Classroom Artifacts Research Articles

ABSTRACT Background Despite decades of scholarship urging physical educators to foreground principles of equity and social justice in their teaching, translating these ideals into everyday teaching remains a complex and uneven challenge. This study responds to the call for grounded, empirical accounts of socially just teaching practices in Health and Physical Education. Purpose To explore how nine secondary school HPE teachers working in collaborative, practitioner inquiry model with two university-based researchers implemented, adapted, and sustained teaching practices for equity and social justice in real-world educational settings. The study was grounded in a belief that teachers’ professional knowledge, when supported through collaborative reflection and inquiry, offers a powerful resource for pedagogical transformation. Research design This study employed a practitioner inquiry methodology. Participants were nine secondary Health and Physical Education teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. The study involved four phases across a school year that focussed on relationship building, exploring social justice, planning, implementing and evaluating practices. Multiple data sources included observations, post observation interviews, classroom artefacts, focus groups and digital diaries. A six step thematical analysis drew on (Gerdin, G., W. Smith, R. Philpot, K. Schenker, K. M. Moen, S. Linnér, K. Westlie, and L. Larsson. 2021. Social Justice Pedagogies in Health and Physical Education. Abingdon: Routledge) typology of nine pedagogies for social justice as an analytical tool. Findings The three themes: (1) Teaching for inclusion, (2) Increasing student engagement through student voice, and (3) Drawing on knowledge from other cultures, reflect the foci of the practitioner partners and collectively represent attempts to foster engagement and more equitable outcomes for all students. Conclusion The findings reaffirm the central role teachers play in creating equitable and meaningful learning environments. When supported by a community of inquiry, evidence, critical dialogue, and professional autonomy, teachers can enact pedagogies that are both contextually responsive and socially transformative. This study underscores the power of everyday pedagogical decisions to drive change and highlights the critical need to empower educators as agents of equity and innovation. As such, this study advances the field by providing empirically grounded insights into how Health and Physical Education teachers implement, adapt, and sustain pedagogies for social justice through collaborative practitioner inquiry.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present two case studies of bilingual, culturally sustaining elementary educators engaging students in daily interactive read-alouds with justice-oriented picturebooks. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative multi-case study and ethnographic approaches, along with constant comparative methods, the authors analyzed two case studies to explore how educators work toward disruption and transformation through literacy instruction in dual language contexts. Data included interviews, classroom observations of interactive read-alouds and classroom artifacts. Findings The authors found that the teachers prepared for teaching with justice-oriented picturebooks by developing Humanizing Critical Sociocultural Knowledge (HCSK), growing critical content knowledge and enacting culturally sustaining pedagogical knowledge. The authors argue that culturally sustaining literacy instruction requires that teachers not only curate justice-oriented texts but also cultivate their own HCSK through lived experience, activism and pedagogical preparation to create student-centered interactive read-aloud spaces. Research limitations/implications This article underscores the consequential development of educators’ HCSK and culturally sustaining pedagogies as foundational to justice-oriented literacy instruction, which should be emphasized in teacher education research and programs. Practical implications This article demonstrates that critical interactive read-alouds are most effective when teachers intentionally prepare through ongoing self-reflection, activism and purposeful text curation that centers students’ lived experiences. Originality/value This article offers an original contribution by shifting the focus from text selection to the critical preparation and humanizing sociocultural knowledge teachers must cultivate to meaningfully enact culturally sustaining interactive read-alouds with justice-oriented texts.

This qualitative action research case study explored how a blended literacy learning intervention combining the flipped classroom model with youth-selected multimodal texts influenced sixth-grade Academic Intervention Services (AIS) students’ comprehension of figurative language. The study was conducted over four months in a New York State middle school and involved seven students identified as at-risk readers. Initially, students engaged with teacher-created instructional videos outside of class and completed analytical activities during class time. However, due to low engagement and limited comprehension gains, the intervention was revised to incorporate student autonomy through the selection of multimodal texts such as graphic novels, song lyrics, and YouTube videos. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, journal entries, surveys, and classroom artifacts, and then analyzed using inductive coding and member checking. Findings indicate that students demonstrated increased the comprehension of figurative language when given choice in both texts and instructional videos. Participants reported increased motivation, deeper engagement, and enhanced meaning-making, particularly when reading texts that reflected their personal interests and experiences. The study concludes that a blended literacy model emphasizing autonomy and multimodality can support comprehension and bridge the gap between in-school and out-of-school literacy practices.

Abstract Now more than ever, the world needs citizens comfortable with interdisciplinary problem- solving in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to address global environmental and health challenges, including extreme weather, habitat destruction, and air pollution, among others. However, many countries report an insufficient number of individuals with experience in STEM problem solving. In addition, recent research indicates low interest and knowledge in STEM fields. Government organizations, corporations, and nonprofits ask for pre-university STEM education that increases student interest and knowledge in STEM fields. In this mixed-methods study, we explored a potential relationship between interest and three-dimensional (3D) science and engineering knowledge. We analyzed student surveys, classroom artifacts, and teacher interviews to explore student scores and self-proclaimed interest. Results revealed six multi-faceted profiles, with all students reporting average or high interest and scoring low, average, or high on the 3D science and engineering assessment. In addition, four extreme student cases were selected to illustrate and articulate some of the complexities associated with possible linkages between 3D science and engineering knowledge and interest. Our results suggest that reciprocity between interest and knowledge development is more nuanced and complex than a simple correlation or relationship might suggest.

There are increasing expectations that we should live in a digitally and computationally literate society. For many young people, particularly girls, school is the one place that provides an opportunity to develop the necessary knowledge and skills. This environment can either perpetuate and reinforce or eliminate existing gender inequalities. In this article, we present the “PLAYING, ENGAGEMENT, CREATVITIY, CREATING” (PECC) Framework, a practical guide to supporting teachers in the design of gender-sensitive learning activities, bringing students’ own interests to the fore. Through a six-year, mixed-methods, design-based research approach, PECC—along with supporting resources and digital tools—was developed through iterative cycles of theoretical analysis, empirical data (both qualitative and quantitative), critical reflection, and case study research. Exploratory and instrumental case studies investigated the promise and limitations of the emerging framework, involving 43 teachers and 1453 students in secondary-school classrooms (including online during COVID-19) in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Quantitative data (e.g., surveys, usage metrics) and qualitative findings (e.g., interviews, observations, classroom artefacts) were analyzed across the case studies to inform successive refinements of the framework. The case study results are presented alongside the theoretically informed discussions and practical considerations that informed each stage of PECC. PECC has had a real-world, tangible impact at a national level. It provides an essential link between research and practice, offering a theoretically informed and empirically evidenced framework for teachers and policy makers.

Background/Context: In early childhood, using play as a pedagogical tool can be a way to ensure children have access to an education that involves worthwhile opportunities to learn that are ripe with joy and aim toward fostering depth of knowledges. There are numerous possibilities for the types of play a classroom can offer children, so when a school or district decides to commit to play, there are many decisions to make that ultimately shape how play is both understood and experienced by teachers, children, and their families. Research Question: This study examines a district that was undergoing a complete overhaul of its prekindergarten (PreK) programming policies, with a goal of becoming an innovative, play-based program. It aims to understand how a new vision for play would be taken up in the district by exploring the question: How do stakeholders understand and respond to a new play-based PreK program? Research Design: This is a qualitative, purposive case study that involved an examination of semistructured interviews, ethnographic classroom observations, and classroom artifacts. The semistructured interviews were conducted with teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, and administrators. Conclusions/Recommendations: This study shows how common early childhood ideals, historical practices, and current reform efforts all contribute to the possibilities for the roles play can serve within a school setting. As play practices are designed and enacted, it is essential to have clear ideas about how play is defined, the goals for play, teachers’ roles within play, and the ways in which already present policies as well as early childhood tenets connect with a district’s vision for play.

This study describes teachers' perception of online synchronous teaching as an alternative delivery format during the pandemic in specialized curricula in elementary schools in the Philippines. This study uses a qualitative research design and employs the case study method. The methods for gathering data are one-on-one online interviews, face-to-face focus group discussions, and analysis of classroom artifacts, which include weekly home learning plans and lesson modules. The study uses thematic analysis to analyze the data and the triangulation method to validate the generated results. The perceptions were grounded on the reported challenges and coping strategies employed by the participants in addressing the emerging gaps in education delivery during the pandemic, resulting in two major themes: views of online teaching and professional identity.Furthermore, a noticeable unfolding of teachers' professional identity during the pandemic was manifested. The results provide empirical evidence for developing teachers' professional development, well-being, teaching perception, teacher identity, and professionalism.

ABSTRACT This study examined university instructors’ changes in conceptions of teaching and learning through a compact Knowledge Building Professional Development (KBPD) program. Ten instructors from an autonomous university in Singapore joined this study. Data were gathered from multiple sources, including classroom artefacts, surveys, and interviews. The analysis of classroom artefacts and surveys indicated that after KBPD, instructors held a more constructivist view of learning and were more inclined to foster environments where students actively co-construct and co-create knowledge. Interviews provided further insights into the specific aspects of these changes, including viewing learning as a knowledge-building process, a deeper understanding of collaborative learning, increased awareness of student empowerment, and viewing Knowledge Forum (KF) as a catalyst for change. This study shows the possibility of shifting instructors’ conceptions through short interventions. The design considerations for future teacher PD programs are discussed.

Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice. Teaching for social justice is an explicit goal of most teacher education programs. However, this mandate has been criticized by scholars who claim that social justice is an undertheorized and vague concept that is often disconnected from methods courses that focus on content-specific pedagogies. This study seeks to address this disconnect by exploring how an Equity Literature Circles (ELC) framework within a literacy methods course can enhance teacher candidates’ (TCs’) understanding of the relationship between literacy instruction, diversity, and social justice. Drawing on the perceptions of ten TCs enrolled in a teacher education program in western Canada, data for the study was generated from classroom artifacts, an individual survey, and a focus group interview. Upon analysis of the data, the findings suggest that an ELC framework is an effective instructional strategy for enhancing TCs’ understanding of intersecting aspects of diversity, equity-focused literacy instruction, and teaching about and for social justice.

The first objective of this study was to explore which principles of STEM PBL instruction pre-service teachers found most beneficial in enhancing their understanding of mathematics- and science-related concepts. The second objective was to identify the instructional practices from STEM PBL that pre-service teachers intended to incorporate into their future teaching practices. We conducted a descriptive qualitative study, analyzing data from interviews (n = 8), reflections, and classroom artifacts (ntotal = 43). The findings revealed 12 distinct themes: six associated with the first objective and six linked to the second objective. Two themes—communication and real-world relevance—emerged as common across both objectives. The significance of this study lies not only in identifying key principles of STEM PBL but also in highlighting the need to emphasize these principles in various instructional methods, enhancing the transferability of innovative practices to future teachers’ mathematics classrooms.

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are problems involving the deliberate use of scientific topics that require students to engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate. The purpose of this project is to utilize issues that are personally meaningful and engaging to students, require the use of evidence-based reasoning, and provide a context for scientific information. Social justice is the pursuit of equity and fairness in society by ensuring that all individuals have opportunities to challenge and address inequalities and injustices to create a more just and equitable society for all (Killen et al. Human Development 65:257–269, 2021). By connecting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts to personally meaningful contexts, SSI can empower students to consider how STEM-based issues reflect moral principles and elements of virtue in their own lives and the world around them (Zeidler et al. Science Education 89:357–377, 2005). We employed a qualitative research design to answer the following questions: (1) In what ways, if any, did teachers help students grow their knowledge and practices on social justice through socioscientific issues? (2) In teachers’ perceptions, what components of SSI did students learn and what are their challenges? (3) In teachers’ perceptions, what are students’ stances on social justice? After completing the first year and second-year professional development programs, grades 6–12 STEM teachers were asked to complete a reflection on classroom artifacts. Teachers were asked to select student artifacts (e.g. assignments, projects, essays, videos, etc.) that they thought exemplified the students’ learning of SSI and stance on social justice. Based on 21 teacher-submitted examples of exemplar student work, we saw the following example pedagogies to engage their students on social justice: (a) making connections to real-world experiences, (b) developing a community project, (c) examining social injustice, and (d) developing an agency to influence/make changes. According to teachers, the most challenging SSI for students was elucidating their own position/solution, closely followed by employing reflective scientific skepticism. Moreover, the students exemplified reflexivity, metacognition, authentic activity, and dialogic conversation. Using SSI in classrooms allows students to tackle real-world problems, blending science and societal concerns. This approach boosts understanding of scientific concepts and their relevance to society. Identifying methods like real-world connections and examining social injustice helps integrate social justice themes into science education through SSI. Overall, SSI promotes interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking, and informed decision-making, enriching science education socially. This study highlights the value of integrating SSI in science education to engage students with social justice.

Maximizing students’ content and language development: The pedagogical potential of translanguaging in a Chinese immersion setting

Abstract This article explores how undergraduate students enrolled in a postsecondary course centering LGBTQ+ young adult literature came to discursively construct notions of queer youth. Braiding postdevelopmental and poststructural theories of childhood with queer theory, we interrogated how what we name as the (il)logics of adolescence shaped who and what queer youth, as a construct, was and could be for participants. Reading across classroom artifacts and student talk about texts, our findings highlight the shifting and multiple (il)logics offered by students as they attempted to unsettle understandings of queer youth in conjunction with course novels. In particular, we examine how two constitutive theories—homonormativity and chrononormativity—generated both contingent and contradictory moments wherein the subject of the queer child was both regulated and liberated by participants. Offering implications that expand understandings in both the reading and teaching of queer young adult literature, the study closes by discussing this particularly contentious moment, noting possibilities in how LGBTQ+ adolescents can and cannot be rendered and understood through stories of youth.

The correct use of collocations and prepositions plays an essential role in writing. Previous research has demonstrated that students, who master these lexical elements, have a better language awareness, improve their reading and listening comprehension, and are more creative when making a composition. However, little specific work has been done in this regard in Colombia, especially with adolescents. This action research study explores the affordances of a corpus in English as a foreign language writing of fourteen students at the high school level. Surveys, teacher’s journals, and classroom artifacts were used to collect data. Findings show that the corpus contributed positively to L2 writing in two ways. The participants could self-correct their mistakes associated with the use of collocations and prepositions, and the tool amplified participants’ autonomy, decision-making, and data analysis skills. Although a corpus represents an alternative for error correction processes, it requires a well-structured instructional design process to deal with difficulties related to the use of commands derived from using a corpus-based strategy.

In this study, researchers used a longitudinal multisite qualitative cross-case study to examine the beliefs and practices of five beginning teachers related to critical historical inquiry. They collected interview, observation, and classroom artifact data over a 5-year period, from teacher preparation through the teachers’ 4th year in the classroom. Using critical theory as the frame, the researchers found that the beginning history teachers tended to move along two pedagogical continuums: one related to the criticality of content and the other related to didactic- or inquiry- based instruction. Teachers were more successful in engaging in critical historical inquiry practices if they had well-developed conceptual and practice tools and had opportunities to teach within school contexts that supported the use of critical historical inquiry.

PurposeThis study explores how one novice teacher navigated his first-year teaching sixth-grade social studies.Design/methodology/approachOne-sixth grade novice teacher was observed during his unit on the Islamic Empire. The teacher was interviewed before the unit began to understand his approach to combating Islamophobia and interviewed again after the unit so he could reflect on the unit and discuss if he believed he had accomplished his original goal. Classroom artifacts (handouts, slide decks, etc.) were collected.FindingsThe findings highlight the various forces that impacted the decisions the teacher made in the classroom. Lack of support from administration and various colleagues left the teacher feeling overwhelmed and unable to accomplish his goals. While the teacher started the unit with a clear purpose for teaching against Islamophobia, he ultimately taught a unit where students memorized discrete pieces of information.Originality/valueThis study adds to previous research on the need for providing administrative support for novice teachers to be able to teach in ambitious ways by highlighting the numerous shortcomings.

This longitudinal multi-case study explored four early career teachers’ attempts to differentiate instruction in schools that varied in their level of support for this pedagogical approach. It offered an in-depth examination of the experiences of novices who learned about the pedagogical tools of differentiation with depth and fidelity through the same preservice instruction, developed similar commitments to implementing them, and attempted to implement them in contrasting inservice settings. A large and rich data corpus collected across 4 years included participant interviews, observations of participants’ teaching practices, classroom artifacts, and interviews with participants’ mentors. Findings illustrated novices’ contrasting multi-year learning trajectories related to differentiation embedded within varied school settings. They also revealed the substantive role novices’ shifting visions of the enactment of practice played in appropriating differentiation’s pedagogical tools during their early careers. Recommendations for teacher educators who prepare teacher candidates to differentiate are provided.

Abstract This instrumental case study is focused on understanding more about literacy instruction in K‐3 classrooms during the pandemic‐impacted 2020–2021 school year. The study aims to examine (a) how teachers described their literacy instruction before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic; (b) the types of literacy instructional practices teachers implemented across in‐person, virtual, and hybrid modalities; and (c) how teachers' implementation of these practices aligns with research on early grades literacy instruction. Data included classroom video of 25 teachers' literacy instruction, 162 classroom artifacts (e.g., student work samples), and statewide survey responses from 7110 teachers in spring 2020 and 5811 teachers in spring 2021. Teachers reported spending an average of 1 h less per week on literacy instruction in 2020–2021 as compared to a typical pre‐pandemic school year. Despite these reported declines in instructional time, teachers in all modalities were observed implementing literacy instructional practices at comparable rates as they reported prior to the pandemic. However, teachers' implementations of these practices varied widely, with some teachers providing research‐aligned literacy instruction while others did not. This range in quality was evident across modalities, including within the group of teachers providing in‐person instruction. Results from this study challenge existing theories about instructional time and modality that have been posed to explain the pandemic's negative impacts on elementary students' literacy outcomes.

This article reports a classroom-based inquiry in which a group of pre-service language teachers were guided to engage in a lesson study project focusing on the incorporation of the framework of big ideas into language teaching. Specifically, the study zooms in on the student teachers’ exercise and development of critical thinking (CT) through the lesson study process. Relying on data from semi-structured interviews and classroom artifacts, the findings reveal that the introduction of big ideas in lesson study served as a crucial knowledge base for the participants’ pedagogical sense-making, thus contributing to their CT. The process of lesson study, characterized by a progressive structure, tailored scaffolding, and constructive feedback, also facilitated their development of CT skills and dispositions, which in turn contributed to their understanding and application of the big idea framework within the lesson study process. While the participants encountered some negative feelings in the process (e.g. due to the competitive atmosphere brought by the ‘same topic and different design’ arrangement), they tried to turn such emotions into a stimulating source for their CT growth and professional learning. In light of the research results, pedagogical implications for teaching and teacher education were put forward in the end.

Preparing graduate students for teaching careers in academia can involve myriad approaches. One such approach is facilitating authentic teaching opportunities for graduate students. The purpose of this multiple case study was to chronicle the perspectives of four humanities graduate students as they participated in a mentored teaching experience at a community college. Specific emphases included the evolution of participants’ teacher identity and how a mentored teaching experience shaped participants’ future career goals. Data sources consisted of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, journal reflections, and classroom artifacts. Participants identified the fundamental importance of mentor faculty and diverse students as drivers in their own pedagogical development and reflected on the value of interpersonal connections in education. Implications include the need for more pedagogical transparency and discussion in humanities graduate education, as well as the potential of constructing cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaborations to support graduate students’ professional development.