EDU 104.11: UNDERSTANDING THE DISCIPLINE OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

CREDE

CREDE was one of 12 national research and development centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Institute on the Education of At-Risk Students. CREDE assisted the nation's population of diverse students, including those at risk of educational failure, to achieve academic excellence. The purpose of CREDE's research was to identify and develop effective educational practices for linguistic and cultural minority students, such as those placed at risk by factors of race, poverty, and geographic location. CREDE continued to improve upon the work of the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. From 1996–2001, CREDE operated over 30 projects under six programmatic strands: Language Learning and Academic Achievement; Professional Development; Family/Peers/School and Community; Instruction in Context; Integrated Reform and System Studies; and Assessment. During 2001-2003, seven teams extracted and synthesized key findings and practices from the work of CREDE's 31 research projects from the previous five years. Comprised of the nation's leading experts, practitioners, and policymakers in education, each team focused on a specific theme. Four CREDE research projects were conducted at CAL from 1996–2003 they are:

v  Two-Way Immersion Education

This study continued the research conducted on two-way bilingual immersion by the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. This study examined instructional outcomes (English-language attainment), student populations (at-risk English proficient students), and long-term effects (elementary two-way immersion program graduates in secondary grades), and documented program implementation in schools across the country.

v  Newcomers: Language and Academic Programs for Recent Immigrants

This study documented newcomer programs for recently arrived secondary students with limited English proficiency and the ways in which these programs promote student transitions into U.S. schools. The study identified secondary-level newcomer programs, examined their administrative, instructional, and socio-cultural features, and compared their programs with traditional programs serving these students.

v  A National Survey of School/ Community-Based Organization Partnerships Serving Students Placed at Risk

This study identified essential features of successful partnerships between schools and community-based organizations (CBOs) that support the academic achievement of language minority students.

v  The Effects of Sheltered Instruction on the Achievement of Limited English Proficient Students

This project worked with teachers to identify key practices for sheltered instruction and to develop a professional development model that would enable more teachers to use sheltered instruction effectively in their classrooms.

The Standards for Effective Pedagogy and Learning were established through CREDE research, and through an extensive analysis of the research and development literature in education and diversity. The Standards represent recommendations on which the literature is in agreement, across all cultural, racial, and linguistic groups in the United States, all age levels, and all subject matters. Thus, they express the principles of effective pedagogy for all students. Even for mainstream students, the Standards describe the ideal conditions for instruction; but for students at-risk of educational failure, effective classroom implementation of the Standards is vital. The research consensus can be expressed as seven standards.

Joint Productive Activity

·         Teacher and Students Producing Together

·         Collaboration between the teacher and a small group of children

·         Creation of a tangible or intangible product

·         Providing responsive assistance towards the creation of a product

·         Assisting children to collaborate with peers

Language Development

·         Developing Language and Literacy Across the Curriculum

·         Providing opportunities for children’s language use and literacy development

·         Modeling the appropriate language for the academic content           

·         Designing activities with a focus on language and literacy development

·         Assisting with language expression/literacy development and encouraging children discussion on the academic topic

Contextualization

·         Making Meaning: Connecting School to Students' Lives

·         Integrating new academic knowledge with children’s home, school, and community knowledge

·         Assisting children in making connections between school and their personal experiences

·         Helping children to reach a deeper understanding of the academic material through the deeper personal connection

Challenging Activities

·         Teaching Complex Thinking

·         Designing activities that require complex thinking

·         Providing responsive assistance as children engage in complex thinking

·         Increasing children’s knowledge and use of complex thinking strategies

·         Focusing on concept development in order to uncover the why of the activity

Instructional Conversation

·         Teaching Through Conversation

·         Working with a small group of children

·         Having a clear academic goal

·         Eliciting children talk with questioning, listening, rephrasing, or modeling

·         Assessing and assisting children in reaching the academic goal

·         Questioning children on their views, judgments, and rationales in reaching the academic goal

Modeling (MD)

·         Promoting children’s learning through observation.

·         Modeling behaviors, thinking processes, or procedures

·         Providing examples of a finished product for inspiration

·         Assisting children as they practice

Child Directed Activity (CDA)

·         Encouraging children’s decision-making and self-regulated learning.

·         Providing choice in classroom activities

·         Being responsive to activities generated by the children

·         Assisting children in generating, developing, or expanding on their ideas or creations within an activity.

The seven Standards articulate both philosophical and pragmatic guidelines for effective education. The standards were distilled from findings by educational researchers working with students at risk of educational failure due to cultural, language, racial, geographic, or economic factors.

The seven Standards do not endorse a specific curriculum but, rather, establish principles for best teaching practices. These practices are effective with both majority and minority students in the classrooms across subject matters, curricula, cultures and language groups. Teachers and students are working together, on real products, real problems. Activities are rich in language, with teachers developing students’ capacity to speak, read, and write English and the special languages of mathematics, science, humanities, and art. They teach the curriculum through meaningful activities that relate to the students’ lives and experiences in their families and communities. Teachers challenge students to think in complex ways and to apply their learning to solving meaningful problems. Teachers and students converse; the basic teaching interaction is conversation, not lecture. A variety of activities are in progress simultaneously (individual work; teamwork; practice and rehearsal; mentoring in side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, teacher-student work). Students have systematic opportunities to work with all other classmates. They all learn and demonstrate self-control and common values: hard work, rich learning, helpfulness to others, mutual respect.