Katina Zammit

Connecting Multiliteracies and Engagement of Students from Low Socio-Economic Backgrounds: Using Bernstein's Pedagogic Discourse as a Bridge.

Many students in Australia from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds have historically been alienated from learning and education because of the narrow definition of literacy and of what counts as legitimate texts. Consequently, traditional pedagogy, curriculum and assessment practices disengage many students. To address this issue, we embedded multiliteracies utilising information and communication technologies (ICTs) into three low SES classroom programmes and found that the associated classroom messages greatly enhanced the students’ engagement in learning and their view of themselves as learners. This approach worked better than the traditional approaches because students created multimodal texts that changed what was seen as legitimate school texts and thus credited them as literate individuals. This paper discusses students as co-constructors of knowledge, who used ICTs for an authentic purpose. It considers changes in students’ engagement and achievement as the result of shifts in the pedagogic discourse and the way that the discourses of power played out in the classrooms, via the messages students received about their knowledge, ability, control, voice and place. The multiliteracies-based unit of work utilising ICTs provided spaces for students to develop new literacy practices and to view school as a place for them.

New literacies for connected learning in global classrooms

While much is being researched and written about the nature of new learning environments and the changing roles for teachers in the school of the future little serious attention is being paid to the new demands being placed upon students in secondary schools as they communicate, handle information and learn in global networked classrooms. In secondary schools, teachers expect to build on students’ existing literacy skills and understandings. These skills and understandings are essentially built around the paper-based technologies of pen, paper, books and libraries. Learning processes in networked learning environments require substantially different literacies. The key differences relate to the changing nature of texts with which students will need to work. This paper will discuss the implications for secondary curricula and pedagogy of the challenges presented by the literacy demands these “new texts” place on secondary school students in networked learning environments. In particular it will argue for a redefinition of basic literacies and learning processes taught and used in secondary classrooms.

Reflections from the riot zone: The Fair Go Project and student engagement in a besieged community

This article describes and evaluates a pedagogical intervention aimed at improving student engagement in a very disadvantaged and low socio-economic status community in Australia. The intervention took place at a time of great community unrest and provides a contrast between wider public and media perceptions of poor communities and efforts at community renewal through education. A theoretical framework of student engagement developed in a research project into student engagement and students in poverty is introduced and then classroom changes that work within this framing are discussed. Finally, data showing results from the intervention are presented.

Using information and communication technologies to engage students in the later years of schooling in learning content and literacy: Case studies of three teachers

Literacy for a 21st century context is far more complex than reading and writing print. As society and information and communication technology (ICT) has changed, so what counts as literacy and how a person is deemed to be literate has changed. Students from low socio-economic backgrounds in the later years of schooling require access to multiple literacies mediated through ICT and to teachers who are willing to provide opportunities for them to be taught explicitly. ICT can promote the learning of the content as well as learning the literacies associated with specific subject areas. This paper will focus on how three teachers in the later years of schooling (years 9–12) used technology to enhance learning and engagement of students in learning the literacies associated with their subject. They challenged the hegemony of print literacy by providing opportunities to develop students understanding, critique and creation of multimodal texts, but also supported students in achieving more effective print literacy. These teachers provided appropriate teaching for students from low socio-economic backgrounds, engaging them in thinking, feeling and acting at high levels while simultaneously providing positive messages about their knowledge, ability, control, place and voice. Their pedagogical approach supported the development of cultural and social capital that will enhance their students’ life options.

Equity Buddie s: Building Communities of Practice to Support the Transition and Retention of Students Through Their First Year at University

While in the past, students entering universities tended to come from privileged backgrounds, the expansion of opportunities to enter higher education over the past two decades has led to the inclusion of increasing proportions of students from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. Students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds or who are first in family to attend university often require additional support as they transition into university to build their academic and institutional knowledge. Peer mentoring programs are one initiative introduced in universities to support the transition and retention of first year students, including those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds or first in family. This chapter discusses the peer mentoring program Equity Buddies Support Network developed at the University of Western Sydney, School of Education as a community of practice designed to support the transition and retention of first year students. It begins with a brief description of the Equity Buddies Support Network, followed by a discussion of how its design incorporated the features of a community of practice. It presents both the formal and informal learning that took place within the Equity Buddies communities of practice finishing with a reflection on Equity Buddies as a community of practice. It also makes connections between the practices of this networked community and the development of students’ cultural capital, in particular institutional capital.

Extending Students’ Semiotic Understandings: Learning About and Creating Multimodal Texts

The texts of the twenty-first century employ a range of semiotic modes to convey their message. In order to work with these texts in classrooms, students need access to how meanings are created using the written, visual, and sound modes. Scaffolding of students learning to create multimodal texts begins with the teaching and learning of how a text is constructed. Deconstruction of the organisation of multimodal texts provides opportunities for the teaching of the grammars of written and visual texts, and the selection of relevant sound.

Working with Wikis : collaborative writing in the 21st Century

Students in primary schools have been asked to construct both written and multimodal texts for assessment purposes for many years. However these texts have been created on paper usually as individual project. This paper reports on a multiliteracies project involving students collaboratively creating a multimodal information report using the affordances of a wiki. Students found the experience very rewarding, rating the change to the process of learning, the content (Antarctica) and the use of technology as the best aspects. Working with wikis provided the opportunity for students to engage with 21 st century literacy practices. It also provided a space in the classroom to trial changes to a conventional pedagogy, curriculum and assessment practices.

Mentors and Mentees Working Together to Develop Institutional Capital

Naima and other students entering Western Sydney University come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, for whom university – its systems and procedures – are very challenging. Their admission to the university could be attributed to the Bradley Review’s (2008) targets for expansion and equity in Australian universities.

Tracking Technology and Literacy Practices

Technology standards, such as the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) (ISTE 1999) have been developed to assist teachers achieve technology outcomes. However, these standans do not take into consideration the literacy demands of the technology, and literacy frameworks tend to ignore the place of technology. This paper reports on an exploration of how a technology-focused framework (ISTE 1999) and a literacy-focused framework (Downes and Zammit 2000) can be blended in a way that is useful to teachers. The outcome was the development of a single revised literacy curriculum framework which unites the two areas of technology and literacy.

National testing in schools: an Australian assessment. Edited By Bob Lingard, Greg Thompson and Sam Sellar

goes against large sets of literatures. The above points, along with a number of McCabe’s findings, run counter to both general assumptions and previous research in the field of the Sociology of Education, as well as the Sociology of Friendship. While the book has many positives qualities, its brevity and breadth of what it is seeking to cover means that even with the author’s desire to keep students’ perspectives in view, oftentimes the individual can get lost amongst the midst of the broader picture. This is, to a degree, to be expected. As with many books, Connecting in College leaves more questions open for asking than answered. This is, to my mind, a strength of the book rather than a weakness. The study of the social aspects of university life that are researched are often the most exaggerated and sensational elements – drinking, hooking up, sexualized violence, etc. – rather than the seemingly mundane lives of friends. This book brings the field back to a place where it can markedly recognize the ambiguous elements of sociality – and its incumbent challenges towards academic success – while also seeing the evergreen reality that friends made in college carry individuals through for the rest of their life, whether as life-long friendships, or as the demarked ideas of what a ‘friend’ is.