Synopses & Reviews
This book affords researchers and educators with essential tools for examining U.S. classrooms in response to the present national reform agendas' stress on making rigorous content and high expectations accessible to all students. Improving the achievement in U.S. schools, important for both social and economic stability, will require that instruction be responsive to our nation's increasingly diverse student population. This volume accordingly provides examples of recently developed classroom observation instruments based on research of effective teaching practices for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Each chapter will assist educators in their endeavors to improve U.S. schools.
Synopsis
This book presents classroom observation instruments and methods that are based on current knowledge about effective education for linguistically and ethnically diverse students. Also presented are examples of research studies in which these instruments have been used, as well as substantive research findings.
Synopsis
Classroom observation methods based on knowledge about effective education for linguistically and ethnically diverse students.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: purposes and perspectives on classroom observation research; 2. Using multiple perspectives in observations of diverse classrooms: the sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP); 3. The standards performance continuum: a performance-based measure of the standards for effective pedagogy; 4. The uses of the classroom observation schedule to improve classroom instruction; 5. Development and use of a classroom observation instrument to investigate teaching for meaning in diverse classrooms; 6. Patterns of language arts instructional activity and excellence in first and fourth grade culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms; 7. Using classroom observation as a research and formative evaluation tool in educational reform: the school observation measure; 8. Observing school restructuring in multilingual, multicultural classrooms: balancing ethnographic and evaluative approaches; 9. Socio-cultural activity settings in the classroom: a study of a classroom observation system; 10. The influence of school reform on classroom instruction in diverse schools: findings from an observational study of Success for All; 11. Future directions for classroom observation research.