Mixed item formats are in extensive use in large-scale assessment today and widely accepted as a means to improve assessment validity. Many studies have investigated the differential effect of Item Format on gender and ethnic subgroups in mathematics, yet few of these studies have attended to their impact on students with limited language proficiency and linguistic abilities in the area of reading. As educational policy increasingly mandates the inclusion of minorities such as English Language Learners (ELL) and students diagnosed with Specific Learning Disability (SLD) in federal and state assessment, many question the validity of achievement test scores because the degree to which the test score is a function of language proficiency is not clearly understood (Mahoney, 2008). To fill that research void, this study investigated Item Format effect and its interaction with (a) group membership as an ELL and/or SLD student and (b) assessment format differences related to genre and reading content. The software program ConQuest (Wu et al., 2007) was used to conduct Item Response Modeling on the 2007 NAEP 4th grade reading achievement data. Analysis demonstrated an overall hierarchy of Item Format difficulty. Contrary to expectation, DIF analysis demonstrated that flagged CR items favored both ELL and SLD students, while flagged MC items generally favored the Non-SLD group. But, multidimensional regression analysis demonstrated that there is no interaction between Item Format and group membership because the effect was virtually equivalent across MC and CR formats for the reference and focal groups. In looking to the future of assessment design, more research is needed to fully understand how Item Format differences contribute to assessment difficulty, the limited application of various Item Formats, specifically how they are suited to particular content, and how to blend Item Formats in a manner that utilizes their unique benefits while also producing fair results (Hastedt & Sibberns, 2005).

Abstract

HipHop Scholastics: Effective Teacher Professional Learning

by

Itoco García

Doctor of Education

University of California, Berkeley

Professor P. David Pearson, Chair

Meeting the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students in order to improve their academic engagement and achievement is a central challenge to American education. A Critical Race analysis and synthesis of academic research on teacher professional learning, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), and the mismatch between schools and students revealed: problems of practice and obstacles to changing them, limitations, a conceptual framework for effective professional learning and a vehicle for changing from current to more promising practices. Problematic beliefs including: teacher’s frames of reference; deficit thinking; and low expectations; combine with problematic practices such as rejection of student language and lack of: reflection; culturally relevant materials; and critical comprehension strategies to create a cultural mismatch, low student engagement, and low academic achievement in Urban Bay Unified Schools where this study took place and I worked as a principal. Teacher professional learning on CRP surfaced as a method for change. The theory of action suggested sequential professional development on systematic reflection, student academic engagement, and critical literacy would: improve teacher’s awareness of student academic engagement and linguistic affirmation; improve teacher’s perceptions of students; increase the use of critical literacy, culturally relevant materials and systematic reflection and more closely align schools with students thereby impacting student academic engagement and achievement. This participant action design study focused on an intervention that took place over ten sessions spanning four months consisting of four elementary teachers from the same school that yielded the process data. Participants were given surveys, interviewed, and observed by researchers both before and after the intervention to determine any impact on their beliefs and practices. Outlining each participant’s learning process supported a cross comparison of teachers to better understand how the impacts might have occurred. The intervention impacted systematic reflection, awareness of student academic engagement, perceptions of students, and the use of culturally and linguistically responsive practices like HipHop and linguistic affirmation. Research design challenges lessened the impact on critical literacy and may have contributed to confirmation bias. Future applications of the conceptual framework and iterations of the intervention design might (a) inform teacher professional learning on transitioning underlying beliefs from deficit to positive; (b) shift practice towards more culturally relevant materials and the use of HipHop; and (c) inform research on student academic engagement. The implications of this work might contribute to research on teacher learning by adding systematic reflection, reflective journaling and guided meditation to existing ideas about optimal form. Mechanisms that surface teacher trauma and help heal compassion fatigue in teacher professional learning are critical areas for future study and may be key in making it effective. Investigating sequential professional learning in systematic reflection, student academic engagement, critical literacy and the use of HipHop to examine implicit bias, improve empathy and shift practice to improve student engagement and achievement is a compelling area for future research as well.

Decodable books based on previous classroom instruction are the most frequently used texts for 1st grade reading instruction in public schools, yet no empirical studies exist demonstrating their efficacy or their benefits for beginning readers. This study attempts to address this gap in the research literature by analyzing the reading behaviors of a group of 1st grade students reading the decodable texts included as part of the 1st grade reading curriculum in a large public, urban school district.

Students read the 24 texts sampled in this study over the course of five months and detailed analysis of their reading behavior demonstrated the differential effects of these texts on high-performing, mid-performing and low-performing readers. High-performing readers began the year reading beyond the level of the decodable texts and interacted with the decodable texts minimally. Mid-performing students clearly benefited from reading the decodable texts even though their accuracy and fluency scores indicated substantial difficulties with the texts. For struggling beginning readers, however, the decodable texts were too difficult and the consistently low accuracy and low fluency scores were coupled with a range of problematic reading behaviors that demonstrated the disproportionate difficulty struggling readers had with the decodable texts.

This study follows the social and academic development of first and second generation immigrant students in a public middle school in an urban area of California over the course of their seventh grade year. Using an ethnographic approach, I observed three cohorts of students during the course of their English classes with one particular teacher in an attempt to trace the formation of their social, cultural, and academic identities. The cohorts of students were divided into leveled English classes: regular 7th grade English, High Point English (for English language learners), and Strategic English (for non-English language learners who had scored below the 30th percentile on the CST). From these cohorts, I chose twelve focal students to interview outside of classroom observations. In addition, I conducted formal and informal interviews with the principal teacher and other school staff.

Through these methods, I sought to gain understanding of how the school structures around language learning affecting students' academic and social experiences of learning English as well as their perceptions of language use (both of their own and others). I also wanted to uncover how students' formed their understandings of cultural identities that were based in notions of language, race, and ethnicity, and how all of these notions intersected with larger beliefs of academic achievement and success. While my observations were based in these students' school experiences, the interviews extended my understanding of how their out of school social networks also factored into forming their belief systems, understanding, and multifaceted identities. The findings from this study add value to our ongoing understanding of language minority students by demonstrating that first and second generation immigrant students differ less than has been hypothesized by others in terms of their cultural identities and their profiles of performance in English reading, writing, and language.

Studies of proficient readers have shown that the use of certain strategies (e.g., relating personal background knowledge to text, attending to headings and images, and summarizing) is important for comprehension of challenging texts (Afflerbach, Pearson, & Paris, 2017; Duke et al., 2011; Goldman et al., 2016; Shanahan, Shanahan, & Misischia, 2011). Despite advances in early identification of deafness, early intervention, and years of literacy research, on average, children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) continue to exhibit long-term language and literacy delays (Kyle & Harris, 2010; Ruffin et al., 2013). Many students, hearing and D/deaf, are limited in their use of comprehension and metacognitive strategies (Banner & Wang, 2011; Donne & Rugg, 2015; Morrison et al., 2013; Nickerson 2003, Schirmer, 2003). Although research has shown that explicit instruction can improve students’ use of strategies (Johnson Howell & Luckner, 2003; Palincsar & Brown, 1984), there are few well-designed studies that examine the efficacy of this kind of intervention with adolescents who are DHH (Easterbrooks & Stephenson, 2006; Luckner et al., 2005/2006; Marschark et al., 2009).

A multiple baseline case study was therefore developed to examine the effect of 1:1 explicit instruction of targeted strategies for reading comprehension with four DHH high school students. A verbal protocol (think aloud) procedure (Ericsson & Simon, 1980; McGuiness & Ross, 2011) was used to better understand the students’ cognitive processes as they engaged in reading aloud and to instruct students in the effective use of strategies. Data consisted of baseline vs. post-intervention analyses of: (a) type and frequency of strategies used, (b) students’ success in deriving the meaning of unknown words, (c) students’ response accuracy to short answer comprehension questions, and (d) coherence and accuracy of self-constructed written summaries. In addition to the student data, interviews and observations of four participating teachers were conducted to gain insight into existing classroom instructional practices.

Results indicate that all students began using new strategies following intervention. Students reported generalization of strategy use across contexts. However, even though some students used quite a variety of strategies, their application of a strategy did not always lead to improved text comprehension. The use of a think aloud procedure was highly valuable in shedding light on factors that challenged comprehension, such as limited vocabulary knowledge and skills. The two non-standardized comprehension measures employed in the study (i.e., short answer comprehension questions and self-constructed written summaries) did not show a clear intervention effect, but results from the standardized Gates McGinitie Reading Tests (MacGinitie, MacGinitie, Maria, Dryer, & Hughes, 2007) indicated improved reading achievement for two students. Overall, findings suggest a promising effect of explicit instruction of strategies. To ensure more robust findings, future studies would need to implement explicit instruction over a longer period of time and/or via increased frequency of instruction.

The immense body of knowledge that emergency medicine (EM) encompasses is constantly growing and ever changing. Textbooks build a strong foundation for the EM resident, but journal articles critical for modifying and improving EM practices are equally important for a well-rounded education. Determining which journal articles are vital to an EM residency education is a challenge. Lacking a formalized list of key articles available to EM residents and realizing that a list of articles without a guide may be difficult and confusing for novice readers, we created the “Colorado Compendium”: a recommended reading list, limited to 100 articles with accompanying summaries, tailored to emergency medicine residents.

[WestJEM. 2009;10:21-22.]

Government has tried to hold local schools accountable for uneven performance. This may lead local school districts to centralize the control of curriculum and teaching practices. Yet little is known empirically about the extent to which districts have come to centrally manage, or whether districts buffer accountability pressures (neoinstitutional theory) to protect professional control of the technical core of the organization. This study drew from the concepts and predictions of neoinstitutional theory to examine whether and how reading instructional practices were tightly or loosely coupled in a centralized versus a decentralized school district. By employing the organizational-theory concepts of bridging and buffering, I identified the levels of the district or school at which buffering or bridging could be observed, and the specified which policy or curricular tools were employed by district officials or school principals to bridge or buffer the instructional practices from institutional pressures.

Introduction: Residents and faculty in emergency medicine (EM) residency programs might be unaware of the professional and legal risks associated with the use of social media (SM). The objective of this study was to identify and characterize the types and reported incidence of unprofessional SM behavior by EM residents, faculty, and nurses and the concomitant personal and institutional risks.

Methods: This multi-site study used an 18-question survey tool that was distributed electronically to the leaders of multiple EM residency programs, members of the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD), and the residents of 14 EM programs during the study period May to June 2013.

Results: We received 1,314 responses: 772 from residents and 542 from faculty. Both groups reported encountering high-risk-to-professionalism events (HRTPE) related to SM use by residents and non-resident providers (NRPs), i.e., faculty members and nurses. Residents reported posting of one of the following by a resident peer or nursing colleague: identifiable patient information (26%); or a radiograph, clinical picture or other image (52%). Residents reported posting of images of intoxicated colleagues (84%), inappropriate photographs (66%), and inappropriate posts (73%). Program directors (PDs) reported posting one of the following by NRPs and residents respectively: identifiable patient information (46% and 45%); a radiograph, clinical picture or other image (63% and 58%). PDs reported that NRPs and residents posted images of intoxicated colleagues (64% and 57%), inappropriate photographs (63% and 57%), or inappropriate posts (76% and 67%). The directors also reported that they were aware of or issued reprimands or terminations at least once a year (30% NRPs and 22% residents). Residents were more likely to post photos of their resident peers or nursing colleagues in an intoxicated state than were NRPs (p=0.0004). NRPs were more likely to post inappropriate content (p=0.04) and identifiable patient information (p=0.0004) than were residents.

Conclusion: EM residents and faculty members cause and encounter HRTPE frequently while using SM; these events present significant risks to the individuals responsible and their associated institution. Awareness of these risks should prompt responsible SM use and consideration of CORD’s Social Media Task Force recommendations.

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Results

Conclusions