Beyond “Learning Loss:” Literacy Teacher Noticing in a Post-Pandemic World

Authors

  • Maren Aukerman University of Calgary
  • Liam Aiello University of California, Davis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29653

Keywords:

teacher noticing, deficit perspective, anti-deficit teaching, learning loss, emotion, pandemic narratives, funds of knowledge, literacy, post-pandemic education, trauma-informed teaching, peer relationships, student perspectives

Abstract

A resounding emphasis on learning loss has pervaded popular discourse and academic research as children return to in-person instruction after COVID-related schooling interruptions, most notably including remote schooling. This paper examines how this emphasis links to persistent deficit-oriented views of children as lacking literacy and language. It proposes an expanded, anti-deficit conception of teacher noticing based upon four domains that deserve more visibility especially at this time in the literacy classroom: children’s emotions, children’s funds of knowledge, children’s relationships, and children’s purposes. It provides examples of how teachers might adopt deliberate noticing practices that attend to these domains.

Author Biographies

Maren Aukerman, University of Calgary

Maren Aukerman is a Werklund Research Professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Aukerman, who was previously on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, specializes in reading comprehension and in teacher facilitation of high-quality, evidence-grounded talk about text, and she has deep experience in developing instructional capacity in many different kinds of literacy instruction, from working with struggling readers to disciplinary literacy. She is particularly interested in how children’s meaning-making can become more honored and valued as a resource within classrooms. Maren’s additional areas of inquiry include robust and socially just concepts of reading comprehension; how emergent bilingual students make sense of text through classroom dialogue; and how to make literacy education a space for fostering democratic habits of mind. Aukerman is a previous recipient of the Albert J. Harris Award (2009) and the Dina Feitelson Research Award (2018) for her scholarship.

Liam Aiello, University of California, Davis

Liam Aiello is a postdoctoral scholar for the Teachers as Learners Project at the University of California, Davis, where he studies how teachers develop equitable approaches to classroom talk with diverse learners. Liam is a former fifth grade teacher, and more recently has taught education courses at Mills College and provided professional development through Stanford’s Center to Support Excellence in Teaching. His scholarship investigates the tensions that teachers navigate when facilitating class discussion; the ways inclusive pedagogy is received by youth; and the affordances that teacher noticing frameworks hold for inquiry-based teacher education. His work has been published in the Harvard Educational Review and English Journal. He can be reached at ltaiello@ucdavis.edu.

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Published

2023-02-15

How to Cite

Aukerman, M., & Aiello, L. (2023). Beyond “Learning Loss:” Literacy Teacher Noticing in a Post-Pandemic World. Language and Literacy, 25(1), 8–31. https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29653

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2023): Post-Pandemic Classroom Literacies

Section

Articles

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