Description of Practice

Description of Practice is an opportunity for you to share a different way of thinking about a topic or teaching practice. This type of writing is grounded in your own classroom or context and describes what you (or students) did, what happened and your reasoning process throughout. It includes artifacts from your classroom or teaching experience that help others understand what you did or highlights the change in conventional practice.

Examples:

Arts Integration in STEM
by Angela Lou

Exponential Bait and Switch
by Ben Orlin

Planning NGSS-based Instruction: Where Do you Start?
by Mary Colson and Russ Colson

Personal Reflection

Personal reflections are narrative essays in which authors write to explore and find meaning in a personal experience or experiences. This type of writing is highly introspective and retrospective—it tells the story of personal change or growth. Readers of this type of writing will have a window into an experience different than their own. This writing may feel riskier to a writer because of its personal nature, and as a result we strongly suggest writing with a group or a peer advisor to craft an essay that will be evocative for others.

Examples:

Do I Belong Here?: The Struggles of Our First Generation Students
by Tanya LaMar

Two Weeks in Tibet (sort of): The Value of a Cultural Exchange Between Science and Spirituality
by Scott Stambach

Commentary on an Issue

Commentaries explore new viewpoints or controversial issues and take a stance, usually from a personal perspective. These are often written for a more general audience than other types of writing we publish, but authors must address themes of teaching, learning, and/or professional identity in these pieces. These can closely resemble op-eds and may include short paragraphs, memorable language or taglines, and use a narrative style that doesn’t rely on section headings or figures.

Examples:

Teachers are the Worst Students
by Brittany Franckowiak

Future Tense
by Lora Hawkins

The Trouble With Top-Down
by Becky Van Tassell

PD Review

Professional Development (PD) Reviews are a venue to share teacher learning experiences we’ve had and to explain the impact they’ve had on our practice. Consider writing a PD Review with a partner or group of people who shared the experience with you. PD Reviews should clearly describe your teaching contexts and be written from your personal perspectives. Describe the PD by giving logistical information, but we are particularly interested in your specific experience of it and your personal learning. Make sure to address what happened after the PD for you in your classroom—what changed (or didn’t)? It’s better to wait to write a PD review: six months, a year, or more. Finally, give some advice on who would most benefit from this PD.

Examples:

Learning Spanish in Guatemala
by Rick Barlow, Kim Hartung, and Katie Waddle

Literacy Learning
by Beverly Stuckwisch

Inquiry into Teaching

Qualitative research articles are structured reflections on how an author’s stance has shifted after looking at data. They introduce a guided question, describe methodology, analyze data, and include conclusions or future directions. In presenting their work in this format, authors may unpack assumptions, gather fresh insight, and/or describe a chain of events and data that led to their learning. We expect authors to embed their findings in current professional knowledge by referencing relevant research where appropriate, using subheadings to structure the text, and including teaching-specific vocabulary.

Examples:
What Makes Good Teaching?
by Heidi Park

Leadership as Stance: Leading from Inside the Classroom
by Rebecca Van Tassell