Missouri Comprehensive Literacy State Development Program - UMSL grant
Co-PIs: Shea N. Kerkhoff, Katherine A. O'Daniels, Nancy Robb Singer and the Show Me Literacies Collaborative
Missouri is in need of literacy support in the areas of increasing resources for children living in poverty, reducing racial disparities, supporting the growing population of emerging bilinguals, and meeting the needs of students identified as special education. In 2020, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) was awared $18M to meet the needs of these children in two ways. One, we developed a comprehensive literacy plan this past year and are in a position to help schools implement the plan in their contexts. The Missouri Comprehensive State Literacy Plan implementation will advance literacy skills in the state through the use of evidence-based practices and interventions, including pre-literacy skills, reading, writing, and digital literacy for children from birth through grade 12, with an emphasis on children living in poverty, from historically marginalized communities, and children with disabilities. Two, Missouri DESE has cultivated partnerships with both longstanding and newly funded statewide initiatives. Forming a statewide partnership, the grant brings together the University of Missouri system, Missouri Writing Projects Network, and Missouri Language and Literacies Center to form the Show Me Literacies Collaborative to facilitate professional development across the state. The state’s three overarching goals for literacy align with the goals of the Comprehensive Literacy Development grant goals:
Gateway to the World: Internationalizing Education at UMSL and Beyond
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
The overall goal of the internationalizing education project was to integrate global and intercultural competence across content areas and grade levels in the greater St. Louis region and beyond through faculty professional development, intentional teacher preparation, curriculum revision, and research at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). We achieved this goal through three initiatives. 1.) Internationalizing Inquiry Circles Using the Longview Global Teacher Educator Fellowship as a model, I created the internationalizing inquiry circles to kick-off for our work to internationalize UMSL teacher education courses. All faculty in the College of Education (COE) and the College of Arts and Sciences were invited to apply for the internationalizing inquiry circles. The ten fellows selected attended inquiry circles once a month led by Shea Kerkhoff, Global Teacher Educator Fellow 2018-2019, and revised one course to include global competence. The inquiry circles began with discussion of an article related to internationalizing teacher education followed by time for participant problem-posing related to their course revisions and discussion of possible solutions. Completion of the inquiry circles and course revision was incentivized through a grant award from the Longview Foundation. To investigate the impact of internationalizing the courses, we used action research. Data sources from faculty included before and after syllabi, teaching reflections, inquiry circle discussions, and pre and post surveys using the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale (Kerkhoff, 2017). 2.) Teaching Global Readiness Grand Seminar For the second part of the project, in September 2019, the UMSL COE hosted a Grand Seminar on Global Learning. UMSL preservice teachers in their final, year-long practicum attend 6 “Grand Seminars” during the academic year. These day-long meetings are designed to provide specific professional development for preservice teachers and for COE faculty. Through the grant award, we were able to bring in Dr. Ariel Tichnor-Wagner to keynote, who is a national expert on global education. Before the grand seminar on global readiness, preservice teachers took a survey with the Globally Competent Learning Continuum (Tichnor-Wager et al., 2019) and the a modified version of the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale. After hearing the keynote, attendees selected interactive breakout sessions led by COE faculty. Preservice teachers again took the survey at the end of the academic year to reflect on growth over time. 3.) Integrating Global Readiness with Missouri Standards Following NAFSA’s lead in creating a global lens for the InTASC standards, UMSL COE faculty meet during brown bag sessions to cast a global lens on our institutional outcomes, state teacher preparation standards, and state learning standards. This initiative included faculty members engaged in the inquiry circles and COE program leaders. In March of 2020, I invited teacher educators from Missouri universities, teachers from local schools, members of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and UMSL COE faculty to gather for a Global Ready Missouri summit. We engaged in rich discussion about how to locally situate globally learning for Missouri students in a way that met the standards rather than an add-on to the curriculum. The programming and research was funded by the Longview Foundation, and our results are currently in press. In 2022, the College of Education was awarded the AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global and International Perspectives for this work. Read more here blogs.umsl.edu/news/2022/02/28/aacte-best-practice-award.
The Inquiry Initiative: Professional Development for Teachers in Kenya to Integrate Digital Literacy Instruction across Grades and Content Areas
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
Co-PIs: Timothy Makubuya, Peter Wanyonyi, Michelle A. Falter, Hiller A. Spires, Astri Napitupulu
This multi-year research study began in June 2018 and and continues through June 2023. In order to be as mutually beneficial as possible, we facilitated a professional development series called the Inquiry Initiative, which involves an inquiry-based learning approach with emphasis on critical reading of informational texts and multimodal source-based writing for social and environmental change. In addition, the program includes contributing updated resources to school libraries in the community where the professional development took place in order to enhance inquiry possibilities. The Inquiry Initiative targets teachers from small rural schools outside of the city of Kitale, Kenya. The scale up expanded the Inquiry Initiative from the initial cadre of teachers from one village to include all teachers in the greater Kitale area. Research questions include to what extent do teachers adopt inquiry-based literacy instruction, what are teachers’ perceptions of the cultural relevance of inquiry-based learning, and what are teachers' perceptions of technology on student learning? This research has been funded by ILA's Constance McCullough Grant, ILA's Elva Knight Research Award, UMSL College of Education, UMSL Global, UMSL Office of Research Administration, NCSU's Office of Global Engagement, and NCSU College of Education. Publications include Kerkhoff, Spires, & Wanyonyi, 2020 and Kerkhoff & Makubuya, 2022.
The Teaching for Global Readiness Scale: Measuring Situated, Integrated, Critical, and Intercultural Teaching that Promotes Global Literacies
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
This research includes the development and ongoing validation of the Teaching for Global Readiness scale. I used a sequential exploratory mixed methods design to develop and validate the original scale. I began by interviewing expert teachers and teacher educators to define and operationalize the construct of teaching for global literacies guided by theories of multiliteracies and cosmopolitanism. Qualitative analysis of the interviews resulted in four themes and a large item pool for the scale. I then needed to see if the qualitative findings were generalizable to a larger population, so I used survey methods and content validation procedures to narrow the item pool to a reasonable amount and distributed the survey to K-12 teachers in the U.S. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results using split-half samples from 630 respondents, teaching for global readiness was interpreted as a multidimensional construct with four factors: situated relevant practice, integrated global learning, critical literacy for consciousness raising, and transactional intercultural experiences. By developing and validating the Teaching for Global Readiness scale, this original study provided an empirical foundation for future work in advancing evidence-based theories, policies, and practices for global education. Case studies using the scale include teaching for global readiness in Indiana (Kerkhoff, Dimitrieska, Woerner, & Alsup, 2019) and the updated Global Teaching Model (Kerkhoff & Cloud, 2020). I am currently working with Maria Sanz Leal to translate the scale to Spanish with one version for teachers in Spain and one for teachers in South America. We are also collaborating to validate a modified version of the English and Spanish scales for preservice teachers. The inservice English-language teacher scale is open access and available at globalreadiness.github.io.
Co-PIs: Shea N. Kerkhoff, Katherine A. O'Daniels, Nancy Robb Singer and the Show Me Literacies Collaborative
Missouri is in need of literacy support in the areas of increasing resources for children living in poverty, reducing racial disparities, supporting the growing population of emerging bilinguals, and meeting the needs of students identified as special education. In 2020, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) was awared $18M to meet the needs of these children in two ways. One, we developed a comprehensive literacy plan this past year and are in a position to help schools implement the plan in their contexts. The Missouri Comprehensive State Literacy Plan implementation will advance literacy skills in the state through the use of evidence-based practices and interventions, including pre-literacy skills, reading, writing, and digital literacy for children from birth through grade 12, with an emphasis on children living in poverty, from historically marginalized communities, and children with disabilities. Two, Missouri DESE has cultivated partnerships with both longstanding and newly funded statewide initiatives. Forming a statewide partnership, the grant brings together the University of Missouri system, Missouri Writing Projects Network, and Missouri Language and Literacies Center to form the Show Me Literacies Collaborative to facilitate professional development across the state. The state’s three overarching goals for literacy align with the goals of the Comprehensive Literacy Development grant goals:
- Build capacity of teacher leaders in 80 schools to develop, implement, and maintain high-quality, evidence-based literacy plans with the potential to support the subgrantee schools in their districts and leverage this capacity to better support all schools in their districts through what is learned during this five-year process.
- Prepare educators (pre-service teachers in participating institutions of higher education, early childhood teachers in 20 subgrantees’ communities, and K-12 teachers in 80 subgrantees’ schools) to meet the literacy instruction needs of all students charged to them.
- Increase literacy outcomes for all children (approximately 35,000) served by subgrantee, high-need schools.
Gateway to the World: Internationalizing Education at UMSL and Beyond
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
The overall goal of the internationalizing education project was to integrate global and intercultural competence across content areas and grade levels in the greater St. Louis region and beyond through faculty professional development, intentional teacher preparation, curriculum revision, and research at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). We achieved this goal through three initiatives. 1.) Internationalizing Inquiry Circles Using the Longview Global Teacher Educator Fellowship as a model, I created the internationalizing inquiry circles to kick-off for our work to internationalize UMSL teacher education courses. All faculty in the College of Education (COE) and the College of Arts and Sciences were invited to apply for the internationalizing inquiry circles. The ten fellows selected attended inquiry circles once a month led by Shea Kerkhoff, Global Teacher Educator Fellow 2018-2019, and revised one course to include global competence. The inquiry circles began with discussion of an article related to internationalizing teacher education followed by time for participant problem-posing related to their course revisions and discussion of possible solutions. Completion of the inquiry circles and course revision was incentivized through a grant award from the Longview Foundation. To investigate the impact of internationalizing the courses, we used action research. Data sources from faculty included before and after syllabi, teaching reflections, inquiry circle discussions, and pre and post surveys using the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale (Kerkhoff, 2017). 2.) Teaching Global Readiness Grand Seminar For the second part of the project, in September 2019, the UMSL COE hosted a Grand Seminar on Global Learning. UMSL preservice teachers in their final, year-long practicum attend 6 “Grand Seminars” during the academic year. These day-long meetings are designed to provide specific professional development for preservice teachers and for COE faculty. Through the grant award, we were able to bring in Dr. Ariel Tichnor-Wagner to keynote, who is a national expert on global education. Before the grand seminar on global readiness, preservice teachers took a survey with the Globally Competent Learning Continuum (Tichnor-Wager et al., 2019) and the a modified version of the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale. After hearing the keynote, attendees selected interactive breakout sessions led by COE faculty. Preservice teachers again took the survey at the end of the academic year to reflect on growth over time. 3.) Integrating Global Readiness with Missouri Standards Following NAFSA’s lead in creating a global lens for the InTASC standards, UMSL COE faculty meet during brown bag sessions to cast a global lens on our institutional outcomes, state teacher preparation standards, and state learning standards. This initiative included faculty members engaged in the inquiry circles and COE program leaders. In March of 2020, I invited teacher educators from Missouri universities, teachers from local schools, members of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and UMSL COE faculty to gather for a Global Ready Missouri summit. We engaged in rich discussion about how to locally situate globally learning for Missouri students in a way that met the standards rather than an add-on to the curriculum. The programming and research was funded by the Longview Foundation, and our results are currently in press. In 2022, the College of Education was awarded the AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Global and International Perspectives for this work. Read more here blogs.umsl.edu/news/2022/02/28/aacte-best-practice-award.
The Inquiry Initiative: Professional Development for Teachers in Kenya to Integrate Digital Literacy Instruction across Grades and Content Areas
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
Co-PIs: Timothy Makubuya, Peter Wanyonyi, Michelle A. Falter, Hiller A. Spires, Astri Napitupulu
This multi-year research study began in June 2018 and and continues through June 2023. In order to be as mutually beneficial as possible, we facilitated a professional development series called the Inquiry Initiative, which involves an inquiry-based learning approach with emphasis on critical reading of informational texts and multimodal source-based writing for social and environmental change. In addition, the program includes contributing updated resources to school libraries in the community where the professional development took place in order to enhance inquiry possibilities. The Inquiry Initiative targets teachers from small rural schools outside of the city of Kitale, Kenya. The scale up expanded the Inquiry Initiative from the initial cadre of teachers from one village to include all teachers in the greater Kitale area. Research questions include to what extent do teachers adopt inquiry-based literacy instruction, what are teachers’ perceptions of the cultural relevance of inquiry-based learning, and what are teachers' perceptions of technology on student learning? This research has been funded by ILA's Constance McCullough Grant, ILA's Elva Knight Research Award, UMSL College of Education, UMSL Global, UMSL Office of Research Administration, NCSU's Office of Global Engagement, and NCSU College of Education. Publications include Kerkhoff, Spires, & Wanyonyi, 2020 and Kerkhoff & Makubuya, 2022.
The Teaching for Global Readiness Scale: Measuring Situated, Integrated, Critical, and Intercultural Teaching that Promotes Global Literacies
PI: Shea N. Kerkhoff
This research includes the development and ongoing validation of the Teaching for Global Readiness scale. I used a sequential exploratory mixed methods design to develop and validate the original scale. I began by interviewing expert teachers and teacher educators to define and operationalize the construct of teaching for global literacies guided by theories of multiliteracies and cosmopolitanism. Qualitative analysis of the interviews resulted in four themes and a large item pool for the scale. I then needed to see if the qualitative findings were generalizable to a larger population, so I used survey methods and content validation procedures to narrow the item pool to a reasonable amount and distributed the survey to K-12 teachers in the U.S. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results using split-half samples from 630 respondents, teaching for global readiness was interpreted as a multidimensional construct with four factors: situated relevant practice, integrated global learning, critical literacy for consciousness raising, and transactional intercultural experiences. By developing and validating the Teaching for Global Readiness scale, this original study provided an empirical foundation for future work in advancing evidence-based theories, policies, and practices for global education. Case studies using the scale include teaching for global readiness in Indiana (Kerkhoff, Dimitrieska, Woerner, & Alsup, 2019) and the updated Global Teaching Model (Kerkhoff & Cloud, 2020). I am currently working with Maria Sanz Leal to translate the scale to Spanish with one version for teachers in Spain and one for teachers in South America. We are also collaborating to validate a modified version of the English and Spanish scales for preservice teachers. The inservice English-language teacher scale is open access and available at globalreadiness.github.io.