RM Winter 2017 FINAL

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Reading Matters
Teaching Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 17 • Winter 2017 | | |49|
of nurturing creative young minds, and their work should
be shared with as many of their colleagues as possible.
Starting the Conversation
Although much recent attention has been focused on
summative assessments of pre-service teachers and the outcomes
of teacher preparation programs, this article represents an
attempt to spark new conversations about what’s happening
within literacy education courses for both pre-service and in-
service teachers. All in all, I think my attempt to practice what I
preach has gotten off to a pretty good start—students report
more engagement with course activities and objectives, and
more importantly, they’re connecting theory with authentic
problems of practice. For example, many of my students have
successfully delivered their Valuing Diversity PDs in school
and district sessions; several students have reported that their
Literacy Action Plans are informing school-wide decision-
making; the Multicultural Book Blog is still being edited and
accessed months after the course ended; and in a particularly
rewarding teaching moment, one student even sent over a
link to her third grade students’multicultural literature blog.
In my quest to create assessments that are more responsive
to the social and institutional contexts in which my students
teach, I’ve also found myriad opportunities to open new
communicative channels with schools and districts. In talking
about the Literacy Action Plans with administrators and curriculum
designers at my students’ schools, for example, we’ve started a
new dialogue about the collision of policy, research, theory, and
practice. And ultimately, I think that’s a worthy goal—to engage
in the difficult work of allowing practice to inform research
and theory, just as research and theory informs practice.
References
Au, W. (2013). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this?: The edTPA and
corporate education“reform”. Rethinking Schools, 27(4), 22-27.
Bishop, R.S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives:
Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), ix-xi.
Casey, K. (2006). Literacy coaching: The essentials. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Cochran-Smith, M., Stern, R., Sánchez, J.G., Miller, A., Keefe, E.S., Fernández, M.B.,
Chang, W., Carney, M.C., Burton, S., & Baker, M. (2016). Holding teacher
preparation accountable: A review of claims and evidence.Boulder, CO: National
Education Policy Center. Retrieved from
Darling-Hammond, L., & Snyder, J. (2000). Authentic assessment of teaching in
context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(5), 523-545.
Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What
makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of
teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915-945.
Grossman, P., & McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in
teaching and teacher education.American Educational Research Journal, 45(1),
184-205.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Teaching in dangerous times: Culturally relevant
approaches to teacher assessment. Journal of Negro Education , 67(3), 255-267.
McCabe, K. (2016, March 22). Study: Evidence ‘Thin’for key accountability
efforts— except for edTPA. EdPrep Matters. Retrieved from
National Association of Multicultural Education. (2014, January 21). NAME position
statement on edTPA.Retrieved from
Olmstead, C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in
schools.TechTrends , 57(6), 28-37.
Pawan, F., Paulus, T. M., Yalcin, S., & Chang, C. F. (2003). Online learning: Patterns
of engagement and interaction among in-service teachers. Language Learning &
Technology, 7(3), 119-140.
Pecheone, R. L., &Whittaker, A. (2016). Well-prepared teachers inspire student
learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(7), 8-13.
Read to Succeed Act, § R313, § S516 (2014).
Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again toward practice-based teacher education.
Journal of Teacher Education, 63(5), 376-382. 
Robin Jocius, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education
in the Zucker Family School of Education at The Citadel. Her
research interests include digital and multimodal literacies,
culturally responsive pedagogies, literacy teacher education, and
critical literacy. She can be reached a .