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Niceness includes behaviors such as avoiding conflict or controversial topics, being submissive and people-pleasing, performing teaching as “love” in uncritical ways, accepting deficit perspectives, and upholding patriarchal structures. In the spirit of Niceness, white female teachers often avoid the work of challenging inequitable systems because doing so leaves them vulnerable to being seen as “not nice” or troublemakers. In this article, we interrogate how “niceness” produces and perpetuates inequalities in schooling. In particular, we argue that we, a group of eight white female teacher educators from across the United States, are in positions of leadership, capable of perpetuating or disrupting “niceness” in our pre-service courses. Drawing on scholarship on niceness, femininity, and critical whiteness, we examine our complicity in acts of oppression and how we work to identify and unlearn institutional norms to teach for justice and equity. We share vulnerable moments when we upheld niceness. In doing so, we aim to reveal and explore how socialization into niceness enables our silence, inaction, and misguided action.

This article presents the results of a multi-site study conducted by nine graduate educators in the United States investigating how reading comprehension might be supported by social annotation. This research examines collaborative learning and group construction of knowledge that took place in six classrooms across a university semester. The findings of this study provide insight into the general reading comprehension practices of graduate students. The results also demonstrate how social annotation can operate as a pathway for understanding learning in process. We hope this study can act as a catalyst for discussion in the development of students' metacognitive practices.

With the need to prepare teacher candidates to work with an increasingly diverse student body in U.S. schools, a multi-institutional collaborative self-study group was formed to examine ways in which teacher educators could expand beyond practice-based literacy preparation to support candidates' understanding and implementation of critical pedagogies. The self-study served as a catalyst for interrogating the identities the teacher educators brought to their practice and began a journey that transformed a focus on critical literacies into a commitment to action for change through anti-bias antiracist work. This paper draws from group dialogue and reflective journals to examine specific practices implemented with teacher candidates to transform their practice by considering critical literacies, asset- and deficit-based language, and the identity work of teachers and students. Insights of the self-study suggest that attention to critical pedagogies must go beyond instructional activity to consider the habits of mind essential for cultivation to support a commitment to action for anti-bias anti-racist education. The paper concludes by examining these core habits of mind and their impact on the trajectory of the group's work toward leveraging language and literacy for activism and justice in teacher education contexts.

Niceness is a socialized disposition, particularly amongst white women, that prioritizes comfort and neutrality while preventing resistance against oppressive systems. Given the demographics of teachers and teacher educators, niceness and whiteness are deeply embedded in programs and institutions. As eight white, female teacher educators, we drew on the power of cross-institutional collaboration to form a self-study community of practice with the purpose of interrogating and dismantling the ways niceness and whiteness function in our teaching and teacher institutions and create barriers to centering equity and justice. Findings indicated that collaboration helped us identify how niceness shaped and continues to shape our teaching and teacher identities, particularly how we navigate difficult conversations, think about our roles as teacher educators, and imagine literacy curricula. Findings also indicated that despite efforts to recognize and interrupt niceness and whiteness, our growth was nonlinear, and we find that constant vigilance and reflection is necessary. Implications for the broader field of education include the power of self-study for disrupting niceness and whiteness in teacher education and orienting the community toward action through mutual support and accountability, while also recognizing the ways in which niceness continues to function as a barrier for enacting change for social justice.

As an internal process, documenting reading comprehension has remained challenging. This paper presents three case studies that explore the transactional practices of literacy education graduate students as they read and annotate assigned texts in an online, asynchronous class. Social annotation tools give multiple students simultaneous access to the same text and allow them to interact with one another, which positions literacy as a social practice. Findings illuminate the different approaches participants engaged in to interact with the text and their peers, with regard to comprehension strategies, critique, and community interaction. Implications offer insight for teacher educators on assessing teacher reading comprehension through social annotation.

Examination of social annotation during assigned readings in this study brings together research about digital reading, learning communities, metacognition, and critical literacy. Social annotation allows readers to engage with text collaboratively to build understanding during reading. The authors conducted a content analysis of over 400 annotations made by 12 novice teachers to discover their metacognitive, social, and critical practices during reading. Findings suggest that text-to-text connections are a powerful practice for developing contextual knowledge, that practice-based identities enacted by participants during reading further supported their knowledge development, and that metacognition and strategy instruction are essential for critical literacy development.

This design-based research study examines how a collaborative annotation tool, Perusall, supported the development of community within an asynchronous online graduate course. Students read and engaged with assigned texts uploaded to Perusall each week, providing numerous opportunities for students to interact and collaborate with each other using the tool's various sharing and communication features. Both text interactions and peer-to-peer interactions on Perusall increased throughout the course, with peer-to-peer interactions increasing at a greater rate, indicative of community growth within the course. Collaborative annotation tools capture students' thinking and processing in the moment, more closely mirroring the learning that one might see in a face-to-face class when students discuss content with their instructor and/or classmates. This study offers insights for teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders about new approaches for developing community in online educational contexts, especially considering the drastic shift to online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The intent of this research was to investigate the experiences of eighth grade readers as they read nonfiction text on an iPad for academic purposes. We investigated reading strategies that students use to support their reading as well as what role iPad features played in the reading process. New literacies, metacognition and transactional theories informed the framework. Multiple data sources were used to triangulate findings and included (a) retrospective think alouds, (b) student iPad survey, (c) pre and post study student interviews, (d) Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory and (e) student observations. Data for the collective case study participants focused on the identification of proficient readers who displayed confidence, competency, and control over text. Themes identified in the collective case studies included (a) reading comprehension strategies, (b) nonfiction features and (c) iPad features to support their reading of nonfiction on the iPad.

This article presents the results of a multi‐site study conducted by nine graduate educators in the United States investigating how reading comprehension might be supported by social annotation. This research examines collaborative learning and group construction of knowledge that took place in six classrooms across a university semester. The findings of this study provide insight into the general reading comprehension practices of graduate students. The results also demonstrate how social annotation can operate as a pathway for understanding learning in process. We hope this study can act as a catalyst for discussion in the development of students' metacognitive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five teacher educators discuss children's literature addressing Earth's changing climate. They present tools for evaluating the quality of resources likely to help teachers and students stimulate conceptual and emotional development rather than anxiety or oversimplification. An annotated selection of current books along with a checklist to evaluate children's literature oriented toward issues of climate change is presented to help teachers choose appropriate literature for facilitating students' development of scientifically, socially, and ecologically responsible thinking and decision-making.

We know that metacognitive students are successful in school (Sternberg "Instructional Science" 26:127-140, 1998). However, despite the recognition of the role of metacognition in student success, limited research has been done to explore teachers' explicit awareness of their metacognition and their ability to think about, talk about, and write about their thinking (Zohar "Teaching and Teacher Education" 15:413-429, 1999). Therefore, the current study investigates teachers' understanding of metacognition and their pedagogical understanding of metacognition, and the nature of what it means to teach students to be metacognitive. One hundred-five graduate students in education participated in this study. The data analysis results, using mixed research method, suggest that the participant's metacognitive knowledge had a significant impact on his/her pedagogical understanding of metacognition. The results revealed that teachers who have a rich understanding of metacognition report that teaching students to be metacognitive requires a complex understanding of both the concept of metacognition and metacognitive thinking strategies. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

This article describes a pilot study conducted with 10 identified avid adolescent readers who completed the Adolescent Motivation to Read Profile (AMRP) (Pitcher, Albright, DeLaney, Walker, Seunarienesingh, & Moggie, 2007) that includes both a survey to determine students' self-concept and value of reading and an interview that sheds light on what motivates them to read as well as yields specific information about their reading habits. The researchers use this data to challenge current myths regarding avid readers and to suggest that teachers look more deeply at the types of literacy experiences they offer in their classroom in order to draw these readers into their classes and enhance in-school reading. (Contains 1 figure.)

The purpose of this article is to present Questioning as Thinking (QAT), a metacognitive framework that helps teachers and students focus on performance. QAT combines components of three widely-used strategies: Think-Alouds, Question Answer Relationships (QAR), and Self-Questioning. Together, these three strategies give students and teachers the language and processes for explicitly monitoring and regulating cognition. In addition, students and teachers engage in active learning when they implement these strategies, which may lead to improved student performance and achievement. The article describes QAT and its benefits, using vignettes from two middle grades teachers, Jennifer and Barbara (pseudonyms are used for all names), who implemented the framework in their classrooms. (Contains 6 figures.)

This study examined how content area teachers' literacy knowledge developed during a yearlong professional development initiative focused on using the framework of Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) within explicit instruction. The initiative focused on the metacognitive thinking in which teachers engage during QAR instruction. The participating teachers' knowledge development was measured through their metacognitive understandings as demonstrated by lesson plans and reflective comments. Findings indicate that teachers' metacognitive understanding of the QAR strategy was demonstrated through their declarative and procedural understandings. Teachers successfully enacted a literacy strategy in their content classrooms, understanding that students would become more actively engaged and metacognitive about the content being learned. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

The present study explores the ways in which participating in a study group helped five US middle school teachers alter their construction of knowledge. The members came together to improve their knowledge on assessment for learning in response to school-level and district-level pressures. The analysis was a recursive review of teacher statements and actions in the study group as well as the classroom through the lens of pedagogical content knowledge. The support and collegiality of the group demonstrates how collaborative groups can develop professional growth. The examination of the data looked at how participation in a study group focused on assessment for learning changed the structure of pedagogical content knowledge for participating teachers and what components of the study group led to those changes. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)