Conceptual Framework: The Professional Educator

Boise State University strives to develop knowledgeable educators who integrate complex roles and dispositions in the service of diverse communities of learners. Believing that all children, adolescents, and adults can learn, educators dedicate themselves to supporting that learning. Using effective approaches that promote high levels of student achievement, educators create environments that prepare learners to be citizens who contribute to a complex world. Educators serve learners as reflective practitioners, scholars and artists, problem solvers, and partners.

Standards and Assessments

Standards/Indicators Addressed

Assessment Methods Used

Standard 2

The teacher understands how learning occurs and that students’ physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development influence learning and instructional decisions.

Disposition

The teacher respects the diverse talents of students.
The teacher is committed to helping students develop self-confidence and competence.

Focused academic dialogue journals/learner's log; attendance;

class participation; presentations;

synthesis paper

Performance

The teacher stimulates student reflection and teaches students to evaluate and be responsible for their own learning.

3. The teacher creates a positive learning

environment where students develop self-worth

Course Description

Psychological processes and strategies by which readers and writers construct and reconstruct the message of a text. Application of theoretical conclusions to teaching practices.

Texts

Literacy con Cariño, Hayes et al (new edition 1998)

Knowledge & Power in the Global Economy (2^nd Edition)

Methodologies Used: Critical Pedagogy, cooperative learning, dialectical explorations

Academic Honesty

Cheating or plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. The University functions to promote the cognitive and psychosocial development of all students. Therefore, all work submitted by a student must represent her/his own ideas, concepts, and current understanding. Academic dishonesty also includes submitting substantial portions of the same academic course work to more than one course for credit without prior permission of the instructor(s).

Grading Procedures

Percentage of Grade	Description of Assignment
20%	focused dialogue journals written w/ a classmate. In the past, one of the weaknesses I've noted is the limited use of the focused dialogue journal. Each journal entry should focus on aspects of the readings, and comments or questions should reflect depth of consideration of content. Ask to see how some of your classmates have used their journals. Some are maximizing their potential more than others.
20%	class participation in discussions of the readings.Class participation requires all of us to give our undivided attention to each speaker throughout the course. Part of my responsibilities is to ensure that we all respect the right of a speaker. My ongoing assessment includes monitoring this point. If you want to comment to a neighbor, write down your comments and share them during the break. I prefer we take a common break, rather than having people wander in and out. Attendance & punctuality + attentiveness to others count.
20%	a team presentation (20 minutes) on original classroom research related to one of the myriad topics of the course/text.Your research should include an original research question which will guide your investigation, citing of related research, a description of your procedure, subjects, findings, and questions for future research. A short summary paper in this format must be submitted. As always, you must work with a partner who shares an interest or some other common factor such as grade level, problems or concerns.
40%	reflection paper= an analysis-synthesis-application of course content, reflecting an understanding of the associated standards listed below.

A- 96-100	Outstanding
A- 95-90
B 89-85	Good
B- 84-80
C 70-79	Acceptable

A-Reserved for exemplary work. Your work shows deep thought, analysis, and synthesis of the readings and activities. You made connections among the readings and with your learning experience. You shared with your classmates; examined your biases and prejudices and were willing to make changes based on new information. You attended class in both body and spirit.

B-Distinguished work. You fulfilled all the assignments according to specifications. You were present most of the time. You did the readings, but didn’t really get into them or make personal connections, either to our own life or to your service learning experience. Sometimes you shared in class. You were able to embrace some new ideas and information.

C-Average work. You fulfilled the assignments minimally. If you did all the readings, you didn’t really get below the surface to the deeper issues. You made few connections among the readings, activities or service learning experience. You rarely entered into the discussions in class. You have made few changes in your thinking about diversity, democracy, equity and social justice.

D-Below average work. Attendance and participation were sporadic. You didn’t really enter into the learning opportunities presented to you. Assignments were completed in a haphazard, slipshod manner that shows lack of planning, commitment, and deep thought.

F-You put nothing into this class.

EDBLESL 508

Food for thought:

This class on language acquisition will involve “wrestling with a huge elephant,” so I would like to get your minds working in that direction before our first meeting. Language is more a tool than a subject for study. Rather than spending time studying the structure of a language, which has been the traditional approach to (unsuccessful) foreign language instruction, language acquisition should be understood as a naturally occurring process that happens when we use language to explore our worlds and our interests.

For the new millennium, we might want to consider not only what learners are interested in, but also topics they will need to explore in order to “write upon the world” in ways that improve the human condition and experience as well as the health of the planet. With this in mind, I suggest you contemplate what some of those topics might be, and begin to focus your attention on a particular generative theme for deeper exploration and a quest for understanding where language and literacy will be the main tools. As a result of such explorations, not only will students be more proficient, but they will also have acquired useful information and understandings in the process that will hopefully lead to life long efforts to mitigate suffering in the world. It may sound idealistic to propose such an emphasis, however, I would remind everyone of the absence of such efforts in the curriculum of trivial pursuit that has brought us to the brink of global warming, droughts, ignored genocide, unjust invasions, obscene greed, and destructive ego and ethnocentrism.

Along a different “vein of inquiry”, I want you to focus your attention in the next few weeks on what Goffman called “fleeting moments of conversation” and ways in which we use language for specific purposes: response cries (oh wow!, ouch!, etc.) compliments, requests, commands, rhetorical questions, invitations, making excuses, etc. to name a few of the functions of language.

Some researchers that can also be investigated during the class are:

Noam Chomsky

Lev Vygotsky

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Erving Goffman

Shirley Brice Heath

M.A.K. Halliday

Deborah Tannen

Judith Lindfors

Haggith Gor Ziv

Vivian Gussin Paley

Pearl S. Buck

George Lakoff

Nessa Wolfson

Stephan Pinker

Again, I recognize the huge elephant we will be wrestling with and hope that this semester leads us into new understandings and sensitizes us to dimensions of language that have always been there, that native speakers know intuitively, but only become visible through naming. This approach should also provide us with a skill set to continue with deepening our understandings of language, literacy and learning across the span of our lives and careers. I wish to remind and encourage all of you to consider the design of this program, which has “launched” several people over the years into doctoral programs where they were well-prepared “to hit the ground running”.

Some of the quotes above are direct citations, but others are in quotes for a different purpose. Why do you suppose?

Schedule

Week 1	Initial impressions, Introduction, Metaphors, Questions, concerns & issues, politics of narrow definitions, matrix.
Week 2	Behaviorism vs. Cognitivism to Interactionism (Chomsky’s pronouns) COYOTE
Week 3	Language Acquisition & Development (Stevick’s grammar)
Week 4	Interaction of Child & Context – juxtapositions (Language cartoons)
Week 5	Language,Learning & Literacy: TEXT-context/Art as signifier
Week 6	The word is only half the speaker’s. (creative construction)
Week 7	Faniks - Smith’s Myths (What is Reading?/Magritte)
Week 8	Vygotsky, Piaget, Montessori, and developmentalism
Week 9	Emergent Literacy (Temporary custody/Paley-Lindfors)
Week 10	Radical Constructivism: Dykstra. New Boy Essays
Week 11	Palabramundo – Freire (Cara Garcia/Betto/Pacino)
Week 12	Stupidification – Macedo Praxis:(Grandfather’s house/Oranges)
Week 13	Psycholinguistic Guessing Game – (ahorcado)
Week 14	Project presentations
Week 15	Project Presentations