Judy M. Parr

Revisiting and reframing use: Implications for the integration of ICT

This paper investigates the use of ICT by teachers in selected secondary schools. It considers both the extent and type of use and the factors that may influence such use through the statistical analysis of data from a 30-section survey containing 185 items. First, exploratory maximum-likelihood factor analysis was used to identify five distinct categories, or types of use. Second, path analyses assisted in determining ten antecedent factors which significantly impacted on use from a total of 16 factors considered. These factors were confirmed using scale analyses. Finally, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to determine whether demographic/context variables were related both to use and to those factors directly influencing usage. Findings suggest a variety of types of professional development, as well as a range of infrastructural options, are needed to meet not only the varying needs of individual teachers, but also the varying ways in which ICT can be used. The implication is that the key outcomes for any professional development must be to increase teacher confidence in their ability to facilitate student learning with computers, along with the provision of stronger pedagogical motivation for teachers to integrate ICT.

Environments, Processes, and Mechanisms in Peer Learning.

Abstract This chapter explores the dynamics and processes of peer group influences in learning settings from a social constructivist perspective. A two-tiered model of peer influences is presented, in which environments for learning are linked with mechanisms and processes most likely to underpin student learning. A distinction is drawn between more structured “tutorially configured” environments for learning, and more informal “ambient” environments through which peers influence the learning of others. Examples from classroom instruction are used to show that configured environments may be seen along a continuum of interactive structure based on the extent to which knowledge is socially constructed through reciprocal interaction, and to indicate the learning processes and mechanisms most likely to be operating. Similarly, research on peer influences in the ambient environment, and the likely associated processes and mechanisms, are also discussed. It is argued that the effects from both environments are interactive and that their influences are exerted both directly on learning and indirectly through proximal indicators of achievement.

Extending Educational Computing

AbstractTeachers are crucial to the integration of technology for teaching and learning. This article discusses a school’s efforts in teacher development and support for technology over five years. Access was facilitated by allocating a laptop computer to each staff member. Concurrently, an in-house inservice program was offered. Reported personal use was extensive; teacher confidence level and skill improved markedly. However, use of computers in the classroom remained relatively low. Further measures were instituted, including a detailed five-year plan for information technology, network and hardware expansion, appointing more technical support staff, and introducing, then refining, a technology-coaches scheme with specified basic skills for all staff. Classroom use showed small but steady gains in amount and diversity. From this case, factors such as pedagogical beliefs and lack of a collaborative culture are identified as inhibiting implementation of technology in the classroom.

Chain of Influence from Policy to Practice in the New Zealand Literacy Strategy.

New Zealand’s literacy strategy seeks to translate into reality the broad policy goals of equipping all New Zealanders with the knowledge, skills and values to be successful citizens of the twenty‐first century. The central policy concern is reflected in international surveys showing that although the country’s student achievement is above the international average in literacy, the achievement profiles show very high variability, stratified along ethnic lines. Concerns about those not achieving as well as others form much of the focus of literacy policies in many western education jurisdictions and in New Zealand’s policy‐in‐use as expressed in the literacy strategy. Two differentially effective professional development initiatives are analysed in this paper using a sense‐making theoretical framework. These initiatives formed a major component of the literacy strategy and were aimed at raising the literacy achievement of students in both deep and surface features of reading and writing. The relevance of the framework was highlighted by the analysis of the mediation processes that occurred between the policy formulation with its accompanying implementation messages and the existing norms and belief systems of practitioners as they reconstructed the messages in the two initiatives. The first initiative focused on developing instructional leadership and evidence‐informed practices but the messages were re‐interpreted in ways that missed these central tenets. The second had a greater focus on teacher knowledge and practice accompanied by evidence‐informed decision‐making, with outcomes for teachers and students forming the contractual foundation. The central messages were conveyed through multiple system layers to teachers, with concomitant improvement in achievement, particularly for the lowest 20% of students. Material artefacts and the activities of visiting facilitators both played key roles in spanning system boundaries. The paper concludes with a brief analysis of the relationship between policy‐makers, practitioners and researchers that contributed to progress towards meeting the policy goals.

Promoting professional inquiry for improved outcomes for students in New Zealand

Increasing attention is being paid to professional development as a way to improve outcomes for students but its promise has not always been realised. Broadly speaking, approaches to professional development have either focused on developing better prescriptions for teaching practice or on collaborative reflective inquiry into practice. Neither approach has been particularly effective in achieving substantive improvement in student outcomes. In this paper, a third approach is described, one associated with substantive gains in student achievement on reading comprehension and the deeper features of writing in New Zealand. In essence, teachers are supported to identify their professional learning needs through an analysis of their students’ learning needs, to build their pedagogical content knowledge in sufficient depth to address their students’ learning needs and then to check both formally and informally whether their changed teaching practices are having the desired impact.

Enacting Assessment for Learning: the beliefs practice nexus

Engagement in self and peer assessment are authentic ways in which students can develop evaluative and productive knowledge and expertise, necessary prerequisites if they are to become autonomous learners. Teachers in the current study who had articulated similar beliefs in regard to the importance of developing student autonomy and who had described similar practices to develop self-monitoring behaviour were observed teaching a written language unit. However, the ways these practices ‘played out’ in the classroom was a matter of considerable variation in regard to the nature of the judgements made, the degree of student involvement in evaluative and productive activities, and the amount of control maintained by the teacher. Two particular cases are used to draw attention to teachers’ espoused beliefs and their congruence with practice. Given the powerful role that beliefs play in the enactment of specific assessment for learning practices, recommendations for teacher professional development are made.

Discussion: Modeling and Maximizing Peer Effects in School.

Abstract This chapter discusses issues that are common across the literatures and makes connections across the different levels of inquiry to develop a conceptual model of peer influences on learning. Based on the premise that compositional effects operate through a nested series of hierarchical layers, the chapter proposes a multi-layered model with effects propagating from school-level influences to class-level influences to group-level influences to ambient and configured environments for learning among peers. It is proposed that many of the effects are indirect. Hence, peer effects ‘look’ smaller the further we move away from the instructional coalface because they are mediated by intervening layers. It is also noted that there may be reciprocal effects whereby peers influence teachers and school organization and management. Finally, the chapter describes four instructional approaches that utilize peer resources to maximize learning. These approaches demonstrate additional ways of capitalizing on peer effects beyond altering student composition.

Teachers, schools and using evidence: Considerations of preparedness

Despite assessment being viewed as integral to practice, there are questions about schools’ preparedness to engage in this process. Data from three studies conducted in New Zealand primary schools explore whether use of student achievement data is part of the professional canon or skill set. (1) When implementing new literacy materials, evidence of need did not necessarily inform choice nor was achievement data used to make decisions about effectiveness of materials or use. (2) When a classroom initiative designed to achieve literacy goals was implemented, few schools collected evidence adequate for its evaluation. In both cases, practitioners appeared to hold a theory about acceptable evidence at variance with current policy expectations. Further, they may have lacked necessary skills. (3) Teachers, with practice, learned to interpret data accurately but this skill did not relate to student progress. A high level of pedagogical content knowledge may be needed to relate achievement information to teaching practice.

Removing the Silent From SSR: Voluntary Reading as Social Practice

This article describes a small-scale project designed to help engage reluctant adolescent readers in voluntary reading practice during sustained silent reading (SSR). Three teachers worked with a secondary school reading expert to identify and agree on elements of effective instructional conversations and then implemented these “book talks” with a small group of students about once a week over a school year. The talks focused on making explicit the practice of choosing and engaging in text, especially the features that made text memorable or enjoyable. Sample transcripts and interviews with teacher and student participants show how the conversations went in practice. The associated challenges are identified. For the teacher, they included the tension between achieving instructional aims and relinquishing control of the conversations and keeping a conversation alive and dominating it. Positive outcomes for students include “getting into reading.” They reported enjoying the experience, and three-quarters of them made progress in terms of the goals of SSR. Teachers reported focusing more on the purpose of SSR rather than the form and found they came to know their readers.

Going to School the Technological Way: Co-Constructed Classrooms and Student Perceptions of Learning with Technology

There are problems with investigating technology in educational settings. A major issue is the complexity of the interaction among computer use, the social system of the classroom and the instructional activities, and pedagogical goals promoted by teachers. Teacher beliefs and values and their relationship to technology use have been investigated but the perspectives of students have largely been neglected. The research reported is longitudinal and employs a case study methodology. In evaluating widespread implementation of computing technology at a school, 1991–1997, a large corpus of data was collected to document multiple perspectives. Those from four cohorts of students (n = 377) have been tapped in several ways. The article discusses data regarding student response to technology and how the beliefs and actions of students influence the use of technology in classrooms in terms of three themes: context and process for learning, changing expectations for learning, and differential responses to learning.