Patricia Paugh

‘Speaking’ deficit into (or out of) existence: how language constrains classroom teachers’ knowledge about instructing diverse learners

This article explores the talk among novice teachers who participated in an inquiry project designed to rethink the instruction for their struggling students by drawing upon competence rather than deficiencies. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) based on theories of systemic functional linguistics and CDA provided tools to explore how their use of language afforded or constrained their efforts to better serve diverse learners in their urban elementary classrooms. The analysis indicates the power of normative and deficit discourses that continue to predominate within educational culture. It reflects on this analysis and discusses potential benefits of centralising language awareness and a social/critical lens to ongoing professional development.

Keeping a ‘vigilant critique’: unpacking critical praxis as teacher educators

The practice of a critical pedagogy was the impetus for our involvement in an urban in‐district master’s program with a mission that included developing a ‘critical praxis’ for all participants. Early on we were challenged to rethink our stance as ‘critical educators’ when teachers resisted what we intended to be ‘empowering’ course practices, assigning readings written by teacher researchers. This resistance required us to question whether our pedagogy was honoring their experiences as well as inviting the collaborative generation of knowledge that we professed to encourage. Drawing our methodology from Freire’s notion of ‘generative words’ and Bakhtin’s notion of ‘writing the self into the text’, we analyzed artifacts collected from our teaching over several cycles using critical discourse analysis. Our analysis reminds us to remain ‘vigilant’. That is, not to ignore difference but to look carefully for often hidden opportunities offered for deeper learning when multiple perspectives come into contact.

Sound Bites Won’t Prepare the Next Generation: Early Childhood Teacher Education Policy Public-Private Divide in Massachusetts

The political emphasis on early education speaks of growing expectations for equal access and the need to ensure quality—by way of standard accountability measures—on behalf of all young children. A central element in the improvement of early education focuses on teacher quality. In this article we examine and discuss the challenges related to finding and retaining highly qualified early childhood teachers, how this may impact preschool program quality, school readiness, and the ensuing academic achievement gaps among students of diverse backgrounds. Through a case study involving one state, we examine its agencies overseeing early education and care, teacher credentialing, and early childhood teacher education programs. Insights provided are useful for those concerned with children’s equitable access to highly qualified teachers in states with policy inconsistencies that appear to unintentionally but factually perpetuate the income-achievement gap.

‘It’s not that easy to solve’: edTPA and preservice teacher learning

Abstract This three year qualitative study of a university pilot of the edTPA, a performance assessment for preservice teachers, questioned candidates’ learning at the nexus of claims that the edTPA serves a dual role as both a formative assessment for candidates’ ongoing learning as well as a summative assessment of their readiness to teach. The analysis highlighted affordances and constraints of the assessment in the areas of: (1) depth of professional learning, (2) differentiation for diverse learners, (3) focus on school, community and family context, (4) professional reflection within classroom realities, and (5) as an evaluation tool. The discussion positions the findings alongside other published implementation studies of the edTPA in terms of current reforms. It especially problematizes the positioning of preservice teachers as professional learners in light of pressures for compliance and standardization.

Elementary Engineering as a Synergistic Site for Disciplinary and Linguistic Learning in an Urban Classroom

This case study of new English-language learners in an urban elementary U.S. classroom addresses the synergy between disciplinary language and science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) learning. Social semiotic theory frames the discourse demands related to engineering design and the active use of discursive resources in students’ responses to these demands. Discourse analysis of students’ interactions and writing provides a fine-grained view of “language in use” within an engineering design space where students demonstrated linguistic agency and productive engineering accomplishments. The case provides insights for educators who seek to optimize the integration of the language of STEM with culturally and linguistically responsive engineering education.

Discourses as Resources Active Literacy Practices and a Microculture of Rich Meaning Making in an Urban Elementary Classroom

This microanalysis of an extended discussion in an urban classroom explores the context in which rich discourses interacted to develop and extend deeper forms of meaning making by elementary students. The analysis first situates the study in the literature on classroom cultures where dialogic interactions are encouraged; such cultures develop when students’ intellectual work and agency as learners are valued. Next, a critical discourse analysis focuses on one classroom event as a microculture where a variety of discursive patterns are highlighted. This exemplar demonstrates that the teacher and the students utilized multiple linguistic moves to respond to each other. The teacher modeled serious regard for the ideas of others, but also retained her authority to push students to question assumptions or think more deeply. Her fourth grade students’ interactions mirrored these moves, indicating confidence and agency. The analysis connects these languages and literacy practices to the high levels of student engagement, stamina, and critical participation identified over time in this teachers’ classroom. The goal of the analysis is to argue that high academic expectations lie not in the standardization of practices that are most often touted in reform agendas, but in meaningful classroom teaching that honors the social, cultural, and linguistic resources of students. It also seeks to emphasize the rich and additive opportunities that this type of exchange of perspectives offers for complex intellectual work in urban classrooms; classrooms that are often subject to subtractive rhetoric from the reform movement.

Staying open to surprise…a necessary Responsibility

“Let your students surprise you,” I tell my preservice student teachers as we begin a new semester in EDC G 689, the teacher research class connected to their student teaching. “In order to build a classroom that is truly intellectual everyone learns something new, including the teacher.”