Equitable Design and Assessment

English academic discourse in U.S. institutions rests on Eurocentric rhetoric where hidden assumptions and expectations may place transnational students at a disadvantage in instruction, assessment, and entrance into communities of practice. The author's empirical research draws on transnational students, faculty, and staff perceptions into linguistically sustaining pedagogy to bring awareness to transnational lived experience and to make recommendations for equitable instruction and assessment. Bakhtin's dialogism and negotiation and the Academic Literacies model provide theoretical frameworks to provide practical recommendations while also examining the negative discourse and deficit-based practices surrounding English learners in American higher education. A discussion of a course redesign highlights possibilities for valuing the transnational student and offering equitable pedagogy while also increasing student investment in language learning.

Promoting Multilingual Students’ Disciplinary and Language Learning Through the WIDA Framework for Equitable Instruction

This article explores the development of a guidance document titled the “Framework for Equitable Instruction” (Framework), which aims to support multilingual students’ content-area learning and language development. The Framework was developed by WIDA, a national consortium of states, as part of its system of language standards, assessments, and professional learning. The article discusses the Framework using a protocol originally created for the alignment of content-area and language standards. The protocol highlights the rigorous theoretical foundations of the Framework, the research-based rationale behind its conceptualization of language trajectories, and the tight linkages between the Framework, content-area standards, and classroom instruction. The systematic exploration of the Framework’s features in this article can inform the future design of language standards and related documents and serve as a foundation for the constructive critique of existing ones.

Invisible Community?

In this chapter, Montana State University librarians share how they have expanded efforts to reach out to and provide equitable instruction services for its online graduate students, a population often underserved. After piloting a synchronous, online instruction program using web conferencing, librarians surveyed a targeted graduate program to determine if underserved students became more efficient researchers as a result of library instruction participation via web conferencing and if they are now taking fuller advantage of library resources and services. Students and faculty surveyed were positive about the newly created connection to the MSU community. However, findings revealed that many online graduate students work in research environments lacking the breadth and depth of resources they need. Further, many lack a connection to the MSU community and do not know that their institution's library resources are available to them. This discovery means that academic libraries should strengthen activities designed to build community among online students.

Teachers interpreting data for instructional decisions: where does equity come in?

Purpose Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a political one: data point educators toward ameliorative actions without forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to achievement disparities. To highlight the problematic nature of this tension, the purpose of this paper is to identify key problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflect on the ways in which they influence teachers’ data-use practices. Design/methodology/approach This paper illustrates the data use practices of a workgroup of sixth-grade math educators. Their meeting represents a “best case” of commonplace practice: during a full-day professional development session, they used data from a standardized district benchmark assessment with support from an expert instructional leader. This sociolinguistic analysis examines episodes of data reasoning to understand the links between the educators’ interpretations and instructional decisions. Findings This paper identifies three primary issues with test-based accountability policies: reducing complex constructs to quantitative variables, valuing remediation over instructional improvement, and enacting faith in instrument validity. At the same time, possibilities for equitable instruction were foreclosed, as teachers analyzed data in ways that gave little consideration of students’ cultural identities or funds of knowledge. Social implications Test-based accountability policies do not compel educators to use data to address the deeper issues of equity, thereby inadvertently reinforcing biased systems and positioning students from marginalized backgrounds at an educational disadvantage. Originality/value This paper fulfills a need to critically examine the ways in which test-based accountability policies influence educators’ data-use practices.

Invisible Community?

In this chapter, Montana State University librarians share how they have expanded efforts to reach out to and provide equitable instruction services for its online graduate students, a population often underserved. After piloting a synchronous, online instruction program using web conferencing, librarians surveyed a targeted graduate program to determine if underserved students became more efficient researchers as a result of library instruction participation via web conferencing and if they are now taking fuller advantage of library resources and services. Students and faculty surveyed were positive about the newly created connection to the MSU community. However, findings revealed that many online graduate students work in research environments lacking the breadth and depth of resources they need. Further, many lack a connection to the MSU community and do not know that their institution's library resources are available to them. This discovery means that academic libraries should strengthen activities designed to build community among online students.