Korean Language Arts Teachers’ Curriculum Reconstruction in the Era of SMART Education

Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their professional networks, their geographic neighbors or other highly regarded SEAs, or other sources for information and resources to guide their decisions about where to send teachers for information about standards. Drawing on institutional theory (Meyer Rowan, 1977) and isomorphism specifically (DiMaggio Powell, 1983), we posit that coercive forces (primarily due to RTTT application and CCSS status) as compared to mimetic and normative forces influenced the organizations to which SEAs turn for curriculum materials. Using Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure and a data set of over 2,000 state-provided resources for secondary English Language Arts teachers from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., we indeed found that coercive forces had a relationship with shared organizational ties, demonstrating that RTTT application and CCSS adoption influenced resource provision.

Download Full-text

Building Awareness of Language Structures with Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting

Exploring Technology for Writing and Writing Instruction - Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-4341-3.ch002 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 21-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Youngmin Park ◽

Mark Warschauer ◽

Penelope Collins ◽

Jin Kyoung Hwang ◽

Charles Vogel

Keyword(s):

Empirical Study ◽

Language Arts ◽

State Standards ◽

Action Research Project ◽

Language Arts Teachers ◽

Arts Teachers ◽

Authentic Writing ◽

Writing Technology ◽

Linguistic Structures ◽

Grammatical Structures

The recently adopted Common Core State Standards emphasize the importance of language forms and structure in learning to write. Yet most language arts teachers have either downplayed the linguistic structure of writing in favor of process approaches or emphasized the teaching of grammatical structures outside of the context of authentic writing. Technology-supported writing activities tend to mimic these two approaches, with teachers using technology for either process-based writing or for grammar drills. Most teachers are not well prepared to teach linguistic structures in context or to deploy technology for that purpose. This chapter introduces a new tool called Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) that has powerful affordances for teaching linguistic and textual structures in the context of authentic written genres. Drawing on an empirical study and an action research project conducted by the authors, they share evidence for the value of using VSTF and point to ways that it can be used in the classroom to help students master language structures and employ them in their composition.

Download Full-text

It’s All about Personal Connections

Virtual Professional Development and Informal Learning via Social Networks ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-1815-2.ch011 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 185-202

Author(s):

Luke Rodesiler ◽

Lauren Tripp

Keyword(s):

Language Arts ◽

Professional Growth ◽

English Language ◽

Networked Learning ◽

Secondary English ◽

Language Arts Teachers ◽

Teachers Perceptions ◽

Secondary English Language Arts ◽

Personal Connections ◽

Arts Teachers

Given the potential of informal online learning via social networks for supporting the career-long professional growth of in-service teachers, research must be conducted to better understand the ways in which today’s future teachers are being prepared for and experiencing such practice. This chapter presents the authors’ efforts to move in that direction, a qualitative study describing six pre-service secondary English language arts teachers’ perceptions of self-directed networked learning during a teaching internship. Findings suggest that participants perceived networked learning as a viable and valuable approach to supplementing professional growth despite also perceiving challenges in the form of context, identity, and time.

Download Full-text