Campfire Effect

First of all while I was reading the “The Campfire Effect” study I almost fell asleep twice. The article was very dull and I felt like the author repeated the central idea way too much. I would have gotten more out of the article if I was informed about the types of strategies and theories that were discussed in the SEI classes. However I do agree with the author theory about changing teacher’s underlying beliefs and attitudes toward teaching students from diverse background in order to get help and teach English Learner Students. I also agree with that the states should install a curriculum that inform teachers about strategies and lesson plans which incorporate EL students to become essential part of the classroom. This study was focused on changing the beliefs and attitudes of pre-service teachers in order to increase EL students learning. I would like to see more data on the implementation of those strategies during their first year of teaching. The author does make comment about the latter statement in his discussion. He states “This question will have to linger until we complete our follow-up research on our pre-service teachers’ practice in their student teaching and first year placements to see what effect the endorsement curriculum truly does have on instruction (pg. 8).” As an educator I firmly believe in convenience and effectiveness of new strategies. Theories are great to learn but they lose their value when teachers can’t make connection to implement the theories to their everyday classroom. This article would have been great if it included data for the first year in-service teachers. I really wanted to see effects of SEI classes on teacher instruction and strategies. I’m not a firm believer of surveys because I think sometime students just feel about the surveys without really thinking about in terms of their own beliefs and values. Overall I think the article did make solid points and did provide data to those statements. This article would have been better if it provided examples of strategies and the results of the first year in-service teachers.