Teaching Literacy in the Twenty-First Century Classroom: Teacher Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Minding the Gap

This book discusses current issues in literacy teacher education and illuminates the complexity of supporting self-efficacious educators to teach language and literacy in the twenty-first century classroom. In three sections, chapter authors first detail how teacher education programs can be revamped to include content and methods to inspire self-efficacy in pre-service teachers, then reimagine how teacher candidates can be set up for success toward obtaining this. The final section encourages readers to ruminate on the interplay among teacher candidates as they transition into practice and work to have both self- and collective- efficacy.

Tiffany L. Gallagher is Professor in the Department of Education Studies at Brock University, Canada. She is recognized for her research on students with literacy learning challenges and supporting the self-efficacy and professional learning of teachers through literacy and technology coaching. She has published more than 50 refereed articles/chapters, as well as eight books.

Katia Ciampa is Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Widener University, USA. Her research focuses on culturally responsive literacy instruction, teachers’ literacy self-efficacy, and supporting doctoral students’ academic writing development. She has authored more than 25 articles in journals such as The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and Reading and Writing.