Cross Sector – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Transforming information literacy space(s) to support student learning

1. Introduction The driver of this research arose from the findings from our earlier TLRI-funded research on academic literacy (see Emerson et al., 2015): that there was a significant disconnect between literacy expectations in the tertiary and secondary sectors, and that information literacy (IL) was a key to that transition. We perceived IL as a hidden aspect of the curriculum that, if addressed, could deepen student learning and enable effective transition. Further, we saw IL resources—primarily the librarian—as hidden and underutilised within the tertiary and secondary classrooms. The importance of IL, described as the meta-competency or metaliteracy of the digital age (Lloyd, 2003; Mackey & Jacobson, 2011; Secker & Coonan, 2012), and

Refugee-background students in Aotearoa: Supporting successful secondary to tertiary education transitions

Background (why we did the research) Human displacement is currently at the highest level internationally since World War II. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, n.d.), the number of displaced persons has increased by more than 70 percent since 2011; in mid 2022, there were 103 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Of these, 32.5 million were refugees, and only 42,300 were resettled. Over a third of displaced people (36.5 million) were children aged under 18 years. The 1951 UN Convention for Refugees and 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees define as a refugee someone who “is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing

Designing mobile learning with education outside the classroom to enhance marine ecological literacy

1. Introduction The aim of this study was to explore how purposeful educational design using mobile learning might enable integration of classroom and outside of classroom teaching and learning. The context for the study was marine conservation with a goal to enhance the ecological literacy (ecoliteracy) of primary school students and their parents, and by extension to promote sustainable communities. There is growing evidence that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential to enhance learning, increase knowledge, and promote transformative changes in the attitudes and behaviour of both individuals and the broader community (Aguayo, 2014; Becta, 2009; Somekh, 2007). Within ICT, today’s mobile learning technologies (e.g., smartphones, tablets) have multiple

Making mathematical thinking visible

1. Mathematical parts and wholes Of all the subjects in the New Zealand school curriculum, mathematics is perhaps the most strongly associated in students’ minds with expectations of conformity, accuracy, and rule-following. Yet mathematicians describe mathematics as a source of intense aesthetic pleasure, creativity, and play (Lockhart, 2009; Sinclair, 2004). Chevallard (as cited in Eisenberg & Dreyfus, 1991) attributes this difference to “didactical transposition”, a process whereby academic mathematical knowledge is broken down and sequentially ordered into atomistic units that are easy to teach and assess. As a result of this transposition, students often experience instructional mathematics as components or building blocks: small, explicitly presented pieces of knowledge and skills to

Teaching for equity: How do we do it?

Introduction Researchers, teachers, and policy makers around the world are grappling with the challenge of ensuring that increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse student populations are provided with equitable learning opportunities and outcomes (UNESCO, 2014). This challenge takes on particular significance in New Zealand where national and international achievement data persistently show a large gap between our high-achieving and low-achieving learners, a gap that is frequently related to students’ ethnicity and socio-economic background. Despite the Ministry of Education’s many policies aimed at addressing this challenge (e.g., Ka Hikitia–Accelerating Success 2013–2017 (Ministry of Education, 2013a) and the Pasifika Education Plan 2013–2017 (Ministry of Education, 2013b)), data continue to show that students from poor communities,

Literacy and narrative in the early years: Zooming in and zooming out

Introduction This project is about exploring and strengthening young children’s story-telling expertise. Building on research that shows that children’s narrative competence is linked to later literacy learning at school, we wanted to understand more fully how conditions for literacy learning are, and could be, supported within early years education settings. Using a design-based intervention methodology and a multi-layered analytical approach we observed and analysed story-telling episodes within early childhood settings and classrooms to understand, within these episodes, the contributions of contexts and story-partners for children’s early development of narrative competence. Our aim was to contribute to the international literature and develop storying strategies with and for teachers. Literacy and narrative We

Learning journeys from early childhood into school

Introduction This project focused on the transition between early childhood and school and explored ways to understand and enhance children’s learning journeys as they move between the two sectors. Transitions can be seen as an intrinsic component of life, with individuals in any society experiencing a series of passages “from one age to another and from one occupation to another” (van Gennep 1977, p. 3). Each transition point can be thought of as crossing a threshold, leaving behind the known to enter a new role, context, status, or position (Fabian, 2002). Transitions can offer both crisis and opportunity (Hörschelmann, 2011, p. 379) and the threshold phase is often a time of

Literacy and e-learning: Mining the action research data

Introduction In this project, researchers and teachers (ECE, primary, and secondary) worked together to analyse unpublished data from a range of action research inquiries on e-learning to articulate, investigate, and build theory about the literacy learning that takes place in e-learning contexts. This summary report provides an overview of our cross-project analysis. The teachers’ case studies can be found at: http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/Literacyin-e-learning Key findings There was evidence of students in all sectors (ECE, primary, and secondary) encoding and decoding, making meaning with, using, and thinking critically about texts in visual, audio, gestural, spatial, print, and multimodal modes. There was less evidence of students developing critical literacy, and this was so across all

An exploration of field-based early childhood teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand

1. Description of study, its context and its strategic value Purpose This study seeks to capture the reality and process of field-based early childhood teacher education using the classroom and the learning encounter as a unit of analysis. It includes a beginning focus on, but is not limited to, interactions between “Student And student”, “lecturer and student”, “lecturer and the group”, and “Student And the group”. The exploratory focus begins to document, describe and characterise the nature and form of field-based early childhood teacher education. By taking this approach, the study’s aim is to contribute to the limited research-base which investigates the “inner workings” of teacher education programmes internationally and to