We’ve been busy the past two weeks taking three courses at The New School. Here’s the syllabus from our Action Research course, where we’ve been planning our fall workshops and discussing indicators of success for the Co-Instruction Project:
The values and vision of our public education system are contested terrain. With the Common Core State Standards, large-scale school reform, and teacher development and evaluation being hotly debated at the federal level, in school districts, as well as in thinktanks, research institutes, and foundations around the country, the adage “nothing is more permanent than change” characterizes our school system more than it ever has. Everyone seems to be an expert at what teachers should know and be able to do in order to improve student learning. The problem is that teachers are rarely a part of those conversations and the structures that constrain or enable teachers in districts and schools are rarely acknowledged or addressed, particularly in urban schools and at the high school level. The “Creative Pedagogies for School Change” (CP) project as a whole—and this action research course in particular—aims to fill these gaps. The main CP project goal is to cultivate 21st-century teacher leadership, empowerment, creativity, and critical agency so that teachers will deeply transform urban high schools to better support teacher, administrator, and community collaboration, as well as student learning, psycho-emotional growth, and achievement. The IUE uses creative and critical conceptual frameworks, leadership coaching, and practitioner action research to partner with teachers in the challenging work of changing urban schools.
Professors: Jacqueline Jenkins and Karen DeMoss
