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Grossman, P., & McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in teaching and teacher education. American Educational Research Journal , 45 (1), 184-205.

of nurturing creative young minds, and their work should be shared with as many of their colleagues as possible. Starting the Conversation Although much recent attention has been focused on summative assessments of pre-service teachers and the outcomes of teacher preparation programs, this article represents an attempt to spark new conversations about what’s happening within literacy education courses for both pre-service and in- service teachers. All in all, I think my attempt to practice what I preach has gotten off to a pretty good start—students report more engagement with course activities and objectives, and more importantly, they’re connecting theory with authentic problems of practice. For example, many of my students have successfully delivered their Valuing Diversity PDs in school and district sessions; several students have reported that their Literacy Action Plans are informing school-wide decision- making; the Multicultural Book Blog is still being edited and accessed months after the course ended; and in a particularly rewarding teaching moment, one student even sent over a link to her third grade students’multicultural literature blog. In my quest to create assessments that are more responsive to the social and institutional contexts in which my students teach, I’ve also found myriad opportunities to open new communicative channels with schools and districts. In talking about the Literacy Action Plans with administrators and curriculum designers at my students’ schools, for example, we’ve started a new dialogue about the collision of policy, research, theory, and practice. And ultimately, I think that’s a worthy goal—to engage in the difficult work of allowing practice to inform research and theory, just as research and theory informs practice. References Au, W. (2013). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this?: The edTPA and corporate education“reform”. Rethinking Schools , 27 (4), 22-27.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Teaching in dangerous times: Culturally relevant approaches to teacher assessment. Journal of Negro Education , 67 (3), 255-267.

McCabe, K. (2016, March 22). Study: Evidence ‘Thin’for key accountability efforts— except for edTPA. EdPrep Matters . Retrieved from http:// edprepmatters.net/2016/03/study-evidence-thin-for-key-accountability- efforts-except-for-edtpa/

Reading Matters Teaching Matters

National Association of Multicultural Education. (2014, January 21). NAME position statement on edTPA. Retrieved from http://nameorg.org/2014/01/position-edtpa/

Olmstead, C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools. TechTrends , 57 (6), 28-37.

Pawan, F., Paulus, T. M., Yalcin, S., & Chang, C. F. (2003). Online learning: Patterns of engagement and interaction among in-service teachers. Language Learning & Technology , 7 (3), 119-140.

Pecheone, R. L., &Whittaker, A. (2016). Well-prepared teachers inspire student learning. Phi Delta Kappan , 97 (7), 8-13.

Read to Succeed Act, § R313, § S516 (2014).

Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again toward practice-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education , 63 (5), 376-382.  Robin Jocius, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the Zucker Family School of Education at The Citadel. Her research interests include digital and multimodal literacies, culturally responsive pedagogies, literacy teacher education, and critical literacy. She can be reached at rjocius@citadel.edu .

Bishop, R.S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6 (3), ix-xi.

Casey, K. (2006). Literacy coaching: The essentials . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Cochran-Smith, M., Stern, R., Sánchez, J.G., Miller, A., Keefe, E.S., Fernández, M.B.,

Chang, W., Carney, M.C., Burton, S., & Baker, M. (2016). Holding teacher preparation accountable: A review of claims and evidence. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/

Darling-Hammond, L., & Snyder, J. (2000). Authentic assessment of teaching in context. Teaching and Teacher Education , 16 (5), 523-545.

Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal , 38 (4), 915-945.

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