Key learning competencies across place and time

Funding Year: 2004
Type: 3 years

Organisation:University of Waikato

Principal Investigator

Margaret Carr, Wilf Malcolm Centre for Educational Research

Research team

Sally Peters, University of Waikato; teacher-researchers from three schools and three early childhood centres in Rotorua and Christchurch; and associated co-ordinators

Partnerships

University of Waikato; teacher-researchers from three schools and three early childhood centres in Rotorua and Christchurch; and associated co-ordinators

Project Aims

This study had three broad aims.

The first aim was to contribute to a theoretical understanding of key competencies and learning dispositions. Similar outcomes have been variously described in the literature as intellectual habits, mindsets, learning orientation, patterns of strategic action, habits of mind, thinking dispositions, and learning power. The objectives for this aim were to contribute to the theoretical literature, and to delineate key features of learning dispositions and key competencies in a range of settings in order to find ways to include the ecological framing and dispositional aspects.

The second aim was to find out how teachers do (and might) enhance learning dispositions and key competencies. The objective here was to investigate the opportunities to learn or networks that appear to afford learning disposition and key competencies.

The third aim was to explore progress or continuity in key competencies and learning dispositions. The objective was to investigate case studies of the development of these outcomes over time and to conceptualise their growth or increasing strength

Research Questions

• In a range of schools and early childhood settings that have already displayed initiative in this area, what do the children do in these diverse contexts when they are apparently managing self, relating, making meaningthinking, and participating in desirable ways? How do children interpret these actions?
•  How do teachers in a range of contexts enhance continuity and growth in five domains of learning competencies: managing self, relating, making meaning, thinking, and participating? How do they interpret these actions?
• How do teachers enhance continuity in these learning competencies over time, within and across settings? How do they interpret that continuity?

Research Outputs

Carr, M., Peters, S., Davis, K., Bartlett, C., Bashford, N., Berry, P., Greenslade, S., Molloy, S., O'Connor, N., Simpson, M., Smith, Y., Williams, T., & Wilson-Tukaki, A. (2008). Key learning competencies across place and time: Kimihia te ara totika, hei oranga mo to ao. Wellington: Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.