Mind the Gap: Teachers' Beliefs and Practices and Students' Academic and Emotional Success
Location
DeSantis Room 3031
Format Type
Plenary
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
16-1-2020 1:45 PM
End Date
16-1-2020 2:05 PM
Abstract
Teachers’ beliefs and practices about their pedagogy play a strong role in the academic and emotional success of students. With the increase of diversity of the K-12 student population and predominately white female teacher population, this study addressed the role beliefs and practices play in students’ overall success. Part of a larger narrative inquiry about a literacy coach building relationships with two early-career sixth grade English language arts teachers, this presentation and paper discusses the outcomes of my looming wonderment about the impact teachers’ beliefs and practices had on both my role of coaching, modeling and co-teaching and the students’ academic and emotional success. The theoretical framework undergirding this study was change theory. Accordingly, Fullan (2001, 2006) defines change theory in education as the nature of change in teacher education; it is what teachers consistently do to improve their practice.
The outcomes of the study provide a window into how our construction of knowledge impacted our beliefs and practices about our roles, how we approach our curriculum and instruction, and students’ academic and emotional success. Consistent with the literature on teachers’ beliefs and practices, Gay (2010) emphasizes that though there is recognition for the need of culturally relevant pedagogy, most culturally diverse students and their teachers live in different worlds, and they do not fully understand their students’ experiential realities. This presentation reveals those gaps and begins to address them through the findings and future recommendations within the study.
Keywords
teachers' beliefs and practices, curriculum, pedagogy, narrative inquiry
Mind the Gap: Teachers' Beliefs and Practices and Students' Academic and Emotional Success
DeSantis Room 3031
Teachers’ beliefs and practices about their pedagogy play a strong role in the academic and emotional success of students. With the increase of diversity of the K-12 student population and predominately white female teacher population, this study addressed the role beliefs and practices play in students’ overall success. Part of a larger narrative inquiry about a literacy coach building relationships with two early-career sixth grade English language arts teachers, this presentation and paper discusses the outcomes of my looming wonderment about the impact teachers’ beliefs and practices had on both my role of coaching, modeling and co-teaching and the students’ academic and emotional success. The theoretical framework undergirding this study was change theory. Accordingly, Fullan (2001, 2006) defines change theory in education as the nature of change in teacher education; it is what teachers consistently do to improve their practice.
The outcomes of the study provide a window into how our construction of knowledge impacted our beliefs and practices about our roles, how we approach our curriculum and instruction, and students’ academic and emotional success. Consistent with the literature on teachers’ beliefs and practices, Gay (2010) emphasizes that though there is recognition for the need of culturally relevant pedagogy, most culturally diverse students and their teachers live in different worlds, and they do not fully understand their students’ experiential realities. This presentation reveals those gaps and begins to address them through the findings and future recommendations within the study.