Author: klgrant2

Author: Richard Halverson Abstract: This paper explores a distributed leadership perspective on how leaders create contexts that build and support professional communities in schools. It is argued that professional community results from intentional coordination of social interaction among teachers through the design of structures in a situation of practice. School leaders put these structures, or …

Authors: Mitchell J. Nathan and Kristi Jackson April 2006, 11 pp. Abstract: The prominent role of Boolean classes in qualitative data analysis software is viewed by some as an encroachment of logical positivism on qualitative research methodology. We articulate an embodiment perspective, in which Boolean classes are viewed as conceptual metaphors for apprehending and manipulating …

Authors: Mitchell J. Nathan and Kristen N. Bieda March 2006, 13 pp. Abstract: This study investigates middle school mathematics students’ views and interpretations of graphical representations as they use graphs to answer algebraic questions — specifically, questions that require them to extrapolate information from graphs. Using data from videotaped interviews, we analyzed students’ verbal responses …

Authors: Christopher A. Thorn and Robert H. Meyer March 2006, 10 pp. Abstract: The U.S. Department of Education recently held a competition for grants to support states in their efforts to build longitudinal data systems to track and analyze student and school performance. The Value-Added Research Center (VARC) at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, …

Author: Mitchell J. Nathan December 2005, 16 pp. Abstract: In this paper, I explore two beliefs about learning and teaching that I argue are prevalent among educators. The first is the belief that subject matter expertise is sufficient for success in teaching. The second belief is that to learn a specific content area, one needs …

Authors: Mitchell J. Nathan and Billie Eilam October 2005, 10 pp. Abstract: This paper explores the role of co-expressivity of drawing, speech, and gesture as sixth graders strive for intersubjectivity in their attempts to communicate solutions to a spatial reasoning task. Several obstacles to intersubjectivity are documented, particularly conflicts between a literal and geometric interpretation, …

Authors: Richard Halverson, Jeffrey Grigg, Reid Prichett, Chris Thomas September 2005, 37 pp. Abstract: The recent demand for schools to respond to external accountability measures challenges school leaders to create school instructional systems that use data to guide the practices of teaching and learning. This paper considers how local school leaders build data-driven instructional systems …

Author: David Williamson Shaffer September 2005, 29 pp. Abstract: This paper looks at the participant structures of a learning environment and proposes an alternative level of analysis for understanding how frameworks of participation help develop frameworks for thinking. Building on Goffman’s frame analysis and Schon’s work on reflective practice, I analyze participant structures of a …

Authors: David Williamson Shaffer, James Paul Gee September 2005, 18 pp. Abstract: In his recent bestseller The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman argues that countries like the United States can no longer compete in the global economy on the basis of making and selling commodities. Their competitive edge increasingly comes from how well they produce products, …

Authors: David Williamson Shaffer, Katherine A. Clinton September 2005, 22 pp. Abstract: In this paper, we argue that new computational tools problematize the concept of thought within current sociocultural theories of technology and cognition by challenging the traditional position of privilege that humans occupy in sociocultural analyses. We draw on work by Shaffer, Kaput, and …