Improving Literacy Instruction at Scale: Professional Development and Literacy Infrastructure in Rural Schools

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Perspectives and Supports in Rural and International Settings to Inform Leadership (Table 30)

Abstract

In the past decade, several states passed laws related to the instruction and assessment of literacy. Policymakers frequently ignore the improvement needs of rural schools. This qualitative study used Woulfin and Gabriel’s (2020) literacy infrastructure framework to examine the perceptions of teacher and administrator in eight rural schools, specifically seeking to understand their perceptions of the instructional core, instructional leadership and other infrastructure that supported the implementation of the evidence-based strategies presented in the PD. Preliminary findings identified variation in the availability of formal and informal instructional leadership roles and infrastructure, such as PLCs, that supported teacher learning and implementation of evidence-based literacy strategies.
 

Authors

• Sarah J Zuckerman, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Michael Hebert, University of California - Irvine

• Rachel E. Schachter, University of Illinois at Chicago