ED284
Teaching in Heterogeneous Classrooms
Winter Quarter, 2002
Monday 3:15 PM – 6:05 PM
CERAS 300- 302 - 204
Instructors:
|
Rachel A. Lotan |
George Bunch Office hours: by appt. Phone: 723-3893 gbunch@stanford.edu |
Julie Gainsburg Office hours: by appt. Phone: 938-7593 jgains@stanford.edu |
Teaching for understanding is a complex endeavor. Furthermore, ensuring that all students have access to academically challenging learning tasks and to equal-status participation is a particularly important pedagogical objective. In this course, we will learn how to organize the classroom and how to support students as they engage in intellectually rigorous and linguistically rich learning tasks in heterogeneous classrooms. For this class, we define heterogeneous classrooms as classrooms in which students have a wide range of previous academic achievement and varying levels of oral and written proficiency in the language of instruction.
For such classrooms, groupwork is a highly recommended and well-documented instructional strategy. We will learn how to organize the classroom and prepare students for groupwork; how to equalize participation among members of a group; how to design learning tasks that support conceptual understanding, mastery of content, and language development; and how to assess group products as well as individual contributions. We will discuss the relationship between small group instruction and other classroom participation structures, and the optimal balance of various curricular strategies and instructional moves.
The course includes a great variety of activities: simulation of group tasks; use of skill-builders to develop cooperative norms in classrooms; role plays; case discussions of teacher-authored cases about their experiences with groupwork; analyses of classroom videos; and a "workshop" to develop a true group task.
You will conduct a final project in your own classroom with a STEP colleague. A description of the final project as well as an assessment rubric is attached to this syllabus.
Required reading:
Elizabeth G. Cohen, 1994. Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom, 2nd Edition, New York: Teachers College Press.
Shulman, Lotan, and Whitcomb (Eds.), 1998. Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms: A Casebook for Educators, New York: Teachers College Press
Valdés, Guadalupe, 2001. Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools, TC Press.
In addition, the reader for the course includes selected articles, and a CD-ROM with cooperative skill-builders and role-plays for classroom use.
Delegation of authority, cooperative norms and student roles
Skill builder: Lots of Islands/ Lots of Dots
Video: Making Groupwork Work
Holding groups and individuals accountable
Case discussion: One Group’s Inertia
Readings:
Shulman, Lotan, and Whitcomb (Eds.), 1998. Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms: A Casebook for Educators, New York: Teachers College Press, Introduction, pp 1-10
Cohen, Elizabeth G. 1994. Designing groupwork: Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms, NY: Teachers College Press. Chapters 6 & 7.
(---) One Group’s Inertia. 1998. in Shulman, J.H., Lotan, R.A., and Whitcomb, J.A. (Eds.) Groupwork in diverse classrooms: A casebook for educators. NY: Teachers College Press.
First assignment due 1/25
Delegation of authority: Me and my classroom
Readings:
Cohen, Elizabeth G. 1994. Designing groupwork: Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms, NY: Teachers College Press. Chapters 3, 8 & 10.
Steele, Claude. A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance, American Psychologist, June 1997, pp. 613-629
Valdés, Guadalupe, 2001. Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools, TC Press. pp 2-28, 127-143
Sternberg, Robert. 1996. Myths, countermyths and truths about intelligence, Educational Researcher, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp.11-16.
Recommended: Cohen, E.G. and Lotan, R.A., 1995. Producing equal status interaction in the heterogeneous classroom, American Educational Research Journal, 32, 99-120.
2/4 Status treatments: The multiple ability treatment and assigning competence
Video: Status Treatment, Part 2 and 3
Designing a multiple ability orientation
Case discussion: "The Chance I Had Been Waiting For;" "Silences"
Readings:
Gardner, Howard. November 1995, Reflections on multiple intelligences, Phi Delta Kappan, pp. 200-209
Sternberg, Robert. 1998. Abilities are forms of developing expertise. Educational Researcher, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp.11-20
Valdés, Guadalupe, 2001. Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools, TC Press. pp 84-126
(---) The Chance I Had Been Waiting For, and (---) Silences,
1998. In Shulman, J.H., Lotan, R.A., and Whitcomb, J.A. (Eds.) Groupwork in diverse classrooms: A casebook for educators. NY: Teachers College Press.
Second assignment due 2/25
Status problems: How do I recognize them when I see them?
Readings:
Lotan, Rachel A. 1997. Principles of a principled curriculum, in Cohen and Lotan (Eds.) Working for equity in heterogeneous classrooms: Sociological theory in action. NY: Teachers College Press.
Cohen, Elizabeth G. 1994. Designing groupwork: Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms, NY. Teachers College Press, Chapter 5
2/ 25 Conditions for developing academic discourse in linguistically
heterogeneous classrooms
Analysis of opportunities for language acquisition in groupwork settings
Readings:
Bartolome, Lilia I., The Misteaching of Academic Discourses. The Politics of Language in the Classroom, Westview Press. Understanding Academic Discourses pp 1-15
Valdés, Guadalupe, 2001. Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools, TC Press. pp 144 – 159
TESOL, 1997. ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students. (for text of standards see www.tesol.edu)
Readings:
Carrasquillo, Angela L. and Vivian Rodriguez, 1995. Language Minority Students in the Mainstream Classroom, Multilingual Matters Ltd. pp 75-89
McKay, Sandra Lee &Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia, 1996. Multiple Discourses, Multiple Identities: Investment and Agency in Second-Language Learning among Chinese Adolescent Immigrant Students, Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 66, No.3
Fradd, Sandra H. and Lee, Okhee, Teachers’ Roles in Promoting Science Inquiry with Students from Diverse Language Backgrounds, Educational Researcher, Aug. Sept. 1999, pp. 14-20
Readings:
Webb, Noreen, Summer 1995, Group collaboration in assessment: Multiple objectives, processes, and outcomes, EEPA, vol.17, No.2, pp.239-261.
De La Luz Reyes, M. and John J. Halcón. 2001. The Best for Our Children: Critical Perspectives on Literacy for Latino Students, TC Press: New York Chp. 11&12,
pp 185-212
Third assignment due 3/15
Description of an ELL student
Readings:
Elizabeth G. Cohen, 1994, Designing groupwork: Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms, NY. Teachers College Press, Chapter 9
(---) The extra audience of critics, (1998) In Shulman, J.H., Lotan, R.A., and Whitcomb, J.A. (Eds.) Groupwork in diverse classrooms: A casebook for educators. NY: Teachers College Press.
Models of cooperative learning: Academic controversy
Simulation of academic controversy: The Tracking Debate
* * * * * * * *
Readings:
Johnson, David W. and Johnson, Roger T. 1995. Structuring academic controversy, in S. Sharan (Ed.) Handbook of cooperative learning methods, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Models of Cooperative Learning: The Structural Approach & Group Investigation
Readings:
Kagan, Spencer and Kagan, Miguel. 1995. The structural approach: Six keys to cooperative learning. In S. Sharan (Ed.) Handbook of cooperative learning methods, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Sharan, Yael and Sharan, Shlomo. 1995. Group investigation in the cooperative classroom, In S. Sharan (Ed.) Handbook of cooperative learning methods, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Readings:
(---)We’re all in this together, 1998. In Shulman, J.H., Lotan, R.A., and Whitcomb, J.A. (Eds.) Groupwork in diverse classrooms: A casebook for educators. NY: Teachers College Press.
Final project due March 25, 2002