Jin-Suk Byun

With increasing English learners in the US, preservice teacher training programs must educate their preservice teachers to identify and meet the needs of these linguistically and culturally diverse students. However, one problem is that many preservice teachers in the US do not understand immigrants’ lives. Viewing documentaries might provide an answer to this problem because the films expose preservice teachers to immigrants’ experiences and lives to some extent by showing them a detailed narrative about actual immigrants’ journeys through the immigration process. Little research has been done so far on the effect of showing documentaries of immigrants’ lives in ESOL endorsement programs; therefore, through the analysis of survey and interview data, I investigated the effect on preservice teachers in an ESOL endorsement course of watching a documentary on immigrants’ lives. The effect and the influential factors of the documentary are discussed in relation to their implications for TESOL training.

Laura Mahalingappa

Nihat Polat

Currently most educational policies are driven by business models that demand data-driven accountability measures. Indeed, accreditation agencies, teacher educators, and school districts rely on the results of classroom observations in documenting evidence for teaching effectiveness and thereby determining teachers’ annual appraisals and tenure. Sadly, however even the reliability of the most widely used observation protocols, like the sheltered instruction observation protocol (SIOP), is not empirically addressed. This study examines overall and component-based reliability of the SIOP in evaluating effectiveness content teaching in mainstream classes with ELs. It also examines if the instrument’s reliability yields consistency across different classrooms and what challenges the instrument poses for raters. Survey and qualitative data were collected from three raters and two science teachers. Results revealed several weak to moderate levels of component-based and overall inter-rater reliability to evaluate teaching effectiveness across two K-12 settings. Given the consistency levels across observations, findings indicated that, overall, the SIOP is moderately reliable; however the component-based analyses yielded either very low or nonsignificant levels of inter-rater reliability. Moreover, qualitative data revealed several challenges and concerns related to component-based reliability of the protocol regarding linguistic clarity, consistency, and potential for measuring observable behavior.

Mariam Alamyar

McKEE, H., & DeVOSS, D. N. (Eds.). Digital writing assessment and evaluation. Computers and Composition Digital Press / Utah State University Press, 2013.

UI Research Center

The 5th Untested Ideas International Research Conference Collaborating for Change in Research and Practice June 28 – 30, 2018