Our analysis investigates variations among intended reforms as demonstrated by observed teacher practice in 36 California restructuring schools. We identify a series of individual and school-wide influences that shape any teacher's relationship to the particular reform(s), therefore leading each teacher to mediate the reform(s) in individual ways. This paper posits a theoretical model of the teacher-as-mediator process which we use to shed analytic light on the “black box” of the teacher-as-mediator role in the reform process. We use data collected over 3 years in 36 schools to highlight a process whereby three concurrent strands of “mediating influences” (the formal implementation process, school-wide influences shaping climate, and individual influences on the teacher) interrelate to mold each teacher's disposition to implement the particular reform. This disposition, which we call “individual's mediating responses,” determines the shape, color, and tenor of the reform as it unfolds through teacher practice in the classroom. This produces the variation between teachers in a given school, between departments, between schools adopting similar reforms, and the discrepancy between intended reform consequences on the one hand and actual classroom practices on the other. Our essay illuminates the mediation process by identifying and illustrating lines of influences on teachers enacting reform and by exploring how those influences interrelated in practice. Our conclusion offers a series of questions researchers and policy makers may wish to take up as they consider how to better align school-wide reform efforts with actual practices of classroom teachers.
In spite of repeated reform efforts, there is research and data that suggest that teachers lack the needed knowledge to successfully teach elementary mathematics. Some argue that teachers lack the needed content knowledge while other argue that a lack of confidence and practice are impacting teachers’ ability to successful teach mathematics. As a result of these issues, this paper looks at the impact of a service‐learning experience on pre‐service teachers’ confidence and preparation in the area of mathematics. The service‐learning experience had a number of intended and unintended outcomes. As a result of the service‐learning experience, pre‐service teachers noted increased understanding, innovation and confidence in the area of mathematics.
Despite repeated attempts to reform schools, teachers' work has remained surprisingly stable. The purpose of this study was to investigate implementation of a state-funded restructuring initiative that intended broad changes in teachers' professional roles. Sponsors of the founding legislation reasoned that changes in teachers' roles would contribute to higher student achievement. This study examined the question of whether and how this program of comprehensive whole-school change promoted changes in teachers' roles in school governance, collegial relations, and the classroom. Further, the study traced the relationship of these changes to one another, and weighed the likelihood that they had 2 of 26 the capacity to affect core educational practices. Theoretically, this study is situated in the available literature on teachers' collegial relations; participation in shared decision making; and classroom roles, relationships and practice. Three elementary schools served as the sites for intensive qualitative data collection completed over a two-year period. The schools differed in geographic location (two urban, one rural), but all enrolled a racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse population of students, and more than half of the students in each school qualified for free or reduced price lunch. The study resulted in multiple types and sources of data on teachers' professional roles, including: observations in classrooms, collegial interactions, and governance situations; interviews with teachers (including teacher leaders), parents, administrators, and students; and documents pertaining to the restructuring plans and process. Findings show that changes in the three areas were achieved unevenly in the three schools. All three schools introduced changes in classroom practice and roles, ranging from the adoption of multi-age classrooms to more modest innovations in curriculum or instruction. In only one case were changes in professional roles outside the classroom organized to support and sustain classroom changes. Two of the three schools introduced changes in staff organization (teacher teams) and leadership (governance committees), but under-estimated the professional development and other supports that would in turn support changes in classroom practice. Altogether, it appears unlikely that the observed changes in professional roles were sufficiently well established and connected to affect core educational practice in the long run.
Although the mission statements of most comprehensive teaching institutions of higher education include serving as a resource for the global and local community, the tenure and promotion process typically does not recognize these community partnerships as research endeavors, even when the nature of the work is firmly grounded in sound empirical practice. This paper shares the process a faculty task force undertook to gain consensus and incorporate language on engaged scholarship within the College's personnel document. The process took four years and included five steps: (a) establish a definition of engaged scholarship grounded in scholarly literature, (b) gather practice-oriented information regarding best practices as well as faculty perceptions of engaged scholarship practice, (c) create policy language for department personnel documents, (d) generate consensus among faculty for the policy language, and (g) submit final documents to the University Personnel committee for approval. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for policy and practice.
Our analysis investigates variations among intended reforms as demonstrated by observed teacher practice in 36 California restructuring schools. We identify a series of individual and school-wide influences that shape any teacher's relationship to the particular reform(s), therefore leading each teacher to mediate the reform(s) in individual ways. This paper posits a theoretical model of the teacher-as-mediator process which we use to shed analytic light on the “black box” of the teacher-as-mediator role in the reform process. We use data collected over 3 years in 36 schools to highlight a process whereby three concurrent strands of “mediating influences” (the formal implementation process, school-wide influences shaping climate, and individual influences on the teacher) interrelate to mold each teacher's disposition to implement the particular reform. This disposition, which we call “individual's mediating responses,” determines the shape, color, and tenor of the reform as it unfolds through teacher practice in the classroom. This produces the variation between teachers in a given school, between departments, between schools adopting similar reforms, and the discrepancy between intended reform consequences on the one hand and actual classroom practices on the other. Our essay illuminates the mediation process by identifying and illustrating lines of influences on teachers enacting reform and by exploring how those influences interrelated in practice. Our conclusion offers a series of questions researchers and policy makers may wish to take up as they consider how to better align school-wide reform efforts with actual practices of classroom teachers.
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