Questions That Lead To Action

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Questions that Lead To Action

Safe and equitable classrooms for deep learning

By Luis R. Soria and Margery Ginsberg

October 2016

Vol. 37 No. 5

Marcella and Michael have near-perfect 4th-grade attendance records at a pre-K-8 public school in Chicago, Illinois. Marcella and her family are recent immigrants. With the highest national level of immigrants in 105 years (Zeigler & Camarota, 2015), recent immigrants comprise 13.3% of the U.S. population. Given both the rise in students who speak a language other than English at home and dwindling resources for professional learning in urban public schools, the need for schools to develop in-house systems for teachers to continuously learn from one another has never been stronger. Like Michael, Marcella is eager to learn. Yet student learning data reveal significant disparities in their performance. This baffles their teachers, who participate in professional learning and regularly meet with grade-level colleagues to learn from

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Authors

Luis R. Soria and Margery B. Ginsberg

Luis R. Soria (lsoria@hps.holyoke.ma.us) is chief academic officer of Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts. Margery B. Ginsberg (margeryginsberg@gmail.com) is an author, educational researcher, and school improvement consultant.

References

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Ginsberg, M.B. (2015). Excited to learn: Motivation and culturally responsive teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Ginsberg, M.B. & Wlodkowski, R.J. (2009). Diversity and motivation: Culturally responsive teaching in college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Groenke, S.L. (2010). Seeing, inquiring, witnessing: Using the equity audit in practitioner inquiry to rethink inequity in public schools. English Education, 43(1), 83-96.

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Wlodkowski, R.J. (2008). Enhancing adult motivation to learn: A comprehensive guide for teaching all adults (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Zeigler, K. & Camarota, S.A. (2015, August). Immigrant population hits record 42.1 million in second quarter of 2015. Available at https://cis.org/Immigrant-Population-Hits-Record-Second-Quarter-2015.