Evaluating Socio-Cultural Pedagogy in a Distance Teacher Education Program

Teacher Education Quarterly, Summer 2005 by Teemant, Annela

Portfolio reflections allowed participants to summarize their learning as a result of participation in the entire program. Eleven themes emerged across reflections indicating substantive development in teacher thinking. From the most to the least frequent, the themes included: (1) using assessment to improve instruction; (2) knowing students as individuals; (3) planning learning goals and assessments first; (4) becoming student advocates; (5) using research-based practices; (6) creating opportunities to collaborate; (7) creating safe learning environments; (8) raising expectations and standards for learning; (9) focusing on cognitively challenging curriculum; (10) understanding educational policy; and (11) reflecting on or improving teaching practice.

Eight different themes emerged as common changes in teaching practices across participants' portfolios. From most frequent to least, these themes were (1) use of socio-cultural pedagogy as defined by CREDE; (2) increased variety of assessment techniques; (3) scaffolding student learning; (4) using varied groupings; (5) organizing teacher teams in schools; (6) use of cross-curriculum and grade activities; (7) articulating a school-level advocacy plan; and (8) increasing family involvement. These common themes in thinking and practice show participants' responsiveness, directly and indirectly, to socio-cultural perspectives where learning is social, teaching is assistance, and performance is culturally meaningful to learners.

Participants wrote most frequently about the importance of learning to assess students' cognitive, social/affective, and linguistic development to guide and improve instruction. One participant (#23) wrote, "My unit plans became stronger because I was aware of students ' needs." Another teacher (# 1 ) wrote that in her planning she now starts by asking, " What does this accomplish and can everyone in the class develop learning from it? " A majority of participants in this cohort identified getting to know and understand their ESL students as an important learning outcome which in turn raised their expectations for student learning. One participant (#17) wrote:

When I sit down and prepare the next lesson I am going to teach, I jot down notes of accommodations or extra clarification that ESL students might need. This is a world of difference from how I used to teach. I used to just think of the content I was teaching - NOT the students I was teaching.

Another participant (#8) wrote, "!have been guilty of 'low barring ' my former ESL kids. I didn 't expect enough of them. .. . They have risen to higher expectations as I have increased my support and demand." Another participant (#14) admitted:

Previously I had been more prone to feel that they [ESL students] are disadvantaged and I often wanted to take a more nurturing approach.... I am now more conscious of not wanting to let this get in the way of teaching students to be accountable and setting high expectations for themselves.

Raising teacher expectations for student learning apparently led to concrete actions. For example, a teacher (#17) wrote: