Margaret Vaughn

Washington State University | WSU · Department of Teaching & Learning

In this article, the collection of articles in this issue are synthesized to discuss conceptualizations of adaptive teaching as a means to foster spaces for adaptive teaching in today's complex educational system. Themes that exist across this collection of articles include adaptive teachers as constructivists, adaptive teachers as knowledgeable pr...

Given the need for multiple representations of historically underrepresented voices in children’s literature, this research study explored critical depictions of agency of Latinx youth within the Pura Belpré awarded texts from 1996 to 2021. The findings report a critical multicultural analysis of depictions of age, sex, socio-economic status, et...

Children's literature can be a useful tool to share the experiences of students with disabilities. Given the increased focus on dyslexia legislation in schools across the United States, it is important to examine how characters with reading differences, specifically dyslexia, are portrayed in picture books and the role these artifacts play in equit...

This study details the development of the Critical Literacy Beliefs Survey (CLBS) with a sample of U.S. pre-service teachers (N = 405) and provides evidence of validity for developing measures of pre-service teachers’ critical literacy beliefs. The CLBS was created to gather data on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about critical literacy and answer t...

Given increased attention toward nonfiction and informational texts due to recent educational reforms in the nation, it is critical to examine how various cultural identities are depicted in nonfiction children’s picture books. Focusing on the Orbis Pictus honor and awarded texts (n = 60) from 1990 to 2019, this article reports the findings of a cr...

When inequitable situations arise, principals with strong SEL skills have a clear understanding of social emotional learning implementation to support teachers and are prepared to expose implicit bias with difficult conversations that allow teachers to examine personal beliefs and behaviors. In this article, we outline how to support SEL learning w...

Although adaptive teaching is considered a cornerstone of effective instruction, there remains a lack of focus on teacher adaptability in policy, professional practice, and teacher education in the United States. High-profile educational reform efforts have pressured districts and states across the nation to rely on prescriptive curricula that fail...

In this essay, we discuss how teachers and students can use children's literature and literature‐based activities to intentionally foster hope. The previous years have proved to be challenging on many fronts. Teachers of all levels are focusing on ways to support academic development in an oft‐shifting context. Drawing on research using bibliothera...

Perhaps no factor has a greater influence on children’s literacy learning than exposure to engaging, authentic, culturally relevant texts. This concise practitioner resource and course text helps K–8 teachers make informed choices about using children's literature in their classrooms, from selecting high-quality texts to planning instruction and pr...

At the time of writing this introduction, the world sits in the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic that has never before impacted so widely our world across geographic regions and socioeconomic levels since World War II. One could argue that possessing a vision, anchored in one’s beliefs and of social justice-oriented principles, and knowle...

In today's highly charged educational climate teacher visioning is recognized as an important navigational tool. Teacher visioning is the ongoing reflective process for teachers to identify what they want to accomplish as teachers. While there is consensus in the field of the importance of visioning there is not consensus on the language to describ...

Visioning connects images of what educational stakeholders aim to develop in their respective communities. For educators, visions help to conceptualize how to implement theories and beliefs about students and teaching while conceptualizing these visions to support instructional practices. For community stakeholders, visions can serve as guideposts...

While student agency is considered an important aspect of classroom learning, opportunities to support and promote agency can be easily missed. This book addresses the inner dimensions of student agency to show what it is, why it is needed, and how it can be translated into instructional practices. https://www.tcpress.com/student-agency-in-the-cla...

The authors discuss the tension between the science of reading and adaptive teaching. The discussion focuses on the ways in which the science of reading emphasizes the teaching of reading as decontextualized and compartmentalized aspects of literacy acquisition that are distant from culturally sustaining and relevant pedagogies and restrict teacher...

This is the first issue of two new issues, that I have co-edited with my colleague, Doug Fisher, in Reading Psychology titled, Affective Dimensions of Student Literacy Learning.

Scholars contend that agency is at the heart of cultivating equitable learning spaces for all learners. While it is intuitive that literacy educators support agency during instruction, there is diverse terminology surrounding the concept of agency in the field. As a result, aligning the construct to instructional practices and developing a conceptu...

There have been recent calls to support student agency in the field of literacy. Agency, which we define in the context of schooling, is a multidimensional construct where individuals exert influence and create opportunities in the learning context through intentions, decisions, and actions. We propose highlighting agency as an interconnected const...

A one-size-fits-all model of instruction cannot provide equitable access to education for all students. Research demonstrates that thoughtfully changing instruction to support student learning during a lesson, known as adaptive teaching, is an important component of effective literacy instruction. To understand this dynamic dimension of effective i...

Supporting students’ mathematical proficiency requires teachers to continuously adapt their instruction in response to their students’ instructional needs. To explore what it means to be an adaptive teacher, we conducted a literature review spanning from 1975–2014 of adaptive teaching in mathematics. Using 24 search terms in three databases, we ide...

Here is a podcast about my research on student agency.

Here is a podcast about my research on adaptive teaching stemming from recent publication in Reading Psychology https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02702711.2018.1481478

In this article, research tracing the historical progression of agency within recent educational reforms and empirical research from a variety of classrooms (geographic regions and grade levels) is discussed to document the power of agency across contexts. This article aims to propose a collaborative way of thinking about student agency from across...

This culminating article synthesizes the collection of articles to discuss conceptualizations of student agency across contexts. Themes that exist across the collection of articles include agency as multidimensional, agency as a navigational tool, and agency as advocacy. In this concluding article, ideas from across the articles are presented to de...

Margaret: "What did you do at school today?" Mabel: "We worked on doing math facts fast." Margaret: "What kinds of things did you do for reading?" Mabel: "We didn't really do reading." As the above conversation indicates, we know all too well that reading has taken a back seat during literacy instruction. As parents, we were upset when our own chil...

Since the passing of No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), teacher autonomy over curricular decisions has been restricted. As a result, state and local school districts faced increased pressures to adopt highly prescriptive and standardized literacy curricular programmes. Given this context, literacy curriculum adoption has become a widely confl...

Student agency is an important dimension of classroom literacy learning. Recent calls have emphasized the need to support student agency in literacy. Despite this interest, the field lacks a viable instrument that can be used to measure student agency with elementary students. The authors share the Student Agency Profile, a survey instrument that c...

The purpose of this action research study was to explore students’ attitudes toward writing instruction during the implementation of a literacy project focused on authentic tasks. Data included student surveys, interviews, assessment data, observational teacher notes, and recorded teacher and student sessions. Using qualitative analysis, findings r...

Adaptive teaching is considered a cornerstone of effective literacy teaching. Research has explored this dynamic aspect of classroom instruction and has found that given recent educational reform efforts implementing adaptive teaching during reading instruction has been particularly difficult. This study examined a yearlong inquiry of teacher adapt...

Scholars suggest that through visioning preservice teachers can imagine their ideal classroom and construct instructional practices aligned with their knowledge of effective pedagogy. However, less is known about the relationship between preservice teachers’ visions and their personal ideologies and histories. During the semester, preservice teache...

This is a collaborative multimodal project with preservice teachers and elementary students that is ongoing. It is a Guided Reading Library, free access texts written and produced by preservice teachers and students. You can access here: http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/guidedreading/.

Scholars suggest that through visioning preservice teachers can imagine their ideal classroom and construct instructional practices aligned with their knowledge of effective pedagogy. However, less is known about the relationship between preservice teachers’ visions and their personal ideologies and histories. During the semester, preservice teache...

Advocates of rural education emphasize the need to examine supports which may promote rural educators given the challenging contexts of which they face. Teacher visioning has been conceptualized as a navigational tool to help sustain and promote teachers given high-challenging contexts. The current study explored 10 public school teachers from rura...

The development of agency is often described as critically important for all students. Countless school mission statements speak of the need to help young people become independent thinkers, for example. Colleges and universities expect high school graduates to be self-driven learners. And business leaders are forever calling upon K-12 education to...

Researchers recognize adaptive teaching as a component of effective instruction. Educators adjust their teaching according to the social, linguistic, cultural, and instructional needs of their students. While there is consensus that effective teachers are adaptive, there is no consensus on the language to describe this phenomenon. Diverse terminolo...

Researchers have found that teachers’ visions of what they hope to instill in their students beyond curricular objectives are integral to their instruction and to larger decisions such as their career paths. The purpose of this research was to examine 10 in-service teachers, who taught in different geographic locations across the United States, the...

Contemplating and articulating one's vision is a reflective process that guides teachers’ instruction and professional development. However, little research has explored how teachers develop their visions from preservice preparation to their first years teaching. The current study describes the visions of nine teachers over the course of seven year...

In an educational climate where teacher attrition is high, it is imperative for novice teachers to have a vision and hope for their students. A teacher’s ability to enact a vision is instrumental in building longevity in the teacher’s career. The longitudinal case study presented here follows one participant, Ann, from her teacher preparation progr...

The purpose of this article is to explore how pedagogical visions inform our work as former classroom teachers and current teacher educators in rural and urban regions of the United States. Specifically, we explore the instructional decisions we make as we work to meet these visions in higher education. Teacher educators are charged with the task o...

Current research explores adaptability by gathering teachers' reflections on their adaptations. However, the field knows little of what the term adaptability means to teachers who currently teach in today's educational context. In this article, adaptability is discussed from the perspectives of 3 practicing classroom educators, teaching in various...

Currently, much debate exists nationally regarding how to define and measure teacher effectiveness. Educators and researchers agree that adaptability is an important aspect of teacher effectiveness. Teachers must adapt their instruction to navigate the complexity of classroom instruction. However, little research has specifically examined teacher a...

The present study describes a yearlong collaborative inquiry involving six teachers and their professional discussions about literacy instruction as they developed a curriculum to support the cultural and linguistic needs of their school’s 88% Native American student population. Participants in this study were four Native American teachers and two...

Adaptive teaching is an instructional approach where differences among learners are clearly recognized. For the last decade, our research team has studied literacy teachers' instructional adaptations in numerous classrooms in different regions of the United States. In this article, we share conclusions and insights from this longitudinal research....

This cross-case qualitative study draws on poststructural notions of identity to explore the relationship between multimodal literacies of young children and their becoming identities. Although research focuses on the products or texts of multiliteracies, more research is needed to examine shifting identities in the process of students creating. Th...

Adaptive teachers are considered visionary and effective in their teaching. These teachers apply a flexible approach to instruction as they build upon students’ interests and inquiries. However, despite the intuitive and appealing nature of adaptive teaching, there is limited empirical data on teachers’ adaptations and rationales for adapting. More...

This research describes a semester-long critical literature unit taught as a means to engage rural pre-service teachers (n=24) in discussions of those unlike themselves and to support understandings of how to conduct effective literacy instruction through the use of literature circles. Findings highlight the ways in which pre-service teachers discu...

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Theory suggests that effective teachers should possess a vision for teaching, but the reality of teaching within the current educational policy climate raises questions about teachers’ autonomy of their instructional decisions and ultimately their personal convictions for teaching. This exploratory study examines 11 teachers’ visions of teaching an...

The current high-stakes educational context compels many schools and school systems to encourage teachers to use restrictive literacy teaching practices, which are unlikely to meet students’ diverse needs. These restrictions typically fall on novice teachers, who enter the field through various preparation routes, because they often work in schools...

Student agency is an elusive construct. Although described by various educational researchers as an important aspect of classroom instruction, few studies at the microgenetic level have examined the relationship of teachers' actions and discourse during instructional situations in relation to student agency. Consequently, the purpose of this study...

Effective teachers have been described as possessing a vision for their teaching. However, the current high-stakes accountability climate has provided challenges for teachers attempting to align their instruction with their vision for teaching. The goal of this study was to explore 3 in-service teachers' visions and perceived obstacles they faced a...

teaching (Duffy et al., 2008; Parsons, 2012). For the purpose of our research, we defined an adaptation as a teacher action that was a response to an unan-ticipated student contribution, a diversion from the lesson plan, or a public statement of change. Many researchers describe effective literacy teachers as adaptive (e.g. to explore the innovativ...

Scholars contend that effective teachers adapt their instruction to meet the particular needs of each student. However, little research has studied the ways in which teachers adapt their instruction or their reflections on these adaptations. This article describes a yearlong multiple case study focused on two teachers from different contexts: a Kin...

Across the nation, educators continue to face challenges as they work to individualize instruction to meet the specific needs of their students. However, theory suggests that teachers who possess a clear vision for teaching creatively weave their personal convictions for teaching with instructional practices. Drawing upon a teacher’s (first author)...

Advocates of rural education emphasize the need to examine supports which may promote rural educators given the challenging contexts of which they face. Teacher visioning has been conceptualized as a navigational tool to help sustain and promote teachers given high-challenging contexts. The current study explored 10 public school teachers from rura...

Scholars suggest that through visioning, teachers may be more likely to overcome the challenges of teaching in today's high-stakes educational climate. The goal of our study was to explore this hypothesis by documenting two in-service teachers' visions, about how they enacted their vision, the obstacles they faced in enacting their vision, and how...

teachers are frequently described as reflective and thoughtfully adaptive. However, research has not identified the types of experiences teachers need to develop reflective thinking and adaptability. This multi-site, exploratory study describes teachers' reflective thinking and adaptive teaching as they completed graduate coursework. Data collected...