What Preservice Teachers Can Learn From a Content Area Expert

In this chapter, the author presents the negotiation between students and teachers to combat disengagement in a virtual classroom. To address this concern, the chapter presents a model that increases authentic engagement in a mathematics classroom for a group of sophomores, juniors, and seniors using an academic dialogue strategy that prepares students to think critically about what they are learning in the classroom and how these abstract learnings connect to real-world experiences. The dialogues that occur between the author and the students provide an approach that is widely used in literacy settings but may not always happen in content area instruction.

Planning Computer Science Instruction for Students With High-Incidence Disabilities

States increasingly are adopting computer science standards to help students develop coding and computational thinking skills. In an effort to support teachers in introducing computer science content to their students with high-incidence disabilities, a new model, computer science integration planning plus universal design for learning (CSIP+) offers ways to integrate computational thinking and coding into content area instruction. This column presents an example of how a teacher might implement the CSIP+ model when designing instruction accessible to all learners. Guiding questions to support teachers at each phase of the planning cycle are provided.

Bridging Science and Language Development Through Interdisciplinary and Interorganizational Collaboration: What Does It Take?

This study addressed the intractable issue of ensuring that all students, including those who are linguistically and culturally diverse, have access to high quality science education. We explored the efforts of two organizations in the United States (one that supports science teachers and one that focuses on language development) to design resources that can inform science instruction for multilingual learners. We used Bronstein’s (2003) framework for interdisciplinary collaboration to shed light on the institutional, program, and interpersonal factors that defined and helped sustain the collaboration between the two organizations. The findings showcase what it takes to integrate equity, science, and language development considerations in resources designed to inform content-area instruction for multilingual learners. The paper adds to the nascent literature on the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in supporting the science education of multilingual students and is unique in its exploration of both the process and the product of this collaboration.

Instructional Practices to Boost Tier 1 Content Area Instruction for Students with Disabilities: A Closer Look at PACT

For students with learning disabilities, providing text-based instruction in general education content area classes can provide students with additional reading support while simultaneously boosting their content knowledge. This article will outline a set of instructional practices delivered in social studies classes that has been shown to improve performance of eighth grade students with disabilities on measures of content knowledge, vocabulary, and content reading comprehension. Each instructional practice will be described in detail with a timeline of step-by-step procedures and accompanying language that demonstrates how the intervention may unfold in the classroom setting.

Preparing to Implement Evidence-Based Literacy Practices in the Co-taught Classroom

It is essential that middle school content-area and special education co-teachers adopt evidence-based literacy practices that they can integrate into their content-area instruction to address the needs of all of the students in their classes. This article provides co-teachers with four planning tips to improve implementation of the practices they adopt. The planning tips are organized using the acronym FIRST: (a) monitor Fidelity of implementation of the adopted practices, (b) Integrate the practices into daily content-area instruction and across the year, (c) determine the Roles of each co-teacher when planning for and implementing instruction in the adopted practices, and (d) consider specific guidelines to Select Texts for each literacy-focused lesson. The planning tips are illustrated using examples related to the content-area literacy instruction (CALI) instructional framework, which is a set of evidence-based literacy practices and procedures designed to improve the literacy instruction middle school coteachers implement in their content-area classes.

Mother Tongue versus English as a Second Language in Mathematical Word Problems: Implications to Language Policy Development in the Philippines

This study investigated the performance of 150 Tagalog and 131 Sinugbuanong Bisaya grade three pupils with regard to solving mathematical word problems written in their mother-tongue (L1) and in English as their second language (L2). The respondents were subjected to a validated teacher-made parallel tests based on the competencies stipulated in the first and second quarter mathematics curriculum guide of the Philippines. Results of which were compared and analyzed using two-tailed t-test. Findings show that the Tagalog pupils performed better in their mother-tongue over English as their second language. On the other hand, Sinugbuanong Bisaya pupils performed better in English as their second language over their mother-tongue. While results appear contradictory, contextual discussions offer valuable insights into the situation, allowing avenues for more exploration and investigations. As implication to language policy development, this study offers the use of translanguaging in content area instruction and assessment, specifically in the teaching and learning of mathematical problem solving

School makerspaces: Beyond the hype

Recently, makerspaces have captured the imaginations of educators as resources for transforming school-based learning. Aligning informal making practices with the formal aims of the school curriculum, however, can present challenges. In this article, Philip Nichols and Kurt Salisbury show how educators in two very different contexts — a suburban middle school math class and an urban secondary humanities class — empowered student learning by integrating making into their content-area instruction. They also highlight three takeaways for educators interested in bringing making into their own classrooms.