The wicked problem of embedding academic literacies: exploring rhizomatic ways of working through an adaptive leadership approach

Embedding academic literacies in higher education courses has been a major focus of the work of learning advisers. A number of studies present the results of embedding in specific courses without discussing the processes of negotiation or the different people involved. This paper is about embedding academic literacies in the Business faculty as part of an English language proficiency model at an Australian university. After initial slow progress, a team of learning advisers began to evaluate the process by reflecting on practice. This reflection focused on the space between the top-down process as planned and what actually happened in the complex academic environment. There were tensions between the proposed plan and the expectations and understandings of the disciplinary academics. These were used as a starting point to explore the issues in more detail. This paper argues that the task of embedding academic literacies bears all the hallmarks of a ‘wicked problem’ which eludes a linear formulation and is open to multiple framings. The botanical metaphor of the rhizome from the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and an adaptive leadership approach offer ways of responding to this problem. This paper reinterprets the team’s experiences using these theories and suggests alternative work practices. By moving away from the concept of a model, more opportunities to bring about attitudinal and curriculum change can be created to make academic literacies explicit for students.     

Dyslexia in Higher Education: an abuse of the system?

Following on from a previous article which examined concerns regarding the growing demand for public examination concessions on the basis of specific learning difficulties, this article further argues against the much used one‐off psychometric assessment procedure. The appropriateness is queried of a process which does not take into account such other factors as anxiety and emotional disturbance, inappropriate teaching, parental pressure, and socio‐cultural opportunity, all of which can produce a very similar pattern of failure. The nature of specific learning difficulties is also examined, plus a comment on differing assessment techniques. It was concluded that the ‘specific’ needs to be put back into an assessment of ‘specific learning difficulty’. So‐called dyslexia should be identified as the student's major special educational need and not merely as part of a more general learning problem. To do otherwise leaves the system open to abuse, and the long‐term interests of the students concerned will not be best served. The article does not necessarily reflect the views of Carolyn Blyth's employing authority.     

The Verse-novel: A New Genre

This article examines the verse-novel, a genre that has gained some prominence in children’s fiction in the last ten years. Reasons why this may be so are suggested and the chief evolving characteristics of the genre in both content and style are discussed. Notable examples of the verse-novel from Australia, the USA and the UK are analysed. Criteria are proposed by which the form can be evaluated. It appears to be a genre whose time has come.Joy Alexander was a secondary school teacher for twenty years before taking up her present position in 1995 as a lecturer in education in the Graduate School of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast, where she has responsibility for the training of prospective English teachers. She has published a number of articles on matters relating to English teaching and her interest in children’s literature has been expressed in articles on C.S. Lewis and on L.M. Montgomery.Sharon Creech web-site: http://sharoncreech.co.uk/ Steven Herrick web-site: http://www.acay.com.au/~sherrick/welcome.html Steven Herrick interview; http://www.scholastic.com.au/classroom/class_main_item.asp?issue Id=10&articleId= 41 Sonya Sones web-site: http://www.sonyasones.com/greatbooks.htm     

Student experiences of NAPLAN: sharing insights from two school sites

This paper provides insight into middle school students’ perceptions and reactions to their participation in the Australian National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). A case study was conducted over 10 months at two Queensland schools with different approaches to NAPLAN implementation. Student voice was elicited via focus groups and 35 students provided drawings and words describing their experience in four stages: preparing, sitting, completing and receiving their results. Thematic content analysis of the textual data and trait and holistic coding of the visual data revealed five themes and suggests that the approach adopted by the school may impact on students’ NAPLAN experiences. This study privileges student voice and enables access to student experiences as they participate in a testing regime which is now a feature of the Australian school assessment landscape.     

Using action,reflection and modelling (ARM) in Malaysian primary schools: connecting ‘the ARM theory’ with student teachers’ reported practice

This article presents Malaysian student teachers’ reports of using an action, reflection and modelling (ARM) pedagogical approach during their placements in Malaysian primary schools. The ARM approach was designed to support the implementation of the Malaysian primary school mathematics curriculum, which involved changing classroom practice in learning and teaching. It was developed and used during a Malaysia–UK collaborative project to construct a Bachelor of Education (Honours) degree programme in Primary Mathematics for a cohort of 120 student teachers in Malaysia. The three principles integral to the ARM approach were repeatedly made explicit to the student practitioners who were engaged in learning and teaching on the new degree programme. Using findings from surveys carried out with the students at the end of their first and final placements, this article provides examples of the way some of them described ARM and recounted how they had used the approach in the classroom. Four of these narratives are used as ‘vignettes’ to illustrate the students’ perceptions of using new ways of learning and teaching in primary schools and to inform and enable a discussion of the relationship between theory and practice in teacher education.     

Investigating Teachers' Mathematics Teaching Understanding: A Case for Coordinating Perspectives

This paper provides a microanalysis of one Algebra I teacher's instruction to explore the advantages that are afforded us by coordinating two perspectives to document and account for the teacher's mathematical understandings. We use constructs associated with Stein, Grover and Henningsen's domain of mathematical didactics and Realistic Mathematics Education's instructional design theory to infer what the teacher might understand to effectively implement her instructional goals and, more importantly, support student learning. By coordinating these perspectives, we developed a working framework for analyzing the teacher's classroom practice retrospectively. For example, we illustrate how the mathematical possibilities related to one student's question might inform the teacher's decisions as she initiates shifts in students' self-generated models. Additionally, we illustrate how the teacher's decision to capitalize on particular students' models contributes in part to the kinds of mathematical ideas that can be explored and the connections students can make among those ideas. More generally, we explore the utility of coordinating these two perspectives to understand the landscape of ideas that teachers might traverse to align their practices with reform recommendations in the United States.     

幸福,是个抉择

If it'S possible to see red(火冒三丈)about not seeing red,that is what Iwas doing.We had misjudged(错误判断,错误估计)the timing of our autumntrip to see the changing leaves in the Great Lakes states,and I was reallyupset.No matter how I strained my eyes,I couldn't spot red anywhere.NOteven a hint of golden yellow broke through the monotonous greenery. I recalled an earlier leaf-viewing trip to Vermont in October,and the     

Factors influencing elementary school children's attitudes toward science before,during, and after a visit to the UK National Space Centre

This article reports on attitude changes of 300 children, aged 10 or 11 years, from four schools, who visited the UK National Space Centre. Attitudes toward science and space were explored by examining responses to five different attitude scales. These were administered before, immediately after, and 2 months and 4–5 months after a visit to the main exhibition area and Challenger Centre. Observations during the visits and interviews of teachers and a sample of children were carried out. Before the visit girls were more anxious than boys. Immediately afterward, children showed more interest in space and a moderate increase in their views about the value of science in society. Nearly 20% of the pupils showed an increased desire to become scientists in the future. These children also showed a positive advantage over the other children with regard to science enthusiasm and space interest. Two months later, they continued to be more positive about being future scientists but only the girls' scores were still significantly raised. Most children found the Challenger experience positive but had more problems with the exhibition area. Teachers' preparation and support during the visit as well as their personal interest had a significant long‐term effect on children's attitudes. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 53–83, 2005