Browsing by Author "Mosher, Ronna"

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    Cognitive Apprenticeship in Online Teaching and Learning with Education Students
    (2021-05-08) Delanoy, Nadia; Mosher, Ronna
    In this vignette we share our work surrounding cognitive apprenticeship as it applies to online graduate and bachelor level learning and the instructor's experiences. We also delve into the literature to underscore the affordances that applying cognitive apprenticeship can have in relationship to richer instructor pedagogy and the student experience. We assert that using cognitive apprenticeship in the design and implementation of graduate courses can help instructors more aptly engage and empower students and help cultivate a recursivity of learning through feedback, scaffolding, and instructional fading (i.e. direct to nuanced instruction). We invite you on our journey to learn more about cognitive apprenticeship as it is applied here at Werklund.
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    Leadership Scholarship and Certification through Cognitive Apprenticeship
    (2020-11-15) Mosher, Ronna; Pamplin, Lori; Brown, Barbara; Delanoy, Nadia
    CHALLENGE: MEd graduate leadership programs must negotiate scholarly expectations with student eligibility requirements for provincial leadership certification. METHODOLOGY: The signature pedagogy of cognitive apprenticeship provided a lens for the analysis of course design artefacts and instructor interview data in a Werklund School of Education graduate leadership program. FINDINGS: Findings portray practices of recursion and reflection, reciprocal apprenticeship, and an intentional situating of self amidst collective (institutional, cohort, and public) capacities. Layers of scaffolding and modelling support students toward identified ends and positions of potentiality.
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    “Let Them Play”: Embodied Literacy Learning Through Play in the Early Years Classroom
    (2024-04-22) Hanzel, Stacey; Lenters, Kimberly; Mosher, Ronna; McDermott, Mairi
    Literacy programs and curricula define literacy primarily through cognition, and this privileges an assumption that all learning is situated in the brain, separate from the body. Early-years classrooms are being filled with literacy programs designed with this definition in mind, and as a result, play is diminishing from these classrooms. Posthumanist theoretical perspectives identify the role of the body in learning, identifying play as an example of embodied learning. This study considers the role of the mind and body in embodied literacy-learning through play. The literature review considers posthumanist theories and literacy while also identifying research surrounding playful literacy learning in the 21st century. The context of this study is a Grade 1 classroom in an urban centre that borders a large city in Western Canada. The observations occurred over four months during the daily 45-minute free playtime. The data collection consisted of unstructured interviews, images, videos, and observational notes. Rhizoanalysis was used to identify the emergent nature of embodied literacy practices through play by mapping entities of humans, materials, and language in the play assemblages. Additionally, writing was used as a method of analysis through the creation of data stories, which are shared in the findings chapters. This case study research thinks with posthumanist concepts as the Grade 1 play stories were explored. In identifying embodied literacy practices through play, the findings of this study challenge traditional notions of play and literacy-supporting play as a generative means for literacy learning in the early years classroom.
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    Partner research schools: Conversations about research ethics
    (2017-11-01) Brown, Barbara; Ellard, John; Faught, Erin; Mosher, Ronna
    This working document is for researchers and practitioners conducting research in schools or responsible for making decisions about the conduct of research in K-12 Schools. The working document may also be applicable to graduate students and others involved in school research. Three fictitious scenarios are provided to guide beginning conversations about some common research problems, ethical issues and questions raised by researchers and practitioners involved in K-12 school research. The purpose of the discussion questions presented at the end of each scenario is to facilitate conversations about research ethics in schools drawing on The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2nd edition).
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    Playful(l) Literacies in a First Grade Classroom
    (2024-03-27) Lenters, Kimberly; Mosher, Ronna
    This video describes and animates a Canadian grade school teacher's approach to working with children's play in intentional and purposeful ways in her first grade classroom. The teacher was a part of the Playful(l) Literacies research project, funded by SSHRC and by the Canada Research Chairs program.
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    Senior Leaders’ Perceptions about Preparing and Developing Alberta’s Principals as Instructional and Learning Leaders
    (2022-06-16) Mazurek, Melanie Kathleen; Spencer, Brenda; Mosher, Ronna; Winchester, Ian; Simmons, Marlon; Hetherington, Randy
    The purpose of this case study is to gain a deeper understanding of senior, district-level leaders’ perceptions regarding school and district-level leadership practices that prepare and develop principals as instructional and learning leaders in Alberta urban school districts. Recognizing a heightened focus on system and school leadership directed by Alberta’s practice standard and linked to student outcomes, this inquiry explores how senior leaders prepare, develop, and support principals as instructional and learning leaders, and in what ways senior leaders themselves are supported and challenged in this work. In this case study, data were generated through policy document reviews and semi-structured interviews with seven senior leaders in three Alberta urban school authorities. Through a qualitative coding process, six themes emerged indicating that system leaders (a) understand their shifting role in supporting principals as instructional and learning leaders; (b) build principal capacity through mentoring, modelling, supervising, and evaluating; (c) align practices, policies, and procedures with system wide district learning priorities; (d) promote district-led principal preparation and development programs; (e) equip themselves and each other as instructional-learning leaders to prepare and develop principals; and (f) ensure successes and navigate challenges in preparing and developing principal instructional-learning leaders. With limited research on how system leaders prepare, develop, and support principals as instructional and learning leaders, this study makes a much needed contribution. Knowledge gained from this research may support system and school instructional and learning leadership practices through sustained, effective principal preparation and development. Included are recommendations to educational leaders, post-secondary institutions, and policy makers for the practical implementation of principal preparation and development that has the potential to improve quality teaching and student learning.