AbstractsSeven systemwide solutions
Volume 65
Number 7, April 2008;
Pages 64–68
One of the responsibilities of school systems is to develop ways to assist high-need students beyond the individual school level. The authors examined seven school districts in the USA to identify best practice methods for helping disadvantaged students. Each of the districts was diverse geographically, culturally and linguistically. The research involved face to face or telephone interviews with superintendents. The study identified four key challenges regarding disadvantaged students, and a number of innovative ways in which they are being addressed within these districts. The first challenge is overcoming the achievement gap between mainstream and disadvantaged students. One district assisted young disadvantaged students by capping their class sizes to 15 students, by emphasising literacy skills at kindergarten level, and by focusing on smooth grade transitions. Another district helped disadvantaged secondary students by improving the rigour of early and middle secondary classes to equip students to take the more demanding senior classes required for entering tertiary study. A third district helped Grade 3 and 4 students learn English aurally using iPods, with lessons customised to individual students, while another district set up boys’ clubs to break down the notion that academic failure is cool. A second challenge, low parental involvement, was addressed in one district through programs that encouraged parents to raise concerns about their children’s education, and which encouraged parents of disabled children to advocate for them. A third challenge regarding disadvantaged students is lack of preparedness for school. One district provided release time for teachers to enable ‘vertical planning’ meetings, through which teachers of different grade levels, including kindergarten teachers, plan the students’ transition needs, and also ‘horizontal planning’ meetings for teachers at the same grade level in different schools, to help children who move home frequently within the district. The fourth challenge, the gap in teacher quality, was dealt with in one district through a performance-based pay scheme which initially rewarded teachers mainly for high school-wide performance but which increasingly emphasised evaluation and reward for individual teachers. KLA Subject HeadingsEducational administrationEducational planning Socially disadvantaged United States of America (USA) Oral feedback in the context of written language
Volume 31
Number 1, February 2008;
Pages 43–58
Teachers need to provide students with quality feedback that assists them to learn independently and assess their own progress. Teachers should not only set goals for an individual student’s learning, but should collaborate with the student in doing so. Students should also be provided with good quality exemplars typifying what is to be learnt. At present, however, research indicates that teacher feedback often focuses not on students' learning but on their effort, attitude and self-esteem, or relates to classroom management. Research on written feedback has found that teachers tend to over-emphasise quantity rather than quality of writing, and focus on superficial rather than substantive elements of text, or on affective aspects of performance. Feedback tends to treat student writing as finished texts to be corrected rather than drafts offering opportunities for redrafting, and tends not to focus enough on contextual task requirements. The authors conducted a study examining the under-researched area of teachers’ oral feedback about students’ written work. The study involved three primary school teachers in New Zealand, respectively taking years 1, 3 and 5–6 classes. Over eight weeks the researchers observed each teacher’s classrooms, recording and transcribing teacher talk, making notes of student talk and lesson structure, and collecting relevant documentation. The study found that the learning targets that teachers set for students often took the form of ‘competency-based checklists’ and ‘did little to convey clearly the more substantive aspects of either transactional or expressive writing’ and ‘made little reference to key features of the writing process’. Exemplars were used mainly to reinforce the inclusion of required elements. In dialogue with a student, the teachers tended to retain control though closed or ‘pseudo-open’ questions. This approach encourages students’ dependence on teachers for judgments on their work. One of the three teachers sometimes went beyond this pattern into rich collaborative feedback which allowed students to catch a deeper sense of what constitutes good quality in their own work and that of peers. Teachers need sustained opportunities through professional learning to deepen their understanding of the role of teacher feedback to students. Key Learning AreasEnglishSubject HeadingsPrimary educationAssessment Writing Teaching and learning Teacher-student relationships Making roomWinter 2008;
Pages 13–14
The rise of user-generated content (UGC) has changed the nature of the Web. The creation of websites no longer depends on specialist professional knowledge, since templates provide ready-made Web designs, tagging can replace standardised subject classification schemes, and websites are evaluated increasingly through usage rates and user feedback rather than through professional quality assurance mechanisms. Content creation is allowing ordinary users to gain skills in online social networking, such as the use of tags to filter searches and facilitate other users’ access to their content. A considerable amount of UGC has educational value, and an increasing amount of students’ work is created online. Students familiar with the techniques and conventions of UGC outside school are likely to be interested in applying it to course work. However, much current eLearning takes place within a traditional educational framework, which is ‘delivered by centralised, monolithic learning management systems’, is course-centric, and tied to a specified curriculum. Schools should facilitate students’ creation of UGC. In doing so, however, educators need to address four major issues. The first is the quality and accuracy of online content. The frequent absence of professional quality assurance creates the danger of errors, although it should also be noted that much UGC is high quality and widens the range of perspectives available on a topic. The need for users to check quality themselves offers an excellent prompt for students to improve their information skills. A second issue is copyright. As traditional approaches to copyright struggle to cope with the digital environment, content creators increasingly license other users to repurpose their work and adapt it to new contexts. Thirdly, schools need to understand the growing importance of user tagging to facilitate discoverability amid the vast amounts of content now generated. A fourth issue is the growing capacity of users to preserve and disseminate content, as early problems of incompatibility between different applications are overcome within the maturing web environment. KLA Subject HeadingsElectronic publishingElearning Curriculum planning Social life and customs Websites Intellectual property (IP) New/small news in the English curriculum
Volume 42
Number 3, 2007;
Pages 43–54
Schools need to take note of changes in the nature of news dissemination and the impact of these changes on students’ understanding of the media. Ordinary citizens are now able to capture and report on events through mobile phone cameras and other personal technology. Citizens can also adapt or ‘play with’ news items, eg through satires of politicians’ performances on YouTube. News reporting is increasingly delivered through small-scale media. Tens of thousands of small blogs were created to report on or discuss the 2004 Asian tsunami. The independent citizen news site Indymedia arose as a response to the mainstream media’s coverage of the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation. Stuart Allen’s book Online News: Journalism and the Internet examines these developments in depth. These developments also suggest a fresh range of ways in which news coverage can be raised with students. The ‘constructed’ nature of the news, and how events may be adapted by the mass media coverage, is already considered at times within the school curriculum, eg in the module Representation and Text within the Advanced English course of the New South Wales Higher School Certificate, and its elective ‘Telling the truth’. Teachers can enrich discussion within such units by comparing mass media coverage of news to the coverage given by small media such as blogs. The article includes a table containing suggestions on how these questions may be posed in the classroom. The media can be examined through particular frameworks. Within a subjective frame, for example, students may be asked to consider personal ways in which they might react to a news story, or how they might present it as an editor. Structural, cultural and critical frames offer students further ways to examine the media. Consideration of these different frameworks can once again be enriched by comparing the different way they manifest themselves in mass media and small media. Key Learning AreasEnglishSubject HeadingsEnglish language teachingMass media study and teaching Secondary education Websites Australia's linguistic culture and its impact on languages education
Volume 42
Number 3, April 2008;
Pages 19–24
Key Learning AreasLanguagesSubject HeadingsAustraliaLanguages other than English (LOTE) Language and languages Multiculturalism Social life and customs Leading from within: a values-based model of principal self-development
Volume 14
Number 1, 2008;
Pages 1–15
Two KLA Subject HeadingsSchool leadershipSchool principals Values education New Zealand Motivation: going beyond testing to a lifetime of readingSpring 2008;
Pages 135–141
In an environment of high-stakes testing where achievement tends to be the focus, developing students’ inner motivation to read can be overlooked. However, motivated students will choose to spend more time reading, and reading time is strongly linked to achievement in reading comprehension. Extrinsic motivational techniques such as rewards and prizes may work in the short term, but ultimately reduce intrinsic motivation and love of learning. Eight principles are important when building students’ intrinsic motivation to read. Giving children Choice and control empowers them to take ownership of their reading experience. Strategies for giving children more control over their reading material include ‘Goldilocks’, which has students select books by allocating them into the categories ‘too hard’, ‘too easy’, and ‘just right’. Goldilocks questions relate to content, understanding, familiar words, and read-aloud fluency. An acronym such as ‘I PICK’ (Purpose, Interest, Comprehension, Knowledge of words) can also be helpful in the classroom. Social interaction significantly increases motivation and enjoyment for many students. Strategies for social interaction include literature circles, which are especially effective with series books. Groups can either choose one book in the series to read at the same time, or can each read a different book in the series and report back to the group. Idea circles are also effective. These are groups of between three and six students, formed around a concept or research topic they have selected, who negotiate a shared understanding using different sources of information. Novelty in reading material should be provided, and Feedback can be a very powerful motivator. Reading materials should offer attainable success, with students succeeding at the large majority of tasks they undertake. Interest in the subject matter is of central concern, and relevance to the real world children live in should also be considered. Finally, a positive learning atmosphere in the classroom, in which ideas from both texts and students are valued, enhances motivation to read, discuss and listen. Classroom libraries should be strongly supported, particularly for newer teachers. This particularly benefits poorer children who are likely to have less access to print materials at home. Key Learning AreasEnglishSubject HeadingsReadingMotivation National curriculum collaboration in Australia: an analysis of the national debateApril 2008
The purpose of this study was to review five initiatives in national curriculum collaboration, which have emerged since the move to national consistency in 2003, and to examine reports on these initiatives published by the news media and the education profession. Searches on websites of education organisations, an electronic magazine and the Australian Education Index were conducted to identify documents, news reports and educational literature referring to the five initiatives. Content analysis method was applied to summarise and categorise the documents. The results showed that policy making during this phase of national curriculum collaboration has shifted from establishing national consistency to introducing standards-based education, and reports published by the news media and the education profession have increased since this shift occurred. The conclusion indicated that, while a national debate has emerged on this issue, only a small proportion of policy makers and leaders within the education community has been engaged in contributing to this debate. (Dr Michael Watt has provided this abstract of a paper presented at the professional conference of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association. The current abstract summarises a more extensive paper. To obtain an electronic copy of the paper, contact him at michaelgwatt@bigpond.com.) KLA Subject HeadingsStandardsEducation policy Curriculum planning The future of national curriculum collaboration in Australia: an analysis of policies and possibilitiesApril 2008
The purpose of this study was to review policies and inquiries on national curriculum reform, initiated during the federal election campaign in 2007, to identify whether a new phase of national curriculum collaboration, characterised as standards-based reform, is likely to be initiated. A set of ten criteria, defining key features of standards-based education, was applied to analyse the contents of two policy documents and a report from an inquiry. The results showed that the documents reflected increasing refinement of the concept of standards-based education, but were only clear and comprehensive in their descriptions for four criteria. The conclusion recommended that policy making should be conceptualised in greater detail as a process of planned change, which a decision-making body could apply to design a standards-based education system in a setting involving large change supported by a low level of knowledge. (Dr Michael Watt has provided this abstract of a paper presented at the professional conference of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association. The current abstract summarises a more extensive paper. To obtain an electronic copy of the paper, contact Dr Watt at michaelgwatt@bigpond.com.) KLA Subject HeadingsCurriculum planningEducation policy Standards Motivating students with roboticsApril 2008;
Pages 44–49
A collaborative robotics program across four high schools and two tertiary institutions in the
Key Learning AreasTechnologySubject HeadingsInformation and Communications Technology (ICT)Technology teaching Technology Outdoor and environmental studies: more challenges to its place in the curriculum
Volume 11
Number 2, 2007;
Pages 19–28
There are currently two senior subjects in Victoria that cover environmental content. Environmental Science is a broad science subject that applies concepts from biology, chemistry and physics to environmental issues, and Outdoor and Environmental Studies is a health and physical education subject focusing on human interactions with the environment, skills in environmental management, and experiential outdoor learning. The place of environmental content in Key Learning AreasHealth and Physical EducationScience Studies of Society and Environment Subject HeadingsEnvironmentEnvironmental Education Victoria Complex, not simple: the VET pathway from welfare to work
Volume 7
Number 228-31, June 2008
The Australian welfare-to-work initiative was introduced in July 2006 to move capable welfare recipients into paid employment. The scheme parallels other welfare reforms emerging in KLA Subject HeadingsVET (Vocational Education and Training)There are no Conferences available in this issue. |