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FROM THE DIRECTOR:
 Authenticity
in Teacher Practice and Student Learning
Karen Seashore Louis, Director, CAREI
The work presented in this issue of Research/Practice represents
the best of collaborative work between teachers and university-based scholars.
The topic is central to school reform: identifying strategies with the greatest
promise for helping all students to learn. Recent scholarship reaffirms
what teachers have always known: that what they do on a day-to-day basis
has the most critical impact on student learning. Yet, aside from the research
on "direct instruction," there has been inconsistent evidence about what
teacher strategies are most likely to reach and sustain intellectual growth
for each child.
The authentic pedagogy model featured in this issue offers teachers an
approach to instruction that is simple (the concepts are familiar
and can be easily observed both in their own work, and in observing others),
adaptable to a variety of teacher styles and preferences, and
applicable across curriculum and content areas. Rather than providing
teachers with "one best way" to design instruction, it focuses on the broader
strategies for engaging students in meaningful intellectual work. Based
on my own research, I can personally attest to the fact that one can see
"authentic pedagogy" both in classrooms in which the presentation of ideas
and concepts might be described as teacher-focused and in more obviously
student-centered settings in which learners construct meaning and tasks
for themselves.
The concepts underlying authentic pedagogy are not new, but rather began
to emerge from University of Wisconsin Professor Fred Newmann's work with
teachers in the late 1960s, in which he and his colleagues tried to understand
the importance of "talk" in classrooms. During the late 1980s the concepts
were developed further in the context of high school instruction at the
Center for the Study of High Schools, funded by the federal government's
Office or Educational Research and Instruction (OERI) and were subsequently
refined to cover a broader range of grade levels and subject areas in the
1990s, at the Center for Organization and Restructuring of Schools, also
funded by OERI. What differentiates the development of the authentic pedagogy
concept from many concurrent studies of teacher practice was the emphasis
on linking the model to changes in learning and achievement for all students,
and the effort to replicate findings across classrooms and schools in many
settings. During this developmental period, university researchers worked
with teachers in order to ensure that the concept was applicable to and
useful for a range of teachers in what might be described as "typical schools."
The task that remained was to develop a program for the professional
development of teachers from this research foundation, a task that has been
assumed by Professor Avery in consultation with Professor Newmann. What
is reported here is, in our collective view, an example of the practical
benefits of sustained inquiry over time that is committed to moving a theory
of teaching into the realm of daily work in schools. While more work is
needed among both university and school-based educators, the path for productive
collaborative effort is well outlined in the articles that are included
in this issue.
—Karen Seashore Louis
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