Bryant Jensen | Brigham Young University (original) (raw)
Papers by Bryant Jensen
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
This chapter introduces the book, "The Students We Share," which focuses on tea... more This chapter introduces the book, "The Students We Share," which focuses on teaching as a critical mechanism for social change because 1) it is the most influential school factor associated with student success in the United States and in Mexico; and 2) the quality of teaching in PK-12 classrooms for students we share in both countries is woefully inadequate to meet the particular needs of these students. Highlighting the need to improve teaching is not meant to disparage U.S. and Mexican educators who work tirelessly day in and day out on behalf of the 9 million students we share. They work with limited resources and report a lack of preparation to respond to the needs, transnational experiences, and assets of students we share. Ours is a call for us all—researchers, administrators, teachers, policy makers, parents, and community members alike—to better understand the challenges and to seek more potent and durable solutions to enhance teacher preparation and teaching qualities to meet the pressing learning and developmental needs, as well as to take advantage of the assets, of the growing numbers of students we share between these two countries. Contributors to this book summarize scholarship and provide specific and thoughtful recommendations. Our suggestions address what teachers need to know about transnational students, promising ways of forging a variety of binational education partnerships; specific policy and program improvements within each country; revisions to educator preparation, curricula, and standards; and the need for ongoing research investments in educator preparation. Our intended audience for this book is teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, policy makers, migration and education scholars, and others who study transborder issues.
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
In this chapter, I address “equitable teaching” to enhance achievement opportunity for the studen... more In this chapter, I address “equitable teaching” to enhance achievement opportunity for the students we share between the United States and Mexico. I define equitable teaching as high-quality instruction that resonates with students’ lived experiences, values, and cultural knowledge, practices, and identities (Jensen, Grajeda, & Haertel, 2018; Jensen, Pérez Martínez & Aguilar Escobar, 2016). I provide illustrations of equitable teaching in classrooms in both countries, mostly at the primary level, and conclude with a series of recommendations for U.S. and Mexican educators, teacher educators, researchers, and policy makers to collaborate in pursuit of an equitable teaching agenda.
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
In this chapter, we address the preparation of teachers to meet the educational, cultural, and li... more In this chapter, we address the preparation of teachers to meet the educational, cultural, and linguistic needs of American Mexican students in Mexican schools. We focus, in particular, on the curriculum of escuelas normales (normal schools) and share findings from a recent study conducted in two normal schools in communities in Central Mexico with relatively high rates of return migration. We couch our analysis in the historical context of Mexican normal schools, which began after the Mexican Revolution as rural middle-school programs in 1925 and evolved into four-year college programs by 1984 (INEE, 2017). Examining the perspectives of normal school educators and students (both of whom we refer to as normalistas), we find that both the formal and “imagined” curricula on diversity in these preparation programs focus primarily on disabled and indigenous students, not necessarily the complexities faced by transnationals like American Mexicans.
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos eBooks, 2023
Teaching and Teacher Education, Sep 1, 2023
Proceedings of the 2021 AERA Annual Meeting, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Jul 23, 2019
Journal of Teacher Education
Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions—orientations to self, o... more Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions—orientations to self, others, and society that underlie how we think and act. Teacher dispositions are virtues or qualities of moral character that modify the ways we interact with students and educator colleagues. Although interest in “measuring to improve” teaching and teacher education has grown recently, most measures lack validity evidence for practical usefulness. Integrating Messick’s “unified validity framework” with Janssen et al.’s notion of “practicality” (as face validity), we find through an iterative, mixed-methods analysis of interviews with equitable educators and survey responses from teacher candidates that incorporating recognizability, relevance, and feasibility concerns of equity disposition concepts (i.e., Social Awareness, Meekness, Advocacy for Students) within survey items enhances item-to-factor structure of a self-report measure. We discuss implications (a) to develop and appraise fo...
IMISCOE research series, 2022
Educating in Multiple Languages: It is often the case that resistance to children learning more t... more Educating in Multiple Languages: It is often the case that resistance to children learning more than one language rests on a set of myths regarding multilingualism and dual language instruction. Some of these are outlined in the table below. Replication of proven models in dual-language immersion and attempts to design and implement such programs within a supportive framework can be highly positive for students and lead to academic and social success-discrediting these myths.
Proceedings of the 2021 AERA Annual Meeting
Journal for Multicultural Education
Purpose Many K-12 teaching practices unwittingly reproduce social privileges. To transform their ... more Purpose Many K-12 teaching practices unwittingly reproduce social privileges. To transform their teaching and provide more equitable learning opportunities for students from minoritized communities, teachers need professional learning experiences that are collaborative and “close-to-practice” (Ermeling and Gallimore, 2014). This study aims to propose an approach to open educational resources (OER) to support teacher learning to enact equitable teaching practices. Design/methodology/approach Based on an integrative review of research on OER, equitable teaching and teacher collaboration, the authors propose the “Open Guidebook Approach” (OGA) to realize and sustain enactment of equitable teaching. OGA materials are practical, available and adaptable for teachers to learn together to transform their practice incrementally and continually within small, job-alike teams. The authors illustrate OGA with Making Meaning (https://edtechbooks.org/making_meaning), which offers information on eq...
Encyclopedia of Language Development
Journal of community psychology, 2022
We explore student lunchtime experiences as they relate to student sense of belonging. We use SPS... more We explore student lunchtime experiences as they relate to student sense of belonging. We use SPSS Two-Step cluster analysis and logistic regression of data from a schoolwide survey (n = 830) in the United States. Stepwise modeling is used to determine the importance of clusters representing lunchtime activity preferences and love of lunch on belonging scores. Loving lunch significantly positively affects school belonging. Students naturally group into five distinct different activity profiles based on lunchtime preferences. These profiles are significantly related to a sense of belonging. Being active with peers during lunch was most strongly correlated with sense of belonging. Lunchtime warrants more attention for fostering a sense of belonging in the school community. Broadening lunchtime activity options, especially in schools where there are few available ways for socializing and being active, has the potential to support the diverse needs of students and increase belonging.
imre12307_Supplemental_Material for International Migration and the Academic Performance of Mexic... more imre12307_Supplemental_Material for International Migration and the Academic Performance of Mexican Adolescents by Bryant Jensen, Silvia Giorguli Saucedo and Eduardo Hernández Padilla in International Migration Review
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
This chapter introduces the book, "The Students We Share," which focuses on tea... more This chapter introduces the book, "The Students We Share," which focuses on teaching as a critical mechanism for social change because 1) it is the most influential school factor associated with student success in the United States and in Mexico; and 2) the quality of teaching in PK-12 classrooms for students we share in both countries is woefully inadequate to meet the particular needs of these students. Highlighting the need to improve teaching is not meant to disparage U.S. and Mexican educators who work tirelessly day in and day out on behalf of the 9 million students we share. They work with limited resources and report a lack of preparation to respond to the needs, transnational experiences, and assets of students we share. Ours is a call for us all—researchers, administrators, teachers, policy makers, parents, and community members alike—to better understand the challenges and to seek more potent and durable solutions to enhance teacher preparation and teaching qualities to meet the pressing learning and developmental needs, as well as to take advantage of the assets, of the growing numbers of students we share between these two countries. Contributors to this book summarize scholarship and provide specific and thoughtful recommendations. Our suggestions address what teachers need to know about transnational students, promising ways of forging a variety of binational education partnerships; specific policy and program improvements within each country; revisions to educator preparation, curricula, and standards; and the need for ongoing research investments in educator preparation. Our intended audience for this book is teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, policy makers, migration and education scholars, and others who study transborder issues.
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
In this chapter, I address “equitable teaching” to enhance achievement opportunity for the studen... more In this chapter, I address “equitable teaching” to enhance achievement opportunity for the students we share between the United States and Mexico. I define equitable teaching as high-quality instruction that resonates with students’ lived experiences, values, and cultural knowledge, practices, and identities (Jensen, Grajeda, & Haertel, 2018; Jensen, Pérez Martínez & Aguilar Escobar, 2016). I provide illustrations of equitable teaching in classrooms in both countries, mostly at the primary level, and conclude with a series of recommendations for U.S. and Mexican educators, teacher educators, researchers, and policy makers to collaborate in pursuit of an equitable teaching agenda.
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
SUNY Press eBooks, May 1, 2021
In this chapter, we address the preparation of teachers to meet the educational, cultural, and li... more In this chapter, we address the preparation of teachers to meet the educational, cultural, and linguistic needs of American Mexican students in Mexican schools. We focus, in particular, on the curriculum of escuelas normales (normal schools) and share findings from a recent study conducted in two normal schools in communities in Central Mexico with relatively high rates of return migration. We couch our analysis in the historical context of Mexican normal schools, which began after the Mexican Revolution as rural middle-school programs in 1925 and evolved into four-year college programs by 1984 (INEE, 2017). Examining the perspectives of normal school educators and students (both of whom we refer to as normalistas), we find that both the formal and “imagined” curricula on diversity in these preparation programs focus primarily on disabled and indigenous students, not necessarily the complexities faced by transnationals like American Mexicans.
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos eBooks, 2023
Teaching and Teacher Education, Sep 1, 2023
Proceedings of the 2021 AERA Annual Meeting, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Jul 23, 2019
Journal of Teacher Education
Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions—orientations to self, o... more Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions—orientations to self, others, and society that underlie how we think and act. Teacher dispositions are virtues or qualities of moral character that modify the ways we interact with students and educator colleagues. Although interest in “measuring to improve” teaching and teacher education has grown recently, most measures lack validity evidence for practical usefulness. Integrating Messick’s “unified validity framework” with Janssen et al.’s notion of “practicality” (as face validity), we find through an iterative, mixed-methods analysis of interviews with equitable educators and survey responses from teacher candidates that incorporating recognizability, relevance, and feasibility concerns of equity disposition concepts (i.e., Social Awareness, Meekness, Advocacy for Students) within survey items enhances item-to-factor structure of a self-report measure. We discuss implications (a) to develop and appraise fo...
IMISCOE research series, 2022
Educating in Multiple Languages: It is often the case that resistance to children learning more t... more Educating in Multiple Languages: It is often the case that resistance to children learning more than one language rests on a set of myths regarding multilingualism and dual language instruction. Some of these are outlined in the table below. Replication of proven models in dual-language immersion and attempts to design and implement such programs within a supportive framework can be highly positive for students and lead to academic and social success-discrediting these myths.
Proceedings of the 2021 AERA Annual Meeting
Journal for Multicultural Education
Purpose Many K-12 teaching practices unwittingly reproduce social privileges. To transform their ... more Purpose Many K-12 teaching practices unwittingly reproduce social privileges. To transform their teaching and provide more equitable learning opportunities for students from minoritized communities, teachers need professional learning experiences that are collaborative and “close-to-practice” (Ermeling and Gallimore, 2014). This study aims to propose an approach to open educational resources (OER) to support teacher learning to enact equitable teaching practices. Design/methodology/approach Based on an integrative review of research on OER, equitable teaching and teacher collaboration, the authors propose the “Open Guidebook Approach” (OGA) to realize and sustain enactment of equitable teaching. OGA materials are practical, available and adaptable for teachers to learn together to transform their practice incrementally and continually within small, job-alike teams. The authors illustrate OGA with Making Meaning (https://edtechbooks.org/making_meaning), which offers information on eq...
Encyclopedia of Language Development
Journal of community psychology, 2022
We explore student lunchtime experiences as they relate to student sense of belonging. We use SPS... more We explore student lunchtime experiences as they relate to student sense of belonging. We use SPSS Two-Step cluster analysis and logistic regression of data from a schoolwide survey (n = 830) in the United States. Stepwise modeling is used to determine the importance of clusters representing lunchtime activity preferences and love of lunch on belonging scores. Loving lunch significantly positively affects school belonging. Students naturally group into five distinct different activity profiles based on lunchtime preferences. These profiles are significantly related to a sense of belonging. Being active with peers during lunch was most strongly correlated with sense of belonging. Lunchtime warrants more attention for fostering a sense of belonging in the school community. Broadening lunchtime activity options, especially in schools where there are few available ways for socializing and being active, has the potential to support the diverse needs of students and increase belonging.
imre12307_Supplemental_Material for International Migration and the Academic Performance of Mexic... more imre12307_Supplemental_Material for International Migration and the Academic Performance of Mexican Adolescents by Bryant Jensen, Silvia Giorguli Saucedo and Eduardo Hernández Padilla in International Migration Review
![Research paper thumbnail of Book Review [Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/51933166/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Work Hard, Be Hard provides an important counterpunch to the neoliberal claims of No Excuses scho... more Work Hard, Be Hard provides an important counterpunch to the neoliberal claims of No Excuses school proponents. I hope to see more follow-up to the research and policy recommendations provided by Horn (p. 199), and by scholars like Henig (2008).
Journal of Teacher Education, 2023
Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions-orientations to self, o... more Animating equity in teaching and learning depends on teacher dispositions-orientations to self, others, and society that underlie how we think and act. Teacher dispositions are virtues or qualities of moral character that modify the ways we interact with students and educator colleagues. Although interest in "measuring to improve" teaching and teacher education has grown recently, most measures lack validity evidence for practical usefulness. Integrating Messick's "unified validity framework" with Janssen et al.'s notion of "practicality" (as face validity), we find through an iterative, mixed-methods analysis of interviews with equitable educators and survey responses from teacher candidates that incorporating recognizability, relevance, and feasibility concerns of equity disposition concepts (i.e., Social Awareness, Meekness, Advocacy for Students) within survey items enhances item-to-factor structure of a self-report measure. We discuss implications (a) to develop and appraise formative measures and (b) to support teacher learning and development to become equitable educators.
Reading Research Quarterly, 2021
Teaching reading is more complex than reading, especially when teaching students from minoritized... more Teaching reading is more complex than reading, especially when teaching students from minoritized communities. Teaching reading equitably requires educators to integrate their knowledge of skills involved in reading, assisting students to learn to read, and everyday sociocultural practices and identities of readers. In this article, I examine what research has found across methodological traditions regarding teaching reading equitably, as well as what still needs to be explored. For the “science of reading” community, I frame equitable teaching as effective in assisting student reading performance and meaningful in terms of integrating values and practices from minoritized students’ everyday lives. Drawing largely on interpretive research, I identify sociocultural processes in teaching reading that connect with minoritized students’ everyday identities and experiences, support student initiative and expression, and foster collaborative relationships in the classroom to assist student participation and performance in reading. To advance the science of teaching reading equitably, I recommend that pluralistic research build generalizable evidence regarding effects of equitable teaching on reading and language gains for minoritized students, mechanisms in teaching reading equitably, and processes and materials to support teacher learning to sustain implementation of equitable practices to teach reading.
Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 2020
This article explores notions of belonging and citizenship for "American Mexican" students-Mexica... more This article explores notions of belonging and citizenship for "American Mexican" students-Mexican-heritage youth born in the United States who return to Mexico with their families. Our findings reveal belonging as a sociocultural practice that participants negotiated spatially and relationally, chiefly by making their US-born status more and less visible within particular spaces at school. The experiences of American-Mexican youth reveal the crucial roles of migration and belonging in shaping civic identities and future potentials in a transnational world. [belonging, transnationalism, immigration, latina/o, civic identity]
Theory Into Practice, 2020
Some argue that supporting minoritized students’ “academic language” (AL) development fosters equ... more Some argue that supporting minoritized students’ “academic language” (AL) development fosters equity in education. Others contend that AL is hegemonic, and that attempts to teach it perpetuate inequities across racial, ethnic, social class, immigrant, and related sociocultural and linguistic student differences. In this article, we frame the topic of this special issue—interdisciplinary approaches to equity in teaching AL—and show how authors across positions and analytic methods examine the goals of teaching AL and recommend ways for educators to foster meaningful language awareness for students. Although substantive, unresolved disagreements between positions remain; we identify points of agreement as well, which we present to educators as interdisciplinary principles of equity in teaching. Namely, educators should 1) understand how language is more than just vocabulary; 2) recognize academic features in students’ everyday talk; 3) develop awareness of language and its contexts of use with students, and 4) foster critical language awareness.
education policy analysis archives, 2019
Researchers and policymakers in the US and beyond increasingly seek to identify teaching qualitie... more Researchers and policymakers in the US and beyond increasingly seek to identify teaching qualities that are associated with academic achievement gains for K-12 students through effectiveness studies. Yet teaching quality varies with academic content and social contexts, involves multiple participants, and requires a range of skills, knowledge, and dispositions. In this essay, we address the inescapable tension between complexity and scale in research on teaching effectiveness. We provide five recommendations to study designers and analysts to manage this tension to enhance effectiveness research, drawing on our recent experiences as the first external analysts of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study. Our recommendations address conceptual framing, the measurement of teaching (e.g., observation protocols, student surveys), sampling, classroom videoing, and the use and interpretation of value-added models.
Early Education and Development , 2019
Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to refine and validate the Assessing Classroom S... more Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to refine and validate the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES), an observation tool for measuring equitable sociocultural interactions in early childhood classrooms (pre-K to Grade 3) with racially minoritized learners (RMLs). Preliminary psychometric information from 142 observations across 52 teachers (average of 2 videos per teacher) provided internal consistency and validity information. Our analyses resulted in a significant and highly reliable 5-factor solution comprising 33 items. These five factors are: Challenging Status Quo Knowledge, Equitable Learning Opportunities for RMLs, Equitable Discipline, Connections to Home Life, and Personalized Learning Opportunities. Concurrent and divergent validity between ACSES and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) indicated these factors are associated with distinct aspects of classroom interactions. Lastly, correlations between teacher socio-demographic (age and race/ethnicity) and professional (years teaching, education, and major) characteristics and ACSES factor scores were considered. Practice or Policy: Results are discussed in relation to research contributions of the measure as well as pre-service education and in-service professional development for teachers.
Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2018
Debates continue about how to teach young Latinos and other minoritized children in the US. Latin... more Debates continue about how to teach young Latinos and other minoritized children in the US. Latinos are a compelling case because of (1) their size and (2) their paradoxical development: strong social competencies yet relatively weak academic development. A suggestion is to provide young Latinos with classroom experiences that resonate with the ways they are socialized at home, yet cultural dimensions of teaching in early education are underspecified and reliable and valid measures do not exist. We frame equitable teacher–child interactions as the combination of generic and cultural aspects, and as a way to utilize the social assets of Latinos in classrooms to enhance their academic development. We refine an observation protocol—the Classroom Assessment of Sociocultural Interactions (CASI)—by integrating cultural concepts from the Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI) paradigm with videos of K-1 classrooms in Central Mexico, and conduct a series of psychometric analyses. We find good model fit and moderate reliability for the CASI and discuss research and practice implications to foster equitable developmental opportunities for Latino children across early education settings.
Educational Assessment, 2018
We trace the development and analyze the generalizability of the Classroom Assessment of Sociocul... more We trace the development and analyze the generalizability of the Classroom Assessment of Sociocultural Interactions (CASI), an observation system designed to measure cultural dimensions of classroom interactions. We establish CASI measurement properties by analyzing panoramic videos of 4th and 5th grade classrooms from the Measures of Effective Teaching project, and argue for its significance in terms of achievement opportunity for minoritized students and needed evidence regarding equitable teaching. We frame ten dimensions of sociocultural interactions within three domains: Life Applications (i.e., connections with what students know and do outside of school); Self in Group (i.e., interdependence to motivate learning and foster social identities); and Agency (i.e., how freedom and choice are managed). We demonstrate how measurement error is associated with raters, lessons, and lesson segments, and discuss implications for CASI refinement, as well as appropriate instrument uses to enrich learning opportunities for minoritized students across a variety of classroom settings.
Neos: A Publication of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group, 2017
This essay considers the nature of disciplinary boundaries and a small but productive instance of... more This essay considers the nature of disciplinary boundaries and a small but productive instance of disciplinary boundary crossing by the authors. We describe our challenges, delineate two kinds of interdisciplinary research (juxtapositional and dialectical), and describe one productive outcome of the collaboration.
The number of Mexicans leaving the U.S. is now greater than the number coming to the U.S., signal... more The number of Mexicans leaving the U.S. is now greater than the number coming to the U.S., signaling monumental shifts in U.S.-Mexico relations. This is evoking new questions about bi-national collaboration, particularly regarding the wellbeing of transnational children and youth. Analyzing data from the Mexican Census, we identify basic demographic trends of " returnee " children and youth —those in Mexico after living in the US. Most are US-born with a Mexican-born parent, relatively young, and dispersed across the country, with concentrations in municipalities in northern and central states. We frame classroom learning needs for these students and share descriptive findings from a recent study of equitable teaching —i.e., high quality, adequate quantity, and meaningful (Jensen, Perez Martinez & Aguilar Escobar, 2016)—through video recordings of classroom interactions in early elementary settings in the state of Aguascalientes. We conclude with a series of recommendations to enrich learning opportunities for returnee students in Mexican classrooms.
The number of Mexicans leaving the U.S. is now greater than the number coming to the U.S., signal... more The number of Mexicans leaving the U.S. is now greater than the number coming to the U.S., signaling monumental shifts in U.S.-Mexico relations. This is evoking new questions about bi-national collaboration, particularly regarding the wellbeing of transnational children and youth. Analyzing data from the Mexican Census, we identify basic demographic trends of “returnee” children and youth —those in Mexico after living in the US. Most are US-born with a Mexican-born parent, relatively young, and dispersed across the country, with concentrations in municipalities in northern and central states. We frame classroom-learning needs for these students and share descriptive findings from a recent study of equitable teaching —i.e., high quality, adequate quantity, and meaningful (Jensen, Perez Martinez & Aguilar Escobar, 2016)—through video recordings of classroom interactions in early elementary settings in the state of Aguascalientes. We conclude with a series of recommendations to enrich learning opportunities for returnee students in Mexican classrooms.
We analyze path models of a nationally representative sample of Mexican adolescents in 2008 to ex... more We analyze path models of a nationally representative sample of Mexican adolescents in 2008 to explore how migration variables interact with school retention to shape their migration plans, effort in school, and achievement on a standardized measure of Spanish literacy. Among other findings, we discover that more immediate plans are associated with lower performance for students considering migration and that this relationship varies by family socioeconomic status. We also find that parent migration exposure negatively affects achievement for some groups. We interpret findings in terms of structural inequalities in Mexico and conclude with recommendations to enrich academic learning opportunities for children and youth within migrant families and communities.