When best practices aren’t: A Schwabian perspective on teaching

Race to the top and the senses of good teaching

“…But it would also be helpful to note, before taking up the example of the "subject matter" commonplace itself, that each of these commonplaces, as Schwab imagines them, differs radically from any mere "area" of enquiry; each commonplace is conceived as a person; it is representable by a member of its community, but is irreducible to propositional abstraction. This, I take it, is similar to what Hlebowitsh has in mind when he lauds Schwab for focusing on people rather than ideas (P. Hlebowitsh, 2012, p. 3).…”

Educational innovation between freedom and fixation: the cultural-political construction of innovations in early childhood education in the Netherlands

“…Dorian de Haan (2012) has produced evidence that identifies the processes of young children's communicative learning taking place in a play-based curriculum. Similarly, van Oers and his colleagues have carried out several studies in order to find evidence for the effectiveness of DE that have identified many positive outcomes (see van Oers 2003, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, Peters and van Oers 2007 Terwel 2007, van Oers, andDuijkers 2012).…”

“…Observations are carried out during the course of children's daily play activities. This observation strategy is known as HOREB, a Dutch acronym for Action-Oriented Observation, Registration and Evaluation in Basisontwikkeling (see E. van Oers 2012) Due to the efforts and negotiations of many people, the HOREB-instrument of Basic Development has been accepted by the Inspectorate as a valid assessment instrument. In addition, other teachers and researchers committed to DE are engaged in detailed efforts to elaborate reliable and valid instruments for Dynamic Assessment (Adan-Dirks 2012; van der Veen and Poland 2012).…”

Lessons Learned

“…In the same way, collaborative practices are constructed based on unique interactions among specific teachers, disciplinary knowledge, and specific adolescents, bringing the notion of best practice into question. As Hlebowitsh () argued, “there is a fallacy in assuming individual members of a group necessarily carry the average characteristics of the aggregate group” (p. 4). By learning in practice, literacy coach and teacher(s) co‐construct knowledge of practice that is essential for responding to the unique students in their classrooms.…”