Education Commons^™

Naplan And My School : Shedding Some Light On A Work In Progress, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

Debate about NAPLAN and the My School website has generated plenty of heat. Geoff Masters casts some light on what is essentially a work In progress.

An Investigation Of The Stability Of A Literacy Variable Over Time: Implications For Standards Monitoring, Siek Khoo, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

No abstract provided.

How Well Do Young People Deal With Contradictory And Unreliable Information On Line? What The Pisa Digital Reading Assessment Tells Us, Tom Lumley, Juliette Mendelovits

Juliette Mendelovits

There is sometimes an assumption that young people, as ‘digital natives’, are able to use online information effectively, including selecting and negotiating digital texts that are not only relevant for what they need, but also are likely to provide reliable information. This paper examines the question of how well young people are in fact able to recognise whether information is likely to be trustworthy. While some small-scale work has been done in this area, this paper draws on data from the first large-scale international assessment of online reading, the Digital Reading Assessment (DRA) that was part of the Organisation for …

Thinking About Diagrams: A General Diagrammatic Literacy, Brad Jackel

Dr Brad Jackel

No abstract provided.

Secondary Esl Round Table: Excavating Our Ccss Hopes And Fears, Revealing New Literacy Possibilities For Ells, Susan Adams

Susan Adams

Presentation at the 2012 Literocity Conference, Indianapolis, IN, July 9, 2012.

National Assessment Program : Ict Literacy Technical Report, Eveline Gebhardt, Julian Fraillon, Wolfram Schulz, Kate O'Malley, Chris Freeman, Martin Murphy, John Lindsey

Martin Murphy

This report is concerned with procedures, processes and technical aspects of the National Assessment Program - ICT Literacy 2011 Literacy (NAP - ICTL 2011) and should be read in conjunction with the Public Report from Literacy NAP - ICTL 2011 which focuses on results and interpretation of results from that assessment. The first cycle of the NAP - ICTL was held in 2005 and provided the baseline against which future performance would be compared. The second cycle of the program was conducted in 2008 and was the first cycle where trends in performance were able to be examined.

Talking With Texts: How Cellphones Empower Deaf Children In Uganda, Sacha Develle

Dr Sacha DeVelle

No abstract provided.

A Slow Burn: The Impact Of Ials In Australia, Juliette Mendelovits

Juliette Mendelovits

Australia Australia has put its hand up to participate in all the international literacy surveys on offer: IALS in the second wave (1996), the ALL Survey in the second wave (2006), and PIAAC in 2011-12 – in the field right now. Nevertheless, until very recently Australia’s general response to the surveys can best be described as inert: more in the vein of our habitual “she’ll be right” than the “clever country” that our prime minister of the 1980s urged us to become. For most of the period since the IALS results were published in 1997, Australia paid little attention to …

Challenges For Australian Education : Results From Pisa 2009 : The Pisa 2009 Assessment Of Students' Reading, Mathematical And Scientific Literacy, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Marina Nicholas, Kylie Hillman, Sarah Buckley

Kylie Hillman

Focusing on reading literacy as the major domain for the PISA 2009 assessment, this national report examines Australian students' achievement in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. Results are reported for the states, by gender, for Indigenous students, by location, language background and by socioeconomic background.

Literacy And Numeracy Learning: Lessons From The Longitudinal Literacy And Numeracy Study For Indigenous Students, Nola Purdie, Kate Reid, Tracey Frigo, Alison Stone, Elizabeth Kleinhenz

Dr Kate Reid

In 2000, ACER commenced the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Surveys for Indigenous Students (ILLANS), which set out to track the development of English literacy and numeracy skills in a group of Indigenous students from school entry through the early years of schooling and beyond, to establish a data-rich picture of educational opportunities for Indigenous students. Phase 1 of ILLANS collected data from Indigenous students at 13 schools across Australia that had been nominated by education systems as examples of good practice in education for Indigenous students. The first three years of the study were reported in the monograph Supporting English …

Final Evaluation Report: Supporting Improved Literacy Achievement (Sila) Project, Robert Hattam, Lyn Kerkham, John Walsh, Jenny Barnett, Dianne Bills, Petra Lietz, Mollie Tobin

Dr Petra Lietz

The Supporting Improved Literacy Achievement (SILA) project has attempted to make a difference to literacy achievement in some of the most ‘educationally disadvantaged’ schools in South Australia, and hence to take on seriously what has been an intractable policy and practice problem for many decades. In brief, the SILA project has adopted a coaching model as the means of providing schools with support for developing responses to diagnostic reviews. This strategy is a significant departure from common practice in DECS where schools are expected to undertake regular self-review processes using the DIAf tools with support for post-review development usually left …

National Partnership Agreement On Literacy And Numeracy : Performance Report For 2010, Ray Adams, Mike Long, Paul Mcclintock

Professor Ray Adams

The COAG Reform Council must independently assess whether Australian jurisdictions have met pre-determined milestones and performance benchmarks contained in the National Partnership on Literacy and Numeracy before reward funding is paid. This report assesses state and territory performance for 2010. Part A describes the National Partnership; Part B devotes a chapter to each jurisdiction's assessment; and Part C suggests improvements to the performance reporting framework.

Enhancing Education, Sheldon Rothman, Sarah Buckley, David Slattery, John Ainley

Dr Sarah Buckley

The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was announced on 21 July 2007 and has been implemented over the last four years. This federal government initiative aims to protect children, to make communities safe and to build a better future for people living in Indigenous communities and town camps in the Northern Territory. The strategies have changed since its initial implementation but its focus and many of the key themes and measures remain the same. This evaluation examines the NTER from a whole-of-government perspective, reviewing the impact on community safety, wellbeing and service provision; service coordination and engagement; promoting law and …

Thinking Critically About Diagrams: A Theoretical Framework For General Diagrammatic Literacy, Brad Jackel

Dr Brad Jackel

Diagrams are used heavily throughout contemporary society, yet there is little guidance for educators on teaching students to think critically about diagrams in general. Because of this there is almost no systematic guidance for learners on how to approach unfamiliar diagrams with some degree of confidence, particularly in terms of their ability to think critically about the visual ‘rhetoric’ of a given diagram. This is a crucial ability to foster in students, given society’s increasing reliance on forms of graphical communication which encourage the use of diagrams (internet, PowerPoint, tablet computing, smart phones) and the decision-making contexts in which diagrams …

An Ant's Eye View : Some Pluses And Minuses, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

This article provides a history of adult numeracy teaching, looking back at the rise and development if adult numeracy provision, mainly in Victoria, from the perspective of an ANT (adult numeracy teacher), beginning in the late 1970s. The author then describes what lies on the horizon, what lessons adult educators can learn, and what opportunities might lie ahead for adult numeracy in the next decade or so. The article contains an exposition on the benefits of explicitly recognising and supporting numeracy within the language, literacy and numeracy equation. The author argues that, given the Australian data from ALLS, there is …

Contemporary Literacy Practices Of Early Learners (Preps), D Cohen, Anne-Marie Chase

Dr Anne-Marie Chase

Embracing Literacy-Based Teaching: A Longitudinal Study Of The Conceptual Development Of Novice Foreign Language Teachers, Heather W. Allen

Heather Willis Allen

Taking a sociocultural theory perspective (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), this longitudinal study explored the conceptual development of two teaching assistants in a university foreign language department in relation to literacy and language teaching. Findings illustrate the "twisting path" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 156) of concept development experienced by the two first-time teachers of Spanish as their understandings of literacy and efforts to use tools of literacy evolved over several years. Evidence of the ability to think through concepts of literacy in structuring teaching practices did not emerge for either participant until four semesters after they started teaching, illustrating what a gradual …

The Evidence Base Of Effective Practice In Literacy And Numeracy : Standards Of Evidence, Robert Simons, Adrian Beavis

Dr Robert Simons

No abstract provided.

Using Children's Literature To Assess Reading Comprehension In The Early Years Of School, Marion Meiers

Marion Meiers (1941-2018)

This paper reports some findings from the first three years of a longitudinal study designed to follow students' growth in literacy from the earliest years at school. A feature of the study was the use of quality children's literature, in the form of picture story books. These texts were the basis of instruments designed to investigate students' developing comprehension, their understanding and knowledge of narrative texts, and their skills in recognising, explaining and making connections with the themes and ideas in the texts. The selection of texts appropriate for these purposes has raised many points of interest, such as the …

Practical Challenges And Possibilities For The Integration Of Academic Literacy In A First Year Subject, Clifford Jackson, Pauline Taylor, Adam Raoul

Associate Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy

A Systematic Approach To Literacy Support For First Year Preservice Teachers: Implications For Practice, Pauline Taylor

Associate Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy

Literacy As Praxis: The Recursive Cycle Of 21st Century Literacy Teaching, Susan Adams

Susan Adams

Poster presented at the 21st Annual Joseph Taylor Symposium, Indianapolis, IN, February 2010.

Indigenous Literacy Policy Implementation In Queensland Schools : An Evaluation, Pauline Taylor

Associate Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy

Critical Literacy With English Language Learners, Susan Adams, Kathryn Brooks

Susan Adams

Workshop presented at the Reggio Collaborative Conference, Indianapolis, IN, August 2009.

Improving Literacy And Numeracy Outcomes, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

No abstract provided.

What Information From Pisa Is Useful For Teachers? How Can Pisa Help Our Students To Become More Proficient?, Juliette Mendelovits, Dara Searle, Tom Lumley

Dr Tom Lumley

A frequent objection to large-scale testing programs, both national and international, is that they are used as an instrument of control, rather than as a means of providing information to effect change. Moreover, concerns about large-scale testing often take the form of objection to the specific characteristics of the assessments as being prescriptive and proscriptive, leading to a narrowing of the curriculum and the spectre of 'teaching to the test' to the exclusion of more important educational content. Taking PISA reading literacy as its focus, this paper proposes, on the contrary, that a coherent assessment system is valuable in so …

Best Start 2008 : Kindergarten Literacy Assessment, Department Of Education And Training, Nsw : Data Analysis Report, June 2008, Marion O. Meiers, Siek Toon Khoo

Marion Meiers

Alls Survey Update : Initial Messages Regarding Numeracy, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

In the initial analysis and results coming out from the first wave of the 2003 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALLS) countries, the data seem to be indicating that numeracy plays a more important role in economic returns for individuals than do prose or document literacy, and seem to confirm that men outperform women in the area of numeracy and mathematics. Some of the outcomes stemming from the results that will be of interest when the Australian results are released late in 2007 include: the overlap between respondents' abilities in literacy and numeracy was lower than expected; early school leavers …

Assessment In Australia : A Balancing Act, J Hagston, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

Changing concepts of literacy and numeracy, in addition to increased government interest and investment in literacy and numeracy skill development, pose a number of challenges for all stakeholders in relation to implementing and using assessment and reporting systems. Australia is used as a case study to illustrate how one country has approached curriculum standards and assessment schemes. Based on a description and analysis of the Australian situation and approach, this chapter then considers how adult literacy and numeracy curriculum standards, frameworks, assessment, and reporting systems can balance the competing demands and differing needs and interests of government, providers, practitioners, and …

Boys' Education Lighthouse Schools : Stage Two Final Report 2006, Peter Cuttance, Wes Imms, Sally Godhino, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, Jean Thompson, Keryn Mcguinness, Gregory Neal

Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

In 2004, schools involved in BELS Stage Two focused on trialling effective approaches to addressing boys' education, and establishing appropriate evaluation tools and methodologies to monitor the impact of these interventions. In 2005, BELS clusters implemented interventions across their clusters and measured their impact on their target group of boys. The Final Report provides a detailed analysis and discussion of the key findings and experiences of the 350 project schools in stage two of the Boys' Education Lighthouse Schools Programme. The BELS program followed almost a decade of public enquiries into issues associated with boys' learning in Australian schools