What We Talk About When We Talk About Standards: Teacher Sensemaking of Literacy

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Standards, Testing, and Teacher Evaluation: Examining What Counts as Good Teachers and Good Teaching

Abstract

This study examines the role of standards, organizational structures, and mechanisms on teachers’ sensemaking of literacy instructional practice, and how that sensemaking manifests into classroom practice. This study examines the ways teachers construct meaning of messages from leadership about literacy teaching and learning by using frames for sensemaking. Findings suggest that messages about curricular program adherence and assessment accountability pressure played a role in how teachers understood what should be emphasized and valued in literacy instructional practice.

Author

• Melanie M. Walski, Northern Illinois University