Learning through Teaching in an After-School Pedagogical Laboratory

A Forum — February 14, 2002

The American Youth Policy Forum co-hosted this seminar with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center and the Council of Chief State School Officers for educational leaders to learn about a professional development model implemented in an after-school setting focused on improving educational outcomes for African American children and youth. Presenter Michèle Foster, Professor, Center for Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University, discussed effective research-based teaching and learning practices and literacy development for African American middle and high school students. In the context of the strong focus on improving student achievement in today’s schools, Foster reviewed the qualities of effective teachers, specifically, those who are able to develop productive relationships between child and adult. She feels that this is a critical factor that has been left out of the standards and quality teaching dialogue and reminded the participants that, “Much of what passes for academic improvement is based on the ‘cognitive’ but often misses the role that emotional and social factors play.”

She indicated that many African American children are considered at-risk because of poverty or limited linguistic skills. They need teachers who care about them and who will teach them. Unfortunately, current practice in the classroom tends to focus on the cultural and language deficits that poor and minority children bring to the classroom and fails to recognize or build upon the cultural richness and linguistic skills many of them possess.

By example, she described the linguistic skills that good rap music requires and the understanding of metaphors that is the basis of playing the “dozens”—creative, verbal one ups-manship practiced among some lower economic African Americans. She also cited the findings of ethnographic researcher Shirley Brice Heath about the sophisticated linguistic skills of African American children in the South. Many of these children come to school knowing double entendre, jokes, and metaphor, but more often than not, these capacities are not interpreted as linguistic skills. Heath’s findings suggest that teachers who embrace standard ideas about acceptable literacy practices must reassess those standards and explore ways to incorporate multiple literacies into their classrooms.

According to Foster, the challenge is how schools use and develop these linguistic resources through opportunities for student performance and oral and written expression. She posed the questions: As educators, do we seek to contain or to build upon these resources?

The Need for New Professional Development Models

Foster feels that the prevailing trend in many professional development models is to control and diminish student resources. Too often the role of professional development is to help the teacher become a better manager of students rather than to give educators the tools to help students integrate their knowledge and creativity into other systems of knowledge. She stressed that standards are good and do not work against creative use of these building blocks. She feels that it is important to seek out good teaching models and let parents and members of the community witness them. “We do not have a constituency that understands the choices to the prevailing goal of ‘learning to read by the third grade’ or that offers a vision of what is possible that the community can get behind and support.”

She discussed a number of reading models, including one used in many urban districts, Open Court, which requires the teacher to focus on whole group instruction, not small group work. According to Foster, this approach contradicts the National Teaching Board’s model which supports choice, options, flexibility and group work. “Often these models are promoted to assist new, inexperienced teachers in becoming better managers, but these approaches have their downside.” She feels that models such as Success for All and Open Court are not helping teachers develop professionally. The failure of most professional development models has been the absence of opportunities for modeling good teaching.

Using the mechanism of extended learning opportunities offered in after-school programs, such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, Foster has built on research on improving educational outcomes for African American children and exemplary professional development models to develop Learning through Teaching in an After School Pedagogical Lab. This is a practice-oriented professional development program that provides opportunities for young teachers to model effective teaching from exemplary master teachers and to successfully instruct students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The project is currently implemented in Los Angeles and Oakland, CA in two after-school settings with 20 students each for three days a week for two hours. In each site, 15 new teachers observe a master teacher for the first six weeks implement a range of practices, including language development, classroom discipline, and relationship building. In the next six weeks, the individual teachers implement specific lessons under the observation of the master teacher and their peer teachers. Each gets six credits and a stipend.

The goals are for participating teachers to:

• Develop an understanding of the social, affective and behavioral processes that serve as the foundation of cognitive learning in classrooms of teachers who teach for understanding;
• Learn how to draw on students’ identities, interests, backgrounds and cultural knowledge to create conditions in the classroom to entice students and draw them into self-regulating, disciplined study; and
• Develop more expertise in cultivating teacher-student relationships, and employing classroom management and pedagogical strategies that are effective with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

According to Foster, the master teachers are committed to building students’ vocabulary, but never out of context. “These teachers redirect students’ spirits—they do not break their spirit.” The goal is not to deny culture but to extend it. Teachers conduct action research on the effectiveness of their teaching practices in promoting learning and academic achievement of their students. The professional development strategy is developmental with teachers alternating between observing, taking notes and teaching. The approach is collegial—teachers work in cohorts and meet with other teachers to discuss practices and students learning.

Fostered indicated that in order to implement this model of professional development the leadership of school districts or schools must believe that a long-term investment in teachers is needed, especially an investment in programs that give teachers time to learn (including opportunities for observation, feedback and critique). There must also be commitment to use the best teachers in the system/school for professional development activities, to invest in teachers just as one invests in students, and a willingness to redeploy community resources differently.

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