Abstracts

Earlier this year the Prime Minister criticised the teaching of Australian history in schools, arguing that it had replaced structured narrative with ‘a fragmented stew of themes and issues’. He called for a reassertion of the central currents of the nation’s development, including Indigenous history, the development of Western civilisation, migration to Australia, and the traditions of parliamentary democracy and the Enlightenment. The ‘history wars’, in which the Prime Minister’s comments played a prominent role, had also been expressed in the controversy that surrounded the exhibitions of the National Museum of Australia during the centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001. These exhibitions encapsulated three themes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories; Australian society and history since 1788; and the interaction of people with the Australian environment. The approach adopted by the museum reflected a world wide trend among national museums, which were becoming involved in ‘a consciously nation-building exercise and a type of national introspection’. The mainstream media often reacted negatively to the 2001 exhibition, accusing it of undue emphasis on Indigenous history and of highlighting factually uncertain episodes of attacks on Indigenous people by white settlers. The museum responded ‘by going on the attack itself’, asserting the need for it to highlight ‘disputed territory’. The Australian Government initiated a review of the museum in 2003. The review applauded the museum’s ‘mosaic of everyday life’. It broadly supported the museum’s coverage of Indigenous peoples. The review it was ‘less enthusiastic’ about its coverage of controversial ‘contested frontiers’, but applauded the museum’s willingness to cover ‘darker historical episodes’. The review did however perceive a lack of ‘compelling narratives, engagingly dramatic realisations of important events and themes in the Australian story’. Debates about the museum’s depiction of Australian history are likely to revive in 2008–09 upon the completion of two new galleries. The article includes a range of teaching notes and suggestions for schools.

One way to help History students think more critically about information on the web is to ask them to evaluate websites themselves. A checklist from the National Centre for History Education suggests that students consider the website’s author, any affiliated organisations, and the website’s use of primary and secondary resources. Students should also consider whether information is fact or opinion based and whether facts and opinions are supported by reliable documentation. This process can be taken further by asking students to contribute to webtracks, or lists of website evaluations, contributed by and available to a collective of students through services such as TrackStar. Students can be encouraged to think about the nature of historiography as they keep an online, collective record. To begin a webtrack, teachers create an account and add sample websites as a demonstration for students. After the addition of two websites to the track, Trackstar provides and then prompts for log in details, allowing a range of individual students to log in simultaneously. Teachers can then ask students to add their websites and evaluations to the ‘track’ (ie the accumulating list) and view classmates’ entries. Teachers can view each student’s response and offer feedback. Once a sufficient list is available, students can practise evaluating websites, for example by selecting the three most useful websites from the list and explaining their reasoning. In addition, research tasks that require students to use the webtrack’s websites could be set.

In New South Wales a growing number of parents are withdrawing their children from Special Religious Education (SRE) classes. Many are concerned that the only alternative to SRE is free study time or other unstructured activities. State Government policy prohibits ‘timetabled lessons or scheduled school activities’ as alternatives to SRE. The prohibition covers secular ethics classes such as those proposed by the St James Ethics Centre. Simon Longstaff, Executive Director of the Centre, has opposed the prohibition, defending the role of SRE in schools but also arguing that it is ‘grossly improper’ for students not taking SRE to ‘suffer as a consequence’. Last year the New South Wales Federation of Parent and Citizens Associations adopted a policy proposing that secular ethics education be offered as an alternative to SRE in government schools (see 2005 Annual Conference Papers, pp 17, 32). Christian groups have expressed suspicion or hostility towards secular ethics classes in schools. Grant Maple, Executive Director of the Anglican Education Commission, has expressed doubts ‘that you can have such a thing as non-religious ethics’. Opposition to secular ethics classes ‘extends to the top of the education hierarchy’. In response to the proposal, ‘the Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, reiterates simply that “NSW public schools have a strong tradition of teaching values”’. The State Government’s policy sets out ‘a clear obligation on schools to facilitate SRE’ and states that schools are not responsible for what is taught by volunteers appointed by the ‘authorised religious persuasions’. The position of religious education in government schools originated in the mid-19th century when the Christian churches ceded responsibility for education to the state, and were in turn given an hour each week to deliver religious instruction, the content and staffing of which was to be decided by the churches rather than schools. (See also this week’s What’s New item on religious education in Queensland and the feature article Religion and the curriculum, Curriculum Leadership, 24 March 2005.)

 

The article compares the Victorian Essential Learnings Standards (VELS) to their predecessor the Curriculum Standards Framework (CSF). The maths curricula are broadly equivalent, with the major exception that VELS reintroduces a strand or domain called Structure, previously implicit within the CSF and known decades earlier as ‘new math’. The subject definitions in the CSF are effectively retained in VELS as supporting statements for each discipline. Technology as a key learning area no longer exists under VELS. This subject is supposedly integrated across all other disciplines and interdisciplinary domains, but the implications are unclear for the syllabus, for technology teaching specialists, and also, for example, with regards to ‘who owns, or will teach the Design Process’. Skills described in the ‘wishy-washy’ interdisciplinary domains, such as communication and thinking, can be dealt with most effectively if teachers look out for and report instances of good thinking and communication, and act to correct poor instances, during regular teaching practice. Previous curricula such as the CSF were not all about ‘facts and skill drill’, as is sometimes suggested. Within their subject frameworks they already dealt with thinking and communication skills, and also with the skills described in the VELS Physical, Personal and Social Learning strand. Thinking skills best develop ‘on a foundation of generally received background knowledge that can, with the approach toward adulthood, be critically examined’. The new emphases on formative assessment and rich learning experiences should be seen as adding to rather than replacing earlier methods of instruction and assessment. Rather than replacing the CSF, VELS augments it, making the larger, rounded, ‘big’ role of education explicit.

After obtaining disappointing mathematics scores in state assessments, a Kansas elementary school took action by approaching Kansas State University to assist with professional development. A representative of the university faculty formed a planning team with the principal, assistant principal and lead maths teacher to examine contributing factors and devise a strategy to turn the results around. Three main factors emerged: teachers had not had adequate professional development to keep up with curriculum change; teachers’ teacher-centred conceptual framework was not aligned with the new constructivist curriculum, and the mathematics curriculum was not well sequenced or defined, with many teachers unaware of what was taught in the previous or subsequent year level. The university faculty member began by providing professional development for teachers in learning maths from a problem-solving, constructivist perspective. Supported by school staff, the faculty member also prepared a successful grant application for financial support for professional development. The planning team devised a sustained 18-month proposal, involving all teachers in professional development outside contract hours and over summer workshops, which earned them graduate credits with the university. A new principal was appointed during this time, who supported the scheme with a peer coaching project. Teachers were held accountable for each others’ use of the curriculum and provided feedback on each others’ pedagogy. The planning team also set clear goals for the 18-month period, and implemented three types of professional learning. Book studies brought teachers into groups in informal settings to discuss selected professional texts. Members of the university faculty provided demonstration lessons, in which teachers became students of their own curriculum. Lastly, faculty members demonstrated the delivery of these lessons to students, with teachers observing and debriefing after each one. The initiatives had a powerful positive effect on student achievement. They also changed the culture of the school so much that teachers undertook a similar focus on reading the following year.

The article uses a social constructivist approach to examine the relationship between curriculum reform, assessment and quantitative literacy, otherwise known as numeracy or mathematical literacy. Constructivist theories of learning highlight the role of the learner in constructing their own knowledge and integrating it into their wider understanding. Social constructivism emphasises both the social and individual aspects of this process. Australian States and Territories are currently reforming curricula to emphasise ‘big ideas’, key, overarching knowledge and thinking skills that span the disciplines. Juxtaposed with this trend the Australian Government is pressing for improvement in quantitative, scientific and technological literacy in education. Both approaches are needed to develop numerate citizens and specialist expertise in science and other fields. The Essential Learnings (EL) curriculum in Tasmania contains examples of how quantitative literacy can be assessed meaningfully within a reform-based framework. The EL curriculum requires that key skills like numeracy be taught in all areas rather than just within the EL’s ‘Being numerate’ element. Quantitative literacy must be learnt ‘authentically’. Assessment tasks set for students should involve scenarios that are engaging and genuinely realistic, rather than contrived. Assessed tasks should require students to use and display a range of key mathematical skills, and to integrate multiple forms of knowledge. They should also allow students to solve problems in different ways. Efforts are often made to teach maths using realistic settings or within the framework of another discipline such as science, but they rarely manage to establish effective assessment mechanisms for all of the multiple elements within such work. The article describes a case study that is considered a model for the social constructivist approach to assessment of numeracy. It involves the example of Sophie Delezio, a young girl who suffered serious burns. Students are asked to explore her case in a range of ways, covering technical issues relating to use of a wheelchair as well as wider social issues of diversity, quality of life, and the role of school and the local community. The article includes seven tables describing the EL curriculum and its application to Sophie’s situation.

School-based research may involve individuals, whole schools or wider networks. All these types of research involve similar phases. The planning phase is about clarifying the topic and identifying researchable questions through which to explore it. Questions should be precise and answerable, and be considered useful and important by practitioners. Descriptive questions seek factual answers. Explanatory questions seek explanations of specific things. Exploratory questions are open ended. A clearly articulated purpose for the research helps to secure funding and participation, identify key audiences and maintain the focus and engagement of those taking part. Research methods should be suited to the topic and the nature of questions, for example questionnaires may be best suited to factual questions and interviews to open-ended questions. Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of different research methods. The research team should collectively cover the range of methodological, managerial and interpersonal skills needed. Having an advisory group may be helpful. Be aware of tensions between the role of teacher and researcher, considering for example how students might respond to research questions from their own teacher. Participants are usually selected as a sample of a larger population. The selection of sample groups should be consistent with the core purposes of the research and contain a suitable variety of participants, as far as is feasible and affordable. Scheduling and sequencing of research is another critical issue. It may involve the collection of baseline data, a pilot study, time to examine and understand incoming data and ideas that develop during the data collection phase, and time to record results and formulate recommendations. Dissemination should be undertaken as actively as possible.

The article summarises a research report by the author that is available online. Advances in neuroscience over recent years prompted considerable interest from educators seeking new insights into the learning process, but sceptics now claim that proponents have oversimplified neuroscientific research and over-interpreted its findings. In 1997 John Bruer argued that the findings of neuroscience, concerned with biology, physiology and chemistry, have to be mediated by psychology, in which the brain is studied experimentally from the outside, before they can be applied to education. A 2002 report by the OECD argues that education takes place in settings that involve ‘too many factors that cannot be successfully separated during experimental testing’ of the kind needed to establish validity within neuroscience. Byrnes and Fox in 1998 pointed out sharp limits to the generalisation of neuroscientific findings. Nevertheless, a number of insights may be drawn from it for educational purposes. The notion of ‘critical’ periods in brain development, when the brain ‘seems to be primed for particular types of input’, is significant in early childhood in terms of sensory, motor and language development, and is true to some extent for other forms of naturally evolved skills and abilities in humans. This type of learning is ‘experience expectant’. The notion of critical periods is much less applicable to ‘experience dependant,’ or culturally delivered learning, although learning of music or a foreign language may best take place before the age of 13. The brain retains its plasticity, or physical adaptability, over the human lifespan. The association of the brain’s right and left hemispheres with specific types of thinking is a ‘neuromyth’. Neuroscience does not support the link between ‘enriched environments’ and enhanced learning, though there is some evidence that abnormally deprived environments hinder learning. Evidence for a distinction between male and female brains is ‘equivocal’ but ‘may have some basis in fact’. The idea of ‘implicit learning’, that the brain absorbs information not consciously attended to, is applicable to perceptual rather than cognitive learning tasks.

A South Auckland study investigated the strategies students used for making meaning in two multi-ethnic Year 10 and 11 French classes. Students were observed undertaking a range of ICT-based tasks, from web quests to computerised vocabulary drills. The range of learning strategies students invoked may be grouped into four categories: cognitive, metacognitive, practical/resourcing and socio-cooperative. Cognitive strategies integrated new knowledge into students’ existing schemata. Sometimes students required teacher assistance in resolving ‘conceptual dilemmas’ when new knowledge appeared to be in conflict with existing understandings. Prior knowledge of the target language affected students’ engagement. A reasonable proportion of familiar words in a text enabled students to employ guessing strategies for words they did not recognise. Web-based language texts should therefore be screened carefully to ensure they do not contain too many unfamiliar words. Metacognitive strategies included self-monitoring, and testing answers to see if information ‘fitted’ logically. One of the most-used strategies observed was ‘private speech’, whereby students tried out answers verbally, commented to themselves, or gave themselves encouragement or correction. The ‘anonymity of computer interaction’ facilitated this important learning strategy, which students might not feel confident using in person-to-person interaction. Where cognitive or metacognitive strategies were insufficient, students drew on practical resources. Online dictionaries were frequently abandoned as either not working or producing nonsensical translations, in favour of dictionaries or familiar textbooks. Socio-cooperative strategies such as peer interaction were frequently preferred in students’ problem-solving. A group of Indian students in one French class used Hindi for cooperative problem-solving, shifting to English when required, suggesting that students should be permitted to use cognitive strategies in whichever language they feel most comfortable. Higher achieving students tended to have a wider range of strategies at their disposal. Given that students did most of their meaningful learning by talking to themselves or each other, the role of the teacher in an ICT-based classroom with well-designed activities should be to allow students to construct their own knowledge, while remaining available as one of many knowledge sources.

The emphasis on accountability in the USA’s No Child Left Behind policy has elevated the status of assessment as a main driving force behind school improvement. As it has become clear that annual assessments do not provide sufficient evidence to inform more frequent instructional decisions, formative assessments have gained popularity. Originally understood to be assessment that supports students’ learning, formative assessment has come to encompass any assessment, including summative assessments, administered at regular intervals throughout the school year. These assessments may be worthwhile as an ‘early warning system’, enabling students in need of help to receive it while there is still time to improve. However, it will not actually assist these students to lift their performance unless it is reconceptualised as assessment for learning. Assessment for learning involves students in every aspect of their assessment, regarding them, like their teachers, as ‘data-driven instructional decision makers’. State standards are deconstructed into classroom-level learning targets and articulated in language students can understand, so they have a clear understanding of ‘what success looks like’. Students are provided with regular descriptive feedback in order to monitor their own progress towards stated goals. Assessment for learning has proven remarkably effective in improving student learning, but is not widely taught in teacher education or school leadership programs. The article provides a five-step table for successful assessment for learning. Teachers must have clear purposes, clearly defined targets and sound design for their assessment instruments. They must communicate results clearly and effectively to intended users, including students. Lastly, students must be taught the skills they will need to track their progress, set goals and share their learning. These five factors take time to develop, and cannot be assimilated in short-term professional development workshops. A ‘learning team approach’ is needed to embed assessment for learning, whereby teachers engage in a combination of independent study, group reflection and the transformation of new assessment ideas into actual classroom practices.

Teachers often use questioning to control behaviour or test understanding in ways that can be threatening for their students. Questioning may be better used for fostering student autonomy. Observing the multitudinous questions posed by five- and six-year-olds, and asking questions in return, inspired the author to explore ways to cultivate an inquiring attitude and ‘confident individuality’ among her students. Through an E-Learning Fellowship, she researched the relationship between questioning and student autonomy, and how ICTs might be used to foster that relationship. Fifteen Year 3 and 4 students participated in the eight-week research while producing a project for their school science fair. Using observation and student self-assessment sheets, a set of indicators for autonomous learning were established as goals for the students. These led students to reflect on their own learning and behaviour. The teacher supported this reflection with Socratic questioning. Students were also given access to a range of ICTs, including digital video, voice recording, computers and a data projector. Aside from basic operational instructions, students were not told what they should do with the ICTs. Many students chose to use the ICTs in ways that were new to them, demonstrating a range of behaviours characteristic of autonomous learning. A table explains how autonomy indicators were reflected in students’ ICT use. The teacher’s questioning helped develop student autonomy by stimulating reflection and providing opportunities for decision-making. The process could be improved by allowing more time for student autonomy to develop, and for the teacher to better understand which levels of questioning best suit which students. Although higher-level questions were directed at more able students during the research, it may be that less able students are most in need of mental extension. Clear behavioural autonomy indicators should be set out as cross-curricular goals early in the school year and revisited periodically. The full range of available ICT resources in a school should also be explored as tools with which to demonstrate and encourage autonomous learning.

The ‘forming intentions’ phase of classroom writing requires students to generate ideas for their writing and enter into conversations ‘as authors’ to refine these ideas. This was often a ‘noisy, somewhat directionless’ time in the author’s primary school classroom, so she undertook an investigation of how the use of ICTs might improve it. Simple software with which students were already familiar was chosen in order to minimise distraction from the ‘wow’ factor of new technology. Students used a digital camera to capture images to stimulate writing ideas and recorded, reviewed and reorganised their ideas using text production and voice recording throughout their ‘forming intentions’ discussions. Case studies of three pairs of students are provided in the article. The first pair, closely matched in ability, demonstrated a high level of focus throughout the ICT activities, with little off-topic personal discussion. After five weeks of the activities, both showed improved ease and fluency in their writing. They reported that the computer had eliminated their worries about correct spelling, had been easier than using a pen or pencil, had encouraged questioning within the pair, and had enabled them to refer back to recordings if they forgot their ideas. The second pair had differing levels of ability, which resulted in a ‘tutor-student’ style of interaction. While this generated improved understanding for the less able student, the other received limited benefit. The computer assisted this relationship by providing a ‘common language for both to interact with’. The last pair were evenly matched in ability and socialised regularly. For them, the computer added a ‘sense of fun and play’ to the free talk sessions. However, talking at the computer did not come easily for them, and they made a gradual transition from laughter and chatting to focused but nonetheless enjoyable on-topic discussion. Again, the computer proved instrumental as a focal point. With scaffolding from the teacher, including fostering social and collaborative skills and providing quality learning experiences, children’s enjoyment of ICT can structure and motivate the ‘forming intentions’ process.

Two independent Queensland studies investigated the experiences of 262 teachers in their first and second years of teaching to identify what was necessary to ease the often difficult transition to the classroom. Previous research has shown high burnout rates among beginning teachers, with nearly a third seriously contemplating leaving the profession. Teachers who undergo two-year graduate teacher training, rather than a full four-year course, have proven significantly more likely to experience burnout and leave the profession early. The authors’ research confirmed that beginning teachers experience ‘relatively high levels of work pressure in comparison to most other human service professions’. Work environments that restrict innovation were strongly associated with high burnout rates. In contrast to expectations, the teachers surveyed showed a decline in their job commitment, role clarity, and co-worker cohesion over the first two years of teaching. The article contains numerous excerpts from teachers’ own reflections. Some were enthusiastic about the level of support given to them, while others complained of disillusioned senior teachers who ‘try to impose their negativity on to you’. Although one remarked that the expectation to undertake frequent professional development had been burdensome, others had found that PD sessions had given them crucial coping skills to continue teaching. PD was provided in only 25 per cent of surveyed schools. At these schools, new teachers’ responses to teacher mentoring depended on whether the mentor was seen to be supportive or intimidating. School administration was frequently mentioned as contributing to stress levels, again depending on the perceived level of support or intrusion. A supportive school culture, with attention given to the specific needs of beginning teachers and to positive collegial relationships, was a critical factor in enabling beginning teachers to remain positive through the early years of their careers.