NLP+Work

As a member of the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, Dr. Calderon collaborated with Diane August in developing the chapter, “Teacher Beliefs and Professional Development”. In the chapter, August and Calderon reviewed several studies that examine teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, which are thought to influence how teachers perceive, process, and act on information in the classroom. In addition, August and Calderon looked at professional development studies geared toward the instruction and improvement of language minority students. Five of the studies they analyzed were of professional development for teachers who work with language-minority students. Three of the studies focused on professional development for English-as-a-second-language (ESL) and bilingual education teachers. Lastly, two studies examined training programs for teachers of language minority students with learning disabilities.