How have changes in educational practices impacted you professionally and personally: a) over your lifetime?; b) over the past 15 years?; c) over the past five years? What has been your experience with innovations introduced and implemented in a top-down manner, such as through decisions made by state or local authorities and mandated in your school and/or classroom? What has been your experience with innovations introduced by you and colleagues to change teaching practices in your classrooms and community?
How has your identity as an teaching professional or as an ESOL teaching professional evolved over the course of your career up to today? Have this week’s readings–the Kennedy chapter and the Freeman chapter in Hyland & Wong (2013)–influenced your understanding of how you and your students “make sense of….new ways of participating in the familiar social settings of the school and classroom,” in Freeman’s words? Does the “social identity” you have developed over the course of many personal and professional experiences affect how you “make sense of” new curricula, innovations, and mandates today?
