Volume 9 Issue 1 (Fall 2011)
General Issue
A Review of The Networked Teacher by Kira-Baker Doyle
The Networked Teacher by Kira Baker-Doyle provides beginning teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, and interested scholars with a lens to examine new teachers’ social networks and their impact on a teacher’s development and success. Through an immersion in social network theory, paired with stories of real first-year teachers, readers are exposed to the complex role that networks play in a new teacher’s personal and professional life.
Consciousness-Raising or Eyebrow-Raising? Reading Urban Fiction with High School Students in Freirean Cultural Circles
Introduction
Based largely on the writings of educational philosopher and activist Paulo Freire
(Dis)empowerment: The Implementation of Corrective Mathematics in Philadelphia Empowerment Schools
“I’ll read some division problems. You write them. Problem A. 5 goes into 35. Say the problem”.
The teacher taps a bell and the students respond “5 goes into 35”.
“Write it. Don’t work it yet. Problem B. 5 goes into 30. Say the problem.”
"School is So Boring": High-Stakes Testing and Boredom at an Urban Middle School
Existing evidence suggests that high stakes exams result in little increased learning among students (Amrein & Berliner, 2002; Klein, Hamilton, McCaffrey, & Stetcher, 2000; Koretz, Mitchell, & Stetcher, 1996). Yet, given the federal mandates for greater accountability, such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and Race to the Top policies, and the “pervasive testing culture” (Moses & Nanna, 2007, p. 55), the use of high-stakes tests is presently an accepted practice.
Learner Factors in a High-Poverty Urban Middle School
Introduction
Over the past ten years, 4th and 8th graders attending high-poverty schools in the United States have obtained lower reading, math, visual arts and music test scores on average than their counterparts in low-poverty schools.
The Balancing Act: The Personal and Professional Challenges of Urban Teachers
Introduction
Teaching in diverse, urban classrooms can be challenging for teachers; high percentages leave within the first five years of their careers (National Council on Teaching and America’s Future [NCTAF], 2008).