revealed continued, job-embedded literacy professional identity development.

Upper Elementary Students’ Motivation to Read Fiction and Nonfiction

This research explores upper elementary students’ motivation to read fiction and nonfiction. Using expectancy-value theory, the researchers developed separate surveys to measure motivation to read fiction and nonfiction. Researchers administered surveys to 1,104 upper elementary students (grades 3–6) in multiple locations across the United States and found the instruments to be psychometrically sound. Results corroborate previous research demonstrating students’ declining motivation to read across grade levels; in particular, students’ value for reading was declining. This research also corroborates previous research findings that girls are more motivated than boys to read fiction. Researchers found insignificant gender differences between girls’ and boys’ motivations to read nonfiction, indicating a need to further investigate students’ motivation to read nonfiction. Implications for classroom application of survey results and the need to enhance students’ value for reading are discussed.

Study of Self: The Self as Designer in Online Teacher Education

Abstract In this article we describe our engagement in self-study as part of an examination of design-based research for education. We focus on graduate-level online teacher education as an example of how self-study provided a means of examining deeply our teaching and our roles as teacher and designer in the learning environment. We posit that online learning environments are particularly well suited for self-study to enhance design perspectives because the interactions between teacher and students are informed by personal context and mediated by technological tools. The graduate students in our courses were teacher leaders in literacy or mathematics who were learning how to support professional development for other teachers. Throughout our self-study research we found ourselves drawing upon our previous design research experiences, which aided our ability to engage in self-study: We were part of the classroom system, focusing on our roles within the teaching and learning process as designers of the online learning environment. Three key design principles resulted from our self-study process: focusing on systems of learning and teaching, designing pedagogical tools and products, and using iterative processes. Engaging in self-study enhanced our understanding and implementation of synchronous online instruction, particularly regarding our use of technological tools to enhance student learning and support learning communities.