(2018). Guided Reading: Being Mindful of the Reading Processing of New Entrants in Aotearoa New Zealand Primary Schools. set: Research Information for Teachers, n1 p25-33. Guided reading is an established and important approach in the pedagogical repertoire of teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite evidence suggesting that a strong foundation of literacy learning must be built before introducing guided reading, early initiation to this most intensive form of reading instruction has become commonplace. This study examined the guided reading practices of three exemplary literacy teachers working with small groups of the most recent new entrants in their classes. We investigated what teachers understand and what they do to support young children to construct effective processing systems for reading. Teachers were observed and video recorded as they taught three guided reading lessons with 5 year olds at entry to school, and subsequently interviewed about their teaching decisions using stimulated-video recall. Running Records of continuous text were administered as a window to monitor children's change over time in their reading processing. Finely… [Direct]
(2014). Determining the Role of Language and Culture in First Nations Schools: A Comparison of the First Nations Education Act with the Policy of the Assembly of First Nations. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, n163 Sep. In this article, I explore the incongruence between the federal government's proposed First Nations Education Act and the approach of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) regarding language and culture education. I also examine research concerning potential outcomes of their approaches to determine what would be most beneficial to learners. Language and culture inclusion in schools has been shown to impact significantly on academic and social outcomes for Aboriginal youth, and there are substantial financial and practical differences involved in creating and maintaining different types of language and culture programs. Therefore, this incongruence is of great practical importance for policy makers and education practitioners…. [PDF]
(2013). Country Teaches: The Significance of the Local in the Australian History Curriculum. Australian Journal of Education, v57 n3 p214-224 Nov. This article develops the case for a greater focus on the teaching of local histories in the Australian Curriculum: History. It takes as its starting point an Indigenous epistemology that understands knowledge to be embedded in the land. This connection between knowledge and country is used to examine recent literature on whether the teaching of history in schools can succeed in the context of the new Australian history curriculum. Various proposals from academics to develop a framework that can be used to select appropriate content and approaches to teaching history in Australia are explored. It questions whether a geographically dispersed and diverse body of students can ever be engaged with knowledge that is often taught far from the place of its making. This article eschews the traditional concepts used by historians to teach and interpret history, in order to observe how the country can teach the student…. [Direct]
(2019). Letting the Village Be the Teacher: A Look at Community-Based Learning in Northern Thailand. Teaching in Higher Education, v24 n5 p694-708. Higher education in the U.S. sees global learning as critical to student development. Over the last seventy years, study abroad has emerged as the method of choice for teaching global knowledge and intercultural competence. In this context, community-based global learning programs are a type of program where students live in communities to learn directly from people and place. Looking at a field studies program in Northern Thailand, this paper explores the educational mobility of study abroad and impact on host communities. It shares findings on the experiences of two communities who have hosted study abroad students for almost twenty years. Best practices and recommendations for faculty and institutions running community-based global learning programs are shared, including the centrality of community voice in curriculum, benefits of applying a range of pedagogical methods on course, the critical nature of adequately preparing students for cultural immersion, and compensating… [Direct]
(2019). Exploring the Funds of Knowledge with 108 Guatemalan Teachers. GIST Education and Learning Research Journal, n18 p142-160 Jan-Jun. Using a reflective exercise designed for this study, Guatemalan educators explored their students' and their own cultural capital. The "cultural capsule exercise" served as a vehicle to bring delicate issues that are difficult to discuss, but that are essential to effective schooling, to reflective conversations. A total of 108 teachers went beyond identifying problems and detailing frustrations, to exploring possibilities for action. Participants converged in sharing perspectives that Guatemala is a culture of silence, and used examples to illustrate how this perpetuates the limitations of the country's schoolhouse. Findings reveal the teachers were challenged to focus on what can be accomplished. Qualitative data analyzes, conducted using symbolic convergence theory to establish recurrent and idea generation, suggest a need for further examination of how the sociocultural educational mandates delimit teachers' ability to adjust the curriculum in consideration of learners'… [PDF]
(2019). Researching Teacher Educators' Preparedness to Teach to and about Diversity: Investigating Epistemic Reflexivity as a New Conceptual Framework. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, v47 n3 p230-250. There is growing international concern about the extent to which teachers are prepared to work with an increasingly diverse student (and community) population. To date, research into the relationship between teacher preparation and preparedness to teach diverse learners has not focused on teacher educators' understandings about teaching to/about diversity. Such understandings can be informed by epistemic aspects of professional work. Epistemic cognitions (cognitions about knowledge and knowing) allow professionals to generate perspectives necessary to tackle new and old challenges. The social lab reported in this paper investigated 12 Australian teacher educators' perspectives about teaching to/about diversity using the 3R-Epistemic Cognition (EC) framework. The findings showed that the 3R-EC framework could be useful for capturing epistemic reflexive dialogues about teaching to/about diversity, although some aspects of the framework were identified by the teacher educators as… [Direct]
(2014). Science and Education across Cultures: Another Look at the Negev Bedouins and Their Environmental Management Practices. Cultural Studies of Science Education, v9 n4 p977-991 Dec. This is a rejoinder to the original article written by Wisam Sedawi, Orit Ben Zvi Assaraf, and Julie Cwikel about waste-related implication on the welfare of children living in the Negev's Bedouin Arab community. More specifically, the authors discuss the role of environmental education in the improvement of participants' life conditions. They do so by analyzing the impact of current precarious waste management practices on children's health and proposing the implementation of a science study unit in school that could assist them in dealing with the problem. My argument here is divided in three parts: first, based on the original article's information, I comment on some important characteristics of those unrecognized settlements and their waste production practices; second, I try to determine what kind of environmental education–if any–is necessary in that context to promote the desired changes put forward by the authors; and third, I adopt a cross-cultural approach to science and… [Direct]
(2017). Cognitive Performance across the Life Course of Bolivian Forager-Farmers with Limited Schooling. Developmental Psychology, v53 n1 p160-176 Jan. Cognitive performance is characterized by at least two distinct life course trajectories. Many cognitive abilities (e.g., "effortful processing" abilities, including fluid reasoning and processing speed) improve throughout early adolescence and start declining in early adulthood, whereas other abilities (e.g., "crystallized" abilities like vocabulary breadth) improve throughout adult life, remaining robust even at late ages. Although schooling may impact performance and cognitive "reserve," it has been argued that these age patterns of cognitive performance are human universals. Here we examine age patterns of cognitive performance among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia and test whether schooling is related to differences in cognitive performance over the life course to assess models of active versus passive cognitive reserve. We used a battery of eight tasks to assess a range of latent cognitive traits reflecting attention, processing speed,… [Direct]
(2017). Race, Racialization and Indigeneity in Canadian Universities. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v20 n3 p300-314. This article is based on data from a four-year national study of racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian universities. Its main conclusion is that whether one examines representation in terms of numbers of racialized and Indigenous faculty members and their positioning within the system, their earned income as compared to white faculty, their daily life experiences within the university as workplace, or interactions with colleagues and students, the results are more or less the same. Racialized and Indigenous faculty and the disciplines or areas of their expertise are, on the whole, low in numbers and even lower in terms of power, prestige, and influence within the University…. [Direct]
(2017). Supporting Inclusion for All; Especially for Students Vulnerable Due to Their Economic Circumstances: Introducing Manuaute o Te Huia. Kairaranga, v18 n1 p28-39. In recent years, New Zealand schools have been challenged to cater for increasing numbers of students in material hardship without comprehensive support. New Zealand once led the world in putting equity at the centre of education policy and practice, this is no longer the case. Recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) findings reveal that modern, high-performing education systems balance excellence with equity. Programmes in North America and Australasia such as Bridges Out of Poverty and others are growing in popularity although featuring an underlying deficit ideology. "Te Manuaute o Te Huia", supported by local kaumatua, is applied here in one school to support learning conversations to achieve inclusion, particularly for economically-vulnerable students. This article examines how one school, the RTLB service and its community leaders, including Ma Øori advisors, used a shared understanding of 'equity literacy' in an education setting and the… [PDF]
(2017). Te Reo Maori Ka Rere: "Talknology" and Maori Language as a Language of Choice. Teachers and Curriculum, v17 n2 p89-94. This opinion piece aims to grow awareness of a range of technological initiatives that are supporting Maori language regeneration. These initiatives have been chosen because they have communities of users. This piece could be useful to educators who want to learn about the options that are available in this area, or students of Maori language for similar reasons…. [PDF]
(2014). A Study of the Effects of Mindfulness in Five Primary Schools in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Teachers' Work, v11 n2 p201-220. This study investigated the effects of an eight-week mindfulness in schools programme delivered in five primary schools in New Zealand. The participants included 126 students ranging in age from 6-11 years old and six classroom teachers. The programme was developed by one of our researchers (Rix) to align with The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) and with a bi-cultural focus in mind. A Maori model of hauora (holistic well-being), Te Whare Tapa Wha, was incorporated as a key element of the programme. Te Whare Tapa Wha describes a Maori perspective on health and well-being which suggests that the house (whare) and its parts are viewed as a metaphor for different aspects of one's health such that if one part of a house (or one's health) is not in order, then there will be an effect of the other parts of the house (an individual's health). Thus, physical health, spiritual health, family health and mental health are all interconnected for a person's well-being, which… [PDF]
(2019). VET for Secondary School Students: Acquiring an Array of Technical and Non-Technical Skills. Research Report. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) The role of vocational education and training (VET) in preparing secondary school students for employment, further training and the changing world of work has long been a topic of interest among employers, educationalists and policymakers. More recent attention has also been on VET's role in assisting in the development of non-technical skills (for example, employability skills), with employer groups vocal about the need for potential employees possessing these skills. This study is one part of a larger program of research investigating whether VET programs delivered to secondary students add value to their post-school destinations. In this report, the authors explore whether VET undertaken by secondary students, and in some cases by post-school students, equips them with the skills (including the non-technical skills) required to successfully participate in an ever-changing world of work. To do this, the authors analysed the VET programs of secondary students over the last 20 years,… [PDF]
(2001). The Purga Project: Indigenous Knowledge Research. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, v29 n2 p11-17. The Purga Elders Centre in Queensland (Australia) is an Aboriginal-owned meeting place where Aboriginal culture and history are lived and passed on. Research conducted there is based on Indigenous Knowledge Research (IKR), which is grounded in Indigenous realities and approaches knowledge only through respect for Indigenous epistemologies. Twenty principles of IKR and Indigenous science are described. (TD)…
(2016). Valuing IKS in Successive South African Physical Sciences Curricula. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, v20 n1 p35-44. The valuing of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) is one of the principles on which the South African school curriculum is supposed to be based. The purpose of this paper is to critique the treatment of indigenous knowledge in the South African secondary Physical Sciences curriculum against a backdrop of international debates on the relationship between IKS and science. Such debates usually take either an Inclusive perspective, where IKS are regarded as part of science, or an Exclusive perspective, where IKS and science are regarded as separate domains of knowledge. We identify a third perspective where IKS and science are viewed as intersecting domains. A document analysis of all national post-apartheid curriculum documents relevant to secondary Physical Sciences identifies only nine examples of IKS related to Physical Sciences in the latest curriculum documents (CAPS), although this is an improvement on the previous curricula. The curriculum documents reflect some confusion about… [Direct]