Elizabeth Graue

The Answer Is Readiness- Now What Is the Question?

Although readiness is often posed as the answer in early childhood education, there is typically confusion about exactly what question this complex term responds to. In this article, I explore common uses of the term readiness, examine their theoretical and empirical problems, and suggest a more synthetic conception that merges attention to the child, the school, and the community. I argue that readiness is an ethical responsibility we have to children that encompasses coordinated systems of early care and education and receptive schools that are developmental, inclusive, and accountable to all.

The Wisdom of Class-Size Reduction

In this study, the authors explore the implementation of a statewide class-size reduction program in nine high-poverty schools. Through qualitative methods, they examined how schools used class-size reduction to change staffing patterns and instructional programs. Requiring changes in space allocation, class-size reduction was accomplished through attention to pupil:teacher ratio, with classes ranging from 15:1 to 30:2 team taught. Most partner classes used tag-team teaching, with one teacher leading and the other doing clerical work. Working without specific professional development to enhance teaching in smaller classes, it made sense that teachers continued to solo practice. Class-size reduction is both a programmatic and instructional reform, and as such, it requires specific professional development to promote change.

Evaluating Rigor in Qualitative Methodology and Research Dissemination

Despite previous and successful attempts to outline general criteria for rigor, researchers in special education have debated the application of rigor criteria, the significance or importance of small n research, the purpose of interpretivist approaches, and the generalizability of qualitative empirical results. Adding to these complications, the breadth of qualitative research methods makes a single set of universally applicable criteria difficult to identify and use. Based on input from qualitative researchers across the social sciences, we augment and expand the oft-cited criteria for rigor established in special education, thus broadening the potential application and contribution of qualitative research in the areas of disability and education. We identify exemplars from special education research and use these to illustrate ways qualitative research can push the field to strengthen the theoretical foundations of empirical work, as well as to acknowledge more forthrightly the roles of the researcher in the research endeavor.

Teaching And Learning In A Post-DAP World

Recently a school district colleague recounted a conversation with a young kindergarten teacher that had shaken her to her core. The kindergarten teacher (lets call her Ms. Post) said that nobody ...

The Synergy of Class Size Reduction and Classroom Quality.

A contextual approach to understanding class size reduction includes attention to both educational inputs and processes. Based on our study of a class size reduction program in Wisconsin we explore the following question: How do class size reduction and classroom quality interact to produce learning opportunities in early elementary classrooms? To address this question, we analyze data from 3 years of fieldwork in 27 classrooms in 9 schools implementing a class size reduction reform. Data generation included multiple ethnographic observations and interviews with teachers and principals, administration of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, document and artifact collection, and analyses of school‐level standardized test scores. We present multiple vignettes to illustrate that class size reduction provides opportunities that can be activated by organizing and implementing high‐quality classroom practices. We argue that high‐quality classrooms combined with class size reduction contexts create a synergy for learning.

The Relation of Research on Readiness to Research/Practice of Transitions

In the United States, transition has historically been seen as the bridge children cross when leaving home and entering formal schooling. Research prior to the 1990s studied transition by reporting and evaluating curriculum or program practices. Transitions were an individual event, experienced by a child and parents at the beginning of kindergarten. Individual schools or districts might design activities like an open house with the lyrical name of Kindergarten Roundup, but little was done systemically to conceptualise or theorise transitions. Instead, US early educators focused on readiness, a concept representing a child’s ability to benefit from schooling. The ensuing discussions often led to a skill-focused discourse about whether children were ready or not ready for kindergarten. Using critical constructionism, this chapter investigates these different focuses on children starting school.

Fostering Culturally and Developmentally Responsive Teaching Through Improvisational Practice

In this article we explore an effort to rethink curricular decision-making with a group of public pre-K teachers working in a context of curriculum escalation and commitment to play-based pedagogy. Through a professional development program designed to support developmentally and culturally responsive early mathematics, we examine how teachers took up the idea of engaging in mathematics with 4-year-olds in a way that married content knowledge and home practices. We look specifically at three teachers as they negotiated our vision of responsive practice, using the notion of improvisation as a metaphor to understand how they took up this new role. We found that just having the knowledge about developmentally responsive practices, funds of knowledge, or early math was a first step but it was not enough. How teachers took up the elements of the professional development was contingent on their capacity to improvise in their teaching, responding to children’s resources and interests in authentic ways.

Call for Manuscripts: Review of Educational Research, 1997–1999:

The Review of Educational Research (RER) is a forum for reviews of previously published work in a field that is populated by scholars from diverse traditions. Because of the increasing complexity of issues facing education and the varied perspectives that can be used to examine them, it is important that we develop tools that help scholars, policymakers, and others to make decisions and take action. We believe a review is this kind of tool.