Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 31 - 47 of 47

Full-Text Articles in Education

What Information From Pisa Is Useful For Teachers? How Can Pisa Help Our Students To Become More Proficient?, Juliette Mendelovits, Dara Searle, Tom Lumley Dec 2008

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 …


Impacts Of Television Viewing On Young Children's Literacy Development In The Usa: A Review Of The Literature, Annie Moses Mar 2008

Impacts Of Television Viewing On Young Children's Literacy Development In The Usa: A Review Of The Literature, Annie Moses

Annie M. Moses

Television viewing plays an important role in the lives of many young children and has received a great deal of attention in the public as well as in research. This review examined research on television and literacy development in early childhood, including studies of messages about literacy in children's programs as well as the impact of specific programs on young viewers' literacy development. Results indicate: (1) moderate amounts of television viewing were found to be beneficial for reading: (2) the content of programs viewed by children matters; (3) programs that aim to promote literacy in young children have been found …


Alls Survey Update : Initial Messages Regarding Numeracy, Dave Tout Jun 2007

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 …


Carving A Niche: Graphic Novels In The English Language Arts Classroom, James Carter Dec 2006

Carving A Niche: Graphic Novels In The English Language Arts Classroom, James Carter

James B Carter

An introduction to the roles that graphic novels can play in the secondary English Language Arts classroom.


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

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


Working Out What Works, Kerry-Anne Hoad, John Munro, Catherine Pearn, Nola Purdie, Louise Ellis, Ken Rowe Dec 2006

Working Out What Works, Kerry-Anne Hoad, John Munro, Catherine Pearn, Nola Purdie, Louise Ellis, Ken Rowe

Catherine Pearn

The WOWW professional development program provides resources and training to support teachers to develop expertise in designing and implementing literacy and numeracy intervention strategies for students with or without learning difficulties. [Title page]


Beyond Bedtime Stories : A Parent's Guide To Promoting Reading, Writing, And Other Literacy Skills From Birth To 5, Annie Moses, V. Bennett-Armistead, Nell Duke Dec 2006

Beyond Bedtime Stories : A Parent's Guide To Promoting Reading, Writing, And Other Literacy Skills From Birth To 5, Annie Moses, V. Bennett-Armistead, Nell Duke

Annie M. Moses

No abstract provided.


Pisa In Brief From Australia's Perspective : Highlights From The Full Australian Report : Exploring Scientific Literacy : How Australia Measures Up : The Pisa 2006 Assessment Of Students' Scientific, Reading And Mathematical Literacy Skills., Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli Dec 2006

Pisa In Brief From Australia's Perspective : Highlights From The Full Australian Report : Exploring Scientific Literacy : How Australia Measures Up : The Pisa 2006 Assessment Of Students' Scientific, Reading And Mathematical Literacy Skills., Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli

Lisa De Bortoli

No abstract provided.


Addressing The Education Of Boys: A Community Of Practice Approach, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, Greg Neal Dec 2005

Addressing The Education Of Boys: A Community Of Practice Approach, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, Greg Neal

Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

The Boys’ Education Lighthouse Project (BELS) has enabled clusters of schools throughout Australia to identify, intervene, research, and report on initiatives to improve boys’ learning outcomes. In this paper we apply a community of practice model to analyse the BELS Project and consider knowledge building through student and teacher learning as the practice of the community in question. Clusters have focused on initiating new literacy programs, modifying teaching practice, introducing male role models or using ICT to improve learning outcomes. The four clusters considered in this paper show differing levels of development as communities of practice on a national scale, …


Mainstream First-Grade Teachers' Understanding Of Strategies For Accommodating The Needs Of English Language Learners, Clare Hite, Linda Evans Dec 2005

Mainstream First-Grade Teachers' Understanding Of Strategies For Accommodating The Needs Of English Language Learners, Clare Hite, Linda Evans

Linda S. Evans

In this time of high stakes testing, teachers' working with English Language Learners (ELLs) becomes a high-stakes teaching act. Nationally, mandated testing is increasing in the schools even as school demographics are changing. The growing numbers of language-minority students come with varying levels of English proficiency, from little or none to fluent bilingualism. Teachers find it difficult to bring all their native-English-speaking children along to an acceptable level of performance in literacy and content-area subjects; ELLs present an even greater challenge, particularly for the elementary mainstream classroom teachers who are the primary language teachers for most young ELLs, yet typically …


All Is Happening, With Numeracy Included, Dave Tout Dec 2004

All Is Happening, With Numeracy Included, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

The Adult Literacy and Lifeskills (ALL) Survey (formerly known as the International Life Skills Survey (ILSS)) is a large-scale, comparative survey that goes beyond previous international literacy studies. In addition to the literacy skills measured in the previous International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), ALL is designed to identify and measure a broader range of skills in the adult population in each participating country. The skills to be directly measured are: prose and document literacy; numeracy; problem solving/analytical reasoning. In addition the assessment will be accompanied by a comprehensive Background Questionnaire, which will collect participant information and indirectly measure two other …


Beyond The Middle: A Report About Literacy And Numeracy Development Of Target Group Students In The Middle Years Of Schooling, Allan Luke, John Elkins, Katie Weir, Ray Land, Victoria Carrington, Shelley Dole, Donna Pendergast, Cushla Kapitzke, Christa Van Kraayenoord, Karen Moni, Alistair Mcintosh, Diane Mayer, Mark Bahr, Lisa Hunter, Rod Chadbourne, Tom Bean, Donna Alverman, Lisa Stevens Dec 2002

Beyond The Middle: A Report About Literacy And Numeracy Development Of Target Group Students In The Middle Years Of Schooling, Allan Luke, John Elkins, Katie Weir, Ray Land, Victoria Carrington, Shelley Dole, Donna Pendergast, Cushla Kapitzke, Christa Van Kraayenoord, Karen Moni, Alistair Mcintosh, Diane Mayer, Mark Bahr, Lisa Hunter, Rod Chadbourne, Tom Bean, Donna Alverman, Lisa Stevens

Mark Bahr

The Report, Beyond the Middle: A Report about Literacy and Numeracy Development of a Target Group Students in the Middle Years of Schooling, provides a useful national coverage of approaches assisting the literacy and numeracy development of Australian students in Years 5 to 10.

The work was undertaken by a research team headed by Professor Allan Luke and Professor John Elkins from the School of Education, University of Queensland and is a study of the efficacy of middle years programmes in all States and Territories for improving teaching and learning, and student outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

The project involved …


Better Than Beige : Designing Assessment Tasks To Enhance Learning And Measure Growth In The Early Years Of School, Prue Anderson, Marion Meiers Nov 2001

Better Than Beige : Designing Assessment Tasks To Enhance Learning And Measure Growth In The Early Years Of School, Prue Anderson, Marion Meiers

Prue Anderson

'I think of our school as beige. We tend to be the average of 'like' schools. Can we do better than that?' In order to promote growth in student learning and demonstrate achievement schools require rich assessment tasks that enhance the teaching and learning cycle and provide a valid and reliable measure of growth. This paper examines the five linked sets of assessment tasks that have been developed to progressively measure growth in literacy and numeracy in the first three years of school. The tasks were designed for the ACER Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Survey (LLANS). The tasks are based …


Numeracy Up Front : Behind The International Life Skills Survey, Dave Tout Feb 2000

Numeracy Up Front : Behind The International Life Skills Survey, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

Numeracy is part of the International Life Skills Survey (ILSS) planned for the year 2002. This article discusses the work of the Numeracy Working Group of the ILSS and looks at the wealth of ideas and concepts behind these surveys of interest to the wider educational sector.


What Works? Researching Language And Literacy Learning, Geoff Masters Mar 1999

What Works? Researching Language And Literacy Learning, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

This article reflects on the purpose and objectives of educational research. The author argues that the purpose of educational research is to find ways to improve student learning, and that research that does not have this as its ultimate motivation and objective is not educational research. The author also discusses the importance of research syntheses, the value of sharpening the focus of research and that better communication of research results to practitioners should be considered.


Knowledge Preschool-Age Children Bring To Literacy Tasks: The Importance Of "Not Holding Back.", Catherine Rosemary, Mary Abouzeid Dec 1993

Knowledge Preschool-Age Children Bring To Literacy Tasks: The Importance Of "Not Holding Back.", Catherine Rosemary, Mary Abouzeid

Catherine A. Rosemary

A study focused on children's alphabet knowledge and name writing ability to investigate between-group differences. Subjects were 22 children (mean age 57 months) in a private preschool located in a suburban, predominantly upper-middle income area and 12 children (mean age 56 months) in a private, subsidized day care center situated in a metropolitan area within walking distance to low income neighborhoods. The performances of both groups of children were compared on two measures of alphabet knowledge: alphabet recitation and name writing. Results indicated that children in both groups varied similarly in their performance of alphabet recitations. Comparisons of the two …


The Nllia Esl Development Project And Assessment In The Curriculum, Tom Lumley, Penny Mckay Dec 1991

The Nllia Esl Development Project And Assessment In The Curriculum, Tom Lumley, Penny Mckay

Dr Tom Lumley

This article outlines the ESL Development or the ESL Profiles Project, abbreviated terms for the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia (NLLIA) ESL Development Project: Language and Literacy in Schools. A brief introduction to the project and two of its principal components: the ESL Bandscales and the Exemplar Assessment Activities with accompanying Observation Guides for each macro-skill, are included in this article.