The final piece of the puzzle : assessment of information literacy in graduate medical students

Deakin University graduate entry medical students come from a varied knowledge base with regard to information research.

Assessment for the learning outcomes of information literacy modules will help to determine effective development of information searching skills for future clinical practice, teaching effectiveness, and identification of skills requiring additional support.

Assessment aims to provide encouragement to engage with the content being taught.

International students in Australia: read ten thousand volumes of books and walk ten thousand miles

A number of international students, predominately from Asian countries, are present in universities in the UK, United States, and Australia. There is little research exploring their experiences as they negotiate the disciplinary requirements of their courses. This paper investigates students' agency as they write their first assignment for their Master's of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages course and the academics who teach them. Talk around texts and the positioning theory are used to analyse the data. It is argued that the students demonstrate strategic agency, which allows them to better understand the academic requirements of their disciplines. The analysis reveals the complexities involved in international students' adaptation to disciplinary discourse and the implications for teaching and learning in higher education.

Interdisciplinary literacy through social media in the mathematics classroom: an action research study

This article looks at how social and participatory media can be used to strengthen interdisciplinary literacy and connects the multimodality of social environments with Middle-Years Mathematics curriculum and delivery. The article reports on part of an eighteen months action research study in an Australian public high school within the author's two Year 8 Mathematics classes. The article provides student samples from within these classes as it contributes evidence and analyses that may help to inform teachers from across subject areas to recognise and implement literacy practices, not as an isolated classroom activity, but across their disciplines. By taking a more ‘social’ approach to designing projects for Middle-Years Mathematics, this study supports concepts of literacy as a social, cognitive and cultural practice.

Rethinking the literacy capabilities of pre-service primary teachers in testing times

This paper demonstrates how teacher accreditation requirements can be responsibly aligned with a scholarly impetus to incorporate digital literacies to prepare pre-service teachers to meet changing educational needs and practices. The assessment initiatives introduced in the newly constructed four year undergraduate Bachelor of Education program at one Australian university are described and analysed in light of the debates surrounding pre-service primary teachers’ literacy capabilities. The findings and subsequent discussion have implications for all literacy teacher educators concerned about the impact of standardised assessment practices on the professional future of teachers.

Reframing conceptions of contemporary literacy capabilities in pre-service primary teacher education

This chapter describes the challenges of integrating new technologies with literacy education in pre-service primary teacher education in Australia. The authors describe the policy context and regulatory mechanisms controlling pre-service education, including a national set of professional standards for graduate teachers, a new national curriculum for school students, the introduction of high stakes national assessment for school students, and the looming threat of decontextualized back-to-the-basics professional entry tests for aspiring teachers. The chapter includes three case studies of the authors’ pedagogical practices that attempt to reframe conceptions of the literacy capabilities of pre-service teachers to reflect the complex and sophisticated requirements of teachers in contemporary schooling. The authors conclude the chapter with a discussion of the implications of these case studies as they illustrate the ways that pre-service teachers can be scaffolded and supported to develop creative capacity and critical awareness of the kinds of literacies required in the digital age despite restrictive regimes.

Building equitable literate futures: home and school computer-mediated literacy practices and disadvantage

This five-volume collection lays out the foundations and nuances of literacy studies. Beginning with the theoretical and epistemological perspectives that have been influential in shaping contemporary approaches in literacy studies, the set further explores new digital literacies, literacy in educational and institutional contexts, and the crucial issues of literacy in relation to social mobility, multilingualism and globalization. With a full introduction to the set and to each volume, researchers will find in this set a comprehensive guide to this crucial area of study.
Chapter 4 in volume 3(Angus, Snyder and Sutherland-Smith) is a research chapter exploring literacy practices and the use of technology in the context of disadvantage. In four contexts it examines the 'digital divide' in home and school literacy and what makes a difference in learning success. 

Navigating 21st century multimodal textual environments : a case study of digital literacy

In the 21st Century young people have the opportunity to create texts that were unimaginable for previous generations. Today’s children live and learn while immersed in a technological world that is fast paced and constantly in a state of change. As technology becomes more and more accessible and specifically marketed to children of the 21st century, educators are challenged to re-consider the literacy skills required to be successfully and safely literate, and the repertoire of literacy pedagogies teacher must have to effectively engage these young people in learning. While there is much evidence to suggest that schools and teachers are not all meeting this challenge, there are some inspiring examples in which schools, communities and teachers are taking up the challenge. This paper presents one case study, which is explored through a 21st century literacy framework that allows us to interpret and analyse the multimodal texts and the processes students use in their creation. Attention is paid to how the case study teacher created meaningful learning experiences and opportunities for them to create and interact within multimodal communications environments, both within and beyond the school.

Elite girls' schooling, social class and sexualised popular culture

Young women’s identities are an issue of public and academic interest across a number of western nations at the present time. This book explores how young women attending an elite school for girls understand and construct ‘empowerment’. It investigates the extent to which, and the ways in which, their constructions of empowerment and identity work to overturn, or resist, key regulations and normative expectations for girls in post-feminist, hyper-sexualised cultural contexts. The book provides a succinct overview of feminist theorisations of normative femininities in young women’s lives in western cultural contexts. It includes familiar sexist discourses such as sexual double standards, as well as more recent commentary about the regulation of young women’s subjectivities in neoliberal, post-feminist, hyper-sexualised cultures. Drawing on ethnographic research in the context of an elite girls’ secondary school, the author explores how empowerment for young women is constructed and understood across a range of textual practices. From visual representations of young women in school promotional material, to students’ constructions of popular celebrities, the question of how girls’ resistance to normative femininities begins to develop is examined. This rich empirical work makes a unique contribution to the study of elite schooling within the sociology of education, drawing on important insights from the field of critical girlhood studies, and posing a challenge to popular feminist notions about media literacy, young women and empowerment. It will be of interest to scholars and postgraduates in the areas of gender studies, sociology, education, youth studies and cultural studies.