Learning to become ‘assessment capable’ teachers

Project Leaders: Dr Mary Hill, Associate Professor Bronwen Cowie, Associate Professor Alison Gilmore, and Professor Lisa Smith.

Partnerships: University of Auckland, University of Waikato, University of Canterbury and University of Otago.

This project aims to enhance understanding about how pre-service teachers learn to use assessment in the service of students’ learning. It will identify pre-service teachers’ understanding of using assessment for learning as they begin and when they exit their pre-service programme.

Funding allocation: $450,000 over three years.

Active adult participation in ECE: Enhancing child learning and community wellness

Project Leaders: Associate Professor Judith Duncan, and Sarah Te One.

Partnerships: University of Canterbury, Victoria University of Wellington, and Whanganui Central Baptist Kindergarten and Creche Trust.

This project will investigate reconceptualising early childhood centres as places for adult participation and active teacher-whänau partnership for positive holistic outcomes for children and their whänau within the community. The research team will consist of practitioners from three of the five ECE centres, staff from the parent support centre, teaching, management and senior staff, and the two university researchers.

Funding allocation: $199,878 over two years

 Blended learning: The impact of vocational and distance learning initiatives on students’ school experiences

Project Leaders: Keryn Pratt, and Ken Pullar.

Partnerships: University of Otago College of Education, OtagoNet and its member schools.

This research project aims to explore students’ experiences of a blended form of learning, characterised by non-classroom, non-traditional forms of learning, such as distance and vocational, alongside more traditional forms. It will explore the experiences of students in the OtagoNet videoconference cluster of schools, both within the ‘classes’ and outside of them, including their learning outcomes and the impact this form of learning is having on them, their teachers, schools, and communities.

Funding allocation: $99,883 over one year.

Mathematics Undergraduate Teaching: Perspectives and Interactions

Project leader:  A/Prof M. O. J. Thomas, Dr H. Bartholomew, Prof B. Barton, and  Dr B. Kensington-Miller

Partnerships: Mathematics Department, The University of Auckland, Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, Centre for Academic Development, The  University of Auckland.

This project aims to address simultaneously multiple aspects of undergraduate mathematics lecturing by examining lecturers and their development, interactions in the lecturing environment, and student approaches to lectures. A framework will be developed for describing the knowledge, orientations and goals used by lecturers in tertiary mathematics lectures and used consciously as a lecturer professional development strategy.

Funding allocation: $200,000 over two years.

School and home contributions to overcoming the summer learning effect in decile 1 schools

Project leader: Professor Stuart McNaughton.

Partnerships: Woolf Fisher Research Centre, The University of Auckland together with the Mangere AUSAD Management Team.

The aim of the research is to identify those school-based and family-based practices that support continued development of literacy in Year 4–8 students in urban decile one schools over the summer. The primary outcome will be research-tested information that will enable schools and their communities to further build practices that support literacy achievement and ameliorate the summer learning effects.

Funding allocation: $200,000 over two years.

Teaching Algebra Conceptually in Years 9 and 10

Project leader: Dr Chris Linsell.

Partnerships: University of Otago College of Education, St Hilda’s Collegiate, King’s High School.

This project aims to develop approaches to teaching in years 9 and 10 that will assist students in developing a sound conceptual understanding of algebra.  Although recent studies have detailed students’ algebraic thinking, there has been no research to date on teaching approaches that make use of these findings. 

Funding allocation: $190,056 over two years.

Connecting curriculum, connecting learning; Negotiation and the arts

Project leader: Associate Professor Deborah Fraser.

Partnerships: The University of Waikato, School of Education with Omanu, St Thomas More and Welcome Bay schools.

The project builds on a previous TLRI project and on a current pilot project on arts-based integration. Arts-based integration specifically links teaching and learning in an arts-based discipline to other areas of the curriculum. The project will focus on ways in which children seek, use and create knowledge when learning this way. It will also examine how teachers and the wider community are influenced by and engaged in arts-based integration.

Funding allocation: $199,959 over two years.

Developing a place-based approach to outdoor education in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Project leader: Dr Mike Brown.

Partnerships: University of Waikato, Mt Maunganui College and Ngaruawahia High School.

This project will work with teachers to understand how they conceptualise teaching and learning in outdoor education. The researchers will explore the possibilities made available by linking outdoor education with sites of local significance and meaning for participants. They will investigate how both teachers and students respond to a place-based approach, and they’ll disseminate these findings to the broader outdoor education community.

Funding allocation: $131,560 over two years

Understanding the pedagogy of school-based marae: A culturally responsive learning context in secondary schools

Project leader: Dr Jenny Lee.

Partnerships: Rautaki Ltd and three Auckland based school marae.

This research project will investigate the role of school-based marae as a culturally responsive pedagogy in mainstream secondary schools. The project involves the participation of students, teachers, whänau and community representatives of three urban school marae within the Auckland region. It will examine the pedagogy of school marae and the way it impacts on the educational achievement of Mäori learners and their whänau.

Funding allocation: $200,000 over two years.