Developing Habits of Noticing in Literacy and Language Classrooms: Research and Practice across Professional Cultures

Noticing is an essential aspect of professional expertise in teaching – a skill that draws on deep professional knowledge in ways that affect how teachers are aware of, respond to and meet the needs of their students. Being a ‘noticing teacher’ in the language and literacy classroom can make a real difference to students’ progress as readers and writers, to their literacy attainment and to their engagement with learning. This international, research-informed book is unique in its focus on literacy and language. The authors explore models and methods to embed both noticing and the development of teacher agency and grounded knowledge into teacher education programs and school practices. To further the professional knowledge and agency of ‘noticing teachers’, the authors argue that research, policy and the professional community need to understand how noticing skills can be woven into the policy and practice contexts of the literacy teacher’s work. Developing Habits of Noticing in Literacy and Language Classrooms: Research and Practice across Professional Cultures is designed to help teachers, researchers and school leaders think in new ways about how ‘noticing’ operates in the context of the literacy classroom and how it can be supported. Each chapter provides a valuable insight into how teachers learn from their students, in the course of teaching activities, to be responsive, analytical and inspirational.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction Sue Ellis (Strathclyde University) and Alyson Simpson (University of Sydney) Chapter 2. Teacher Candidates Learn to Notice during Supervisory Conferences Melanie C. González, Francesca Pomerantz, and Cami Condie (Salem State University) Chapter 3. Noticing as Key to Meet the Needs of Developing Writers Judy M. Parr (University of Auckland) Chapter 4: Teacher Noticing in Language and Literacy Landscapes of Practice Sue Ellis, Adele Rowe, Jenny Carey, and Vivienne Smith (Strathclyde University) Chapter 5: Challenges and Transformations of Noticing in a New Culture: Preservice Teachers Teach in South Africa to Learn to Teach in the U.S. Douglas Kaufman (University of Connecticut) Chapter 6: TESOL Students’ Perspectives: Noticing Classroom Practice Martha Lengeling, Amanda K. Wilson and Irasema Mora-Pablo (University of Guanajuato) Chapter 7: Developing an Implemented Curriculum of Literacy: Contrasting Approaches to Policy and Practice Rúnar Sigþórsson (University of Akureyri) Chapter 8: Developing Noticing Capacity to Support Teacher Professionalism through Dialogic Learning with Literary Texts Alyson Simpson (University of Sydney) Chapter 9: Reflections on "Noticing" Research and Implications for the Future Francesca Pomerantz (Salem State University) and Douglas Kaufman (University of Connecticut) List of Contributors

About the Author :
Alyson Simpson is Professor in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Her research projects in higher education and primary schools include work on the power of dialogic learning and the impact of digital technology on reading practices and pedagogy. Francesca Pomerantz is Professor in the Department of Childhood Education and Care at Salem State University. Her research and teaching focus on preparing and supporting teachers to teach literacy. As the lead faculty for school and community partnerships, she is responsible for the field component of the university’s teacher preparation program. Douglas Kaufman is Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. His current research examines teachers’ identities as writers and the development of intercultural understandings in preservice teachers. He also directs the Neag Teaching Abroad Program in Cape Town, South Africa. Sue Ellis is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Strathclyde University. Her research concerns the role and nature of professional knowledge in literacy teaching and how policy and practice frameworks can shape initial and continuing professional development to promote equity through schooling.

Review :
This volume is solidly grounded in the observational protocols of Marie Clay and the kid-watching perspective championed by Yetta Goodman, epistemologically centered in social pragmatism of Dewey, and cognizant of Hillary Janks’ big P and little p politics of assessment in modern education systems. Editors Simpson, Pomerantz, Kaufman and Ellis have assembled a team of authors who are able to illustrate, with an uncanny mix of conceptual integrity and hands-on practicality, how both pre-service and practicing teachers can become apprentices in learning how to notice what, how, and why their students are learning. Most important, the purpose of the noticing is always fixed on pedagogy—creating exactly that set of learning practices that will allow each child in their classroom care to take that next step on their pathway to becoming a confident, collaborative, and critical user of oral and written language. Without naming it as such, they have given us a model of what formative assessment can do when it is done right! Kudos to all! David Pearson, Evelyn Lois Corey Emeritus Professor of Instructional Science and Professor of the Graduate School, Graduate School of Education, University of California, United States I really like this book. It picks up on the essence of professional teaching practice – the relational capacity to notice, and respond appropriately to, the needs of individual learners. Across a wide range of teaching contexts, this volume provides a comprehensive theoretical frame and practical guide to teacher educators and school leaders. What is unique is the consistency of focus on the relational dimensions of teaching – supporting teachers to attend to individual learners from a position of deep theoretical and practical knowledge so that, having taken notice, they can then take action, in the spirit of practitioner inquiry. Jo-Anne Reid, Adjunct Professor of Education, Faculty of Arts and Education Charles Sturt University, Australia This edited volume is the first of its kind to explore research on teacher noticing in the context of literacy. The chapters not only bring to life teacher noticing in the practice of literacy and language instruction, they also extend the meaning of teacher noticing in ways that are both theoretically and practically important as they examine the relationship between teacher noticing, teacher agency and teacher identity. This book is a worthwhile read for those with interests in the concept of teacher noticing! Miriam Gamoran Sherin, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor of Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, United States