A collaborative approach to reading workshop in the middle years

Reflection Questions • How does the collaborative reading workshop approach engage students in higher order thinking and deep engagement with text? • How does the collaborative reading workshop approach support students to be active citizens and critically literate? • How does the interaction and collaborative thinking in this approach contribute to the students’ intellectual engagement and the teacher’s pedagogical rigor? • How could this approach be implemented or adapted at your school?

Introduction of a short writing task to measure and develop academic literacy in first year health undergraduates

This paper describes an initiative in the Faculty of Health at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, where a short writing task was introduced to first year undergraduates in four courses including Public Health, Nursing, Social Work and Human Services, and Human Movement Studies. Over 1,000 students were involved in the trial. The task was assessed using an adaptation of the MASUS Procedure (Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students) (Webb & Bonanno, 1994). Feedback to the students including MASUS scores then enabled students to be directed to developmental workshops targeting their academic literacy needs. Students who achieved below the benchmark score were required to attend academic writing workshops in order to obtain the same summative 10% that was obtained by those who had achieved above the benchmark score. The trial was very informative, in terms of determining task appropriateness and timing, student feedback, student use of support, and student perceptions of the task and follow-up workshops. What we learned from the trial will be presented with a view to further refinement of this initiative.

Redefining the student-teacher relationship through online sharing activities

The student-teacher relationship should be a critical factor for successful teaching and learning in design education. In tradition, the relationship is defined as a master-apprentice, so design teachers’ visual assessment capability and technical standards significantly affect students’ quality of learning and achievements. However, there are some negative aspects of the master-apprentice relationship in design education that it may restrict student experiences to cultural diversity and interdisciplinary learning through various interactions with other students. A visual design subject was designed to adapt a new learning method that is to share students’ work and assessment through an asynchronous communication tool. This method was expected to reduce the negative aspects of the master-apprentice relationship and enhance peer-to-peer interactions and individualistic collaboration. A survey with two types of student groups in terms of their levels of participation was conducted to evaluate student experiences to this method. The outcomes implicate that online peer assessment is helpful to reduce the negative aspects of master-apprentice relation and can be useful for achieving the ultimate purpose of design education.

Re-thinking pedagogy for middle school students with little, no or severely interrupted schooling

The arrival of substantial cohorts of English language learners from Africa with little, no or severely interrupted schooling is requiring new pedagogic responses from teachers in Australia and other Western countries of refugee re-settlement. If the students are to have optimal educational and life chances, it is crucial for them to acquire resources for conceptually deep and critical literacy tasks while still learning basic reading and writing skills. This requires teachers to extend their pedagogic repertoires: subject area teachers must teach language and literacy alongside content; high school teachers must teach what has been thought of as primary school curriculum. The aim of this article is to describe some teacher responses to these challenges. Data are drawn from a study involving an intensive language school and three high schools, and also from the author’s experience as a homework tutor for refugees. Stand-alone basic skills programs are described, as are modifications of long-established ESL programs. It is also argued that teachers need to find ways of linking with the conceptual knowledge of students who arrive with content area backgrounds different from others in their class. Everyday life experiences prior to, and after re-settlement in the West, are rich with potential in this regard.

Developing the descriptions of landmark teaching styles : a spectrum inventory

Mosston & Ashworth‟s Spectrum of Teaching styles was first published in 1966 and is potentially the longest surviving model of teaching within the field of physical education. Its longevity and influence is surely testament to its value and influence. Many tools have also been developed through the years based on The Spectrum of Teaching Styles. In 2005 as part of a doctoral study, this tool was developed by the author, Dr Edwards and Dr Ashworth for researchers and teachers to identify which teaching styles were being utilised from The Spectrum when teaching physical education. It could also be utilised for self-assessment of the teaching styles and individual uses, or those who work with Physical Education Teacher Education courses. The development of this tool took approximately 4 months, numerous emails and meetings. This presentation will outline this process, along with the reasons why such a tool was developed and the differences between it and others like it.

Learning to be literate : issues of pedagogy for recently arrived refugee youth in Australia

This paper focuses on issues of access to productive literacy learning as part of socially just schooling for recently arrived refugee youth within Australia. It argues that a sole reliance on traditional ESL pedagogy is failing this vulnerable group of students, who differ significantly from past refugees who have settled in Australia. Many have been ‘placeless’ for some time, are likely to have received at best an interrupted education before arriving in Australia, and may have experienced signification trauma (Christie & Sidhu, 2006; Cottone, 2004; Miller, Mitchell, & Brown, 2005). Australian Government policy has resulted in spacialized settlement, leaving particular schools dealing with a large influx of refugee students who may be attending school for the first time (Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, 2004; Sidhu & Christie, 2002). While this has implications generally, it has particular consequences for secondary school students attempting to learn English literacy in short periods of time, without basic foundations in either English or print-based literacy in any first language (Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, 2006). Many of these students leave schools without the most basic early literacy practices, having endured several years of pedagogy pitched well beyond their needs. This paper suggests that schools must take up three key roles: to educate, to provide a site for the development of civic responsibility, and to act as a site for welfare with responsibility. As a system, our department needs to work out what can we do for 17-18 year olds that are coming into our school system in year 10 without more than 1-2 years of education. I don't think there is a policy about what to do. – (T2-ESL teacher)

The getting of wisdom : reflections of a teaching librarian

The shift in focus from teaching to learning in higher education can be paralleled in the shift from bibliographic instruction to information literacy. This move has resulted in a change of role from librarians as service providers to educators. This paper argues that in order to facilitate students' 'getting of wisdom', librarians who design and deliver information literacy programs should see themselves as teachers rather than trainers. It compares the role of the school teacher-librarian with that of the academic teaching librarian. The implications of a dominant training paradigm result in the reduction of information literacy to lower order surface learning. Support for teaching librarians is crucial in changing roles and self-image.

Empowerment for lifelong learning : embedding information literacy into the business curriculum

Success in modern business demands effective information literacy to address the ever-changing business context. This context includes changes in Government policy reflected through legislation and regulations, developments in case law and expectations of professional associations and the public. Students require the skills to continue their own learning beyond the completion of their degree, since learning the subject content of a course alone sufficient. This paper considers the methods utilised to embed information literacy, in the context of generic skills and graduate attributes, into a Business degree’s curriculum. The paper describes how information literacy has been embedded in two sequential third-year Taxation Law courses, allowing for the explicit development of information literacy. Through the development of legal reasoning and research skills, students are empowered to continue their lifelong learning, which successful professional practice demands. The study will draw upon the experience of the course convener in designing, teaching and evaluating the courses, and on students’ experiences as illustrated through evaluation questionnaire responses and interviews. The findings of this study could be relevant to other business courses, especially company law and auditing.

A model of teacher professional development based on the principles of lesson study

The researcher’s professional role as an Education Officer was the impetus for this study. Designing and implementing professional development activities is a significant component of the researcher’s position description and as a result of reflection and feedback from participants and colleagues, the creation of a more effective model of professional development became the focus for this study. Few studies have examined all three links between the purposes of professional development that is, increasing teacher knowledge, improving teacher practice, and improving student outcomes. This study is significant in that it investigates the nature of the growth of teachers who participated in a model of professional development which was based upon the principles of Lesson Study. The research provides qualitative and empirical data to establish some links between teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning outcomes. Teacher knowledge in this study refers to mathematics content knowledge as well as pedagogical-content knowledge. The outcomes for students include achievement outcomes, attitudinal outcomes, and behavioural outcomes. As the study was conducted at one school-site, existence proof research was the focus of the methodology and data collection. Developing over the 2007 school year, with five teacher-participants and approximately 160 students from Year Levels 6 to 9, the Lesson Study-principled model of professional development provided the teacher-participants with on-site, on-going, and reflective learning based on their classroom environment. The focus area for the professional development was strategising the engagement with and solution of worded mathematics problems. A design experiment was used to develop the professional development as an intervention of prevailing teacher practice for which data were collected prior to and after the period of intervention. A model of teacher change was developed as an underpinning framework for the development of the study, and was useful in making decisions about data collection and analyses. Data sources consisted of questionnaires, pre-tests and post-tests, interviews, and researcher observations and field notes. The data clearly showed that: content knowledge and pedagogical-content knowledge were increased among the teacher-participants; teacher practice changed in a positive manner; and that a majority of students demonstrated improved learning outcomes. The positive changes to teacher practice are described in this study as the demonstrated use of mixed pedagogical practices rather than a polarisation to either traditional pedagogical practices or contemporary pedagogical practices. The improvement in student learning outcomes was most significant as improved achievement outcomes as indicated by the comparison of pre-test and post-test scores. The effectiveness of the Lesson Study-principled model of professional development used in this study was evaluated using Guskey’s (2005) Five Levels of Professional Development Evaluation.

Digital kids, analogue students : a mixed methods study of students' engagement with a school-based Web 2.0 learning innovation

The inquiry documented in this thesis is located at the nexus of technological innovation and traditional schooling. As we enter the second decade of a new century, few would argue against the increasingly urgent need to integrate digital literacies with traditional academic knowledge. Yet, despite substantial investments from governments and businesses, the adoption and diffusion of contemporary digital tools in formal schooling remain sluggish. To date, research on technology adoption in schools tends to take a deficit perspective of schools and teachers, with the lack of resources and teacher ‘technophobia’ most commonly cited as barriers to digital uptake. Corresponding interventions that focus on increasing funding and upskilling teachers, however, have made little difference to adoption trends in the last decade. Empirical evidence that explicates the cultural and pedagogical complexities of innovation diffusion within long-established conventions of mainstream schooling, particularly from the standpoint of students, is wanting. To address this knowledge gap, this thesis inquires into how students evaluate and account for the constraints and affordances of contemporary digital tools when they engage with them as part of their conventional schooling. It documents the attempted integration of a student-led Web 2.0 learning initiative, known as the Student Media Centre (SMC), into the schooling practices of a long-established, high-performing independent senior boys’ school in urban Australia. The study employed an ‘explanatory’ two-phase research design (Creswell, 2003) that combined complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve both breadth of measurement and richness of characterisation. In the initial quantitative phase, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to the senior school student population to determine adoption trends and predictors of SMC usage (N=481). Measurement constructs included individual learning dispositions (learning and performance goals, cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness), as well as social and technological variables (peer support, perceived usefulness and ease of use). Incremental predictive models of SMC usage were conducted using Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modelling: (i) individual-level predictors, (ii) individual and social predictors, and (iii) individual, social and technological predictors. Peer support emerged as the best predictor of SMC usage. Other salient predictors include perceived ease of use and usefulness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals. On the whole, an overwhelming proportion of students reported low usage levels, low perceived usefulness and a lack of peer support for engaging with the digital learning initiative. The small minority of frequent users reported having high levels of peer support and robust learning goal orientations, rather than being predominantly driven by performance goals. These findings indicate that tensions around social validation, digital learning and academic performance pressures influence students’ engagement with the Web 2.0 learning initiative. The qualitative phase that followed provided insights into these tensions by shifting the analytics from individual attitudes and behaviours to shared social and cultural reasoning practices that explain students’ engagement with the innovation. Six indepth focus groups, comprising 60 students with different levels of SMC usage, were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Textual data were analysed using Membership Categorisation Analysis. Students’ accounts converged around a key proposition. The Web 2.0 learning initiative was useful-in-principle but useless-in-practice. While students endorsed the usefulness of the SMC for enhancing multimodal engagement, extending peer-topeer networks and acquiring real-world skills, they also called attention to a number of constraints that obfuscated the realisation of these design affordances in practice. These constraints were cast in terms of three binary formulations of social and cultural imperatives at play within the school: (i) ‘cool/uncool’, (ii) ‘dominant staff/compliant student’, and (iii) ‘digital learning/academic performance’. The first formulation foregrounds the social stigma of the SMC among peers and its resultant lack of positive network benefits. The second relates to students’ perception of the school culture as authoritarian and punitive with adverse effects on the very student agency required to drive the innovation. The third points to academic performance pressures in a crowded curriculum with tight timelines. Taken together, findings from both phases of the study provide the following key insights. First, students endorsed the learning affordances of contemporary digital tools such as the SMC for enhancing their current schooling practices. For the majority of students, however, these learning affordances were overshadowed by the performative demands of schooling, both social and academic. The student participants saw engagement with the SMC in-school as distinct from, even oppositional to, the conventional social and academic performance indicators of schooling, namely (i) being ‘cool’ (or at least ‘not uncool’), (ii) sufficiently ‘compliant’, and (iii) achieving good academic grades. Their reasoned response therefore, was simply to resist engagement with the digital learning innovation. Second, a small minority of students seemed dispositionally inclined to negotiate the learning affordances and performance constraints of digital learning and traditional schooling more effectively than others. These students were able to engage more frequently and meaningfully with the SMC in school. Their ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incommensurate social and institutional identities and norms is theorised as cultural agility – a dispositional construct that comprises personal innovativeness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals orientation. The logic then is ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or’ for these individuals with a capacity to accommodate both learning and performance in school, whether in terms of digital engagement and academic excellence, or successful brokerage across multiple social identities and institutional affiliations within the school. In sum, this study takes us beyond the familiar terrain of deficit discourses that tend to blame institutional conservatism, lack of resourcing and teacher resistance for low uptake of digital technologies in schools. It does so by providing an empirical base for the development of a ‘third way’ of theorising technological and pedagogical innovation in schools, one which is more informed by students as critical stakeholders and thus more relevant to the lived culture within the school, and its complex relationship to students’ lives outside of school. It is in this relationship that we find an explanation for how these individuals can, at the one time, be digital kids and analogue students.