Ronald Gallimore

A Knowledge Base for the Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One?:

To improve classroom teaching in a steady, lasting way, the teaching profession needs a knowledge base that grows and improves. In spite of the continuing efforts of researchers, archived research knowledge has had little effect on the improvement of practice in the average classroom. We explore the possibility of building a useful knowledge base for teaching by beginning with practitioners’ knowledge. We outline key features of this knowledge and identify the requirements for this knowledge to be transformed into a professional knowledge base for teaching. By reviewing educational history, we offer an incomplete explanation for why the United States has no countrywide system that meets these requirements. We conclude by wondering if U.S. researchers and teachers can make different choices in the future to enable a system for building and sustaining a professional knowledge base for teaching.

Vygotsky and education: Teaching mind in society: Teaching, schooling, and literate discourse

Time and again in this century the impulse to improve public schools has fallen short of reformist hopes. One reason for limited progress has been the absence of a basis for understanding and correcting teaching and schooling. Although the ideas of Vygotsky are having a profound influence on education, they are not alone sufficient to construct a fully satisfying theory of education. The achievements of social, cognitive, and behavioral science – achievements that have detailed the processes of learning in social interactions – must be brought into conjunction with the neo-Vygotskian understanding now being created. Such a union of neo-Vygotskian and behavioral/cognitive scientific principles can accelerate the impact of research on the practice of teaching and schooling and radically increase the explanatory power of neo-Vygotskian theory (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Constructing a theory of education For over 100 years, there has been ample evidence that recitation, not teaching, is the predominant experience of American school children. Sitting silently, students read assigned texts, complete “ditto” sheets, and take tests. On those rare occasions when they are encouraged to speak, teachers control the topic and participation. Connected discourse occurs so rarely that observation detects barely a trace (e.g., Durkin, 1978–1979; Goodlad, 1984). Even in more effective classrooms, teachers do little that meets any acceptable image of serious interactive teaching.

My Brother's Keeper: Child and Sibling Caretaking [and Comments and Reply]

Children often act as caretakers responsible for other children. Such child caretaking varies widely in its frequency, as well as in the degree of institutionalization, relationship to parental caretaking, degree of indulgence, and incidence at differing ages. Residence and household patterns, size of the family, and the subsistence economy, daily routines, and work load of the family are important in determining availability of child caretakers in the home. The United States appears to have fewer alternative caretakers available, and less child caretaking, than most societies. Child caretaking is related to a number of developmental areas during childhood; eight are suggestedin this review: (1) mother-child relationships and attachment; (2) conceptions and emergence of childhood stages; (3) formation and organization of play groups; (4) development of social responsibility; (5) sex differences; (6) development of individual diferences; (7) development of cognitive-style differences; and (8) motivation and classroom performance.

Using Video Surveys to Compare Classrooms and Teaching Across Cultures: Examples and Lessons From the TIMSS Video Studies

Examining the extent, nature, and scope of peer group influence on academic outcomes is an important direction for future research to enrich our understanding of adolescent motivation, engagement, and achievement. Conceptual and methodological issues involved in studying peer groups are discussed. Existing research that addresses the influence of peer groups on academic outcomes is reviewed. Processes of how peer groups socialize achievement beliefs and behaviors are considered. Promising directions for future research are discussed.

Mathematics Teaching in the United States Today (and Tomorrow): Results From the TIMSS 1999 Video Study:

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study examined eighth-grade mathematics teaching in the United States and six higher-achieving countries. A range of teaching systems were found across higher-achieving countries that balanced attention to challenging content, procedural skill, and conceptual understanding in different ways. The United States displayed a unique system of teaching, not because of any particular feature but because of a constellation of features that reinforced attention to lower-level mathematics skills. The authors argue that these results are relevant for policy (mathematics) debates in the United States because they provide a current account of what actually is happening inside U.S. classrooms and because they demonstrate that current debates often pose overly simple choices. The authors suggest ways to learn from examining teaching systems that are not alien to U.S. teachers but that balance a skill emphasis with attention to challenging mathematics and conceptual development.

Moving the Learning of Teaching Closer to Practice: Teacher Education Implications of School-Based Inquiry Teams.

A 5‐year prospective, quasi‐experimental investigation demonstrated that grade‐level teams in 9 Title 1 schools using an inquiry‐focused protocol to solve instructional problems significantly increased achievement. Teachers applying the inquiry protocol shifted attribution of improved student performance to their teaching rather than external causes. This shift was achieved by focusing on an academic problem long enough to develop an instructional solution. Seeing causal connections fosters acquisition of key teaching skills and knowledge, such as identifying student needs, formulating instructional plans, and using evidence to refine instruction. These outcomes are more likely when teams are teaching similar content, led by a trained peer‐facilitator, using an inquiry‐focused protocol, and have stable settings in which to engage in continuous improvement.

The social construction and subjective reality of activity settings: Implications for community psychology

A major focus of the article is the idea that activity settings are in part social constructions of the participants. The socially constructed “meaning” of an activity setting is a complex mix of ecological, cultural, interactional, and psychological features. These features may be observed and assessed, directly and indirectly, in terms of personnel, cultural values, tasks, scripts for conduct, and motives and purposes of actors. Empirical illustrations and extensions to community psychology are drawn from research with different populations: Native Hawaiian children and families, Spanish-speaking children and Mexican and Central American immigrant parents, Euro-American families with a developmentally delayed child, and Euro-American families who intentionally adopted nonconventional child-rearing values and practices.

Local Knowledge, Research Knowledge, and Educational Change: A Case Study of Early Spanish Reading Improvement

Reforming schools depends on the interplay between research and local knowledge. This article uses examples from a multiyear project to improve reading achievement of Spanish-speaking children. Achieving changes was partially dependent on local action and understanding of the local school culture. It could not be done exclusively through reference to research knowledge, no matter how compellingly documented in the national literature.

Analyzing Cultural Models and Settings to Connect Minority Achievement and School Improvement Research

To improve schooling and achievement in a diverse society requires units of analysis that tap into significant structures, processes, and dynamics of culture as they affect individual students and schools. These units must be sensitive to variability among individuals within seemingly homogenous groups and to similarities between apparently heterogeneous communities. This article presents and illustrates 2 such units of analysis: cultural settings and cultural models. These units can produces details needed to address the linked problems of minority underachievement and school reform. We draw illustrations from 2 parallel lines of research: 1 addressed to underachievement of Spanish-speaking children and the other to improvement of schooling and teaching.

Effects of Literacy Materials from School on Latino Children's Home Experiences and Early Reading Achievement

Yearlong case studies of 10 Hispanic kindergartners were conducted. Findings indicated that (1) the school had a large impact on childrens home literacy experiences, (2) photocopied storybooks and work sheets sent home by childrens teachers stimulated literacy experiences that were unique to each in some ways but similar in others, (3) although children in classrooms using photocopied storybooks had higher literacy test scores, the use of booklets in the home was not related to literacy achievement, whereas work sheet use at home was strongly and positively related to achievement. The studys implications for home-school literacy connections to support childrens academic achievement are discussed.