Young Writers and the Nursery Rhyme Genre

This paper investigates children’s interest in the nursery rhyme genre whilst at the same time considers how children can be encouraged to write reflectively if they are working on something that both stimulates and motivates them to want to write. After reading a story book of nursery rhymes, a group of Y2 children were encouraged to consider what other adventures some of the main rhyme characters might have. By talking about the rhymes, seeing an expert writer modelling the writing process and writing collaboratively with their teacher and with each other, the children wrote an “alternative” nursery rhyme book. They began to see writing as a long term process which is recursive, takes time and effort but which is also very rewarding especially when published in the form of a book.     

A Framework for New Scholarship in Human Performance Technology

This article introduces a strategic argument and examples, in subsequent articles in this special issue, about sociocultural research opportunities for HPT practitioners and scholars. The authors take the view that recent criticisms of Instructional Systems Design have merit when considered from an organizational performance point of view. We see the problem as historic overuse of one theoretical perspective at a microlevel of theory and application. We argue that adding recent sociocultural perspectives and expanding the levels of theory to include groups and complex organizational structures will offer an opportunity for more rigorous and diverse research agenda and create new insights for problem solving in practice.     

Legitimising transgression: design and delivery of a science Work Integrated Learning program that draws on students’ extant work in diverse,non-science fields

ABSTRACT

Recent focus on graduate employability has exposed the inadequacies of work preparation for science students, who need an employability toolkit to navigate the modern work landscape. An established mechanism to develop students’ employment awareness is Work Integrated Learning (WIL), but Australian mathematics and science students participate in fewer WIL activities than students in other disciplines. In this article, we present a conceptual discussion around the design of a non-traditional Bachelor of Science WIL program that transcends commonly held perceptions of WIL as primarily discipline-orientated and placement-based. This design dramatically expands the possibilities for WIL in science programs, enabling WIL participation for students unable to engage in a traditional science work placement. The program draws on and legitimises students’ experiences in diverse non-science, part-time workplaces and extra-curricular activities; we term this ‘transgressional learning’. Students engage in reflective and active learning opportunities designed to help them explore and articulate their skill sets in a manner that speaks to multiple future work settings. By drawing on students’ extant work experiences, the program explicitly supports students to foreground and expand on broad skill sets acquired in extra-curricular settings. This article suggests a new conceptual approach and a path forward for large-scale WIL delivery in generalist science degrees. It draws on the reflections of the project team and student participants to outline the goals and design ethos of the program and reflect on the legitimacy of this transgressional program as a science WIL offering.     

Comparability in Balanced Assessment Systems for State Accountability

The purpose of this study was to test methods that strengthen the comparability claims about annual determinations of student proficiency in English language arts, math, and science (Grades 3–12) in the New Hampshire Performance Assessment of Competency Education (NH PACE) pilot project. First, we examined the literature in order to define comparability outside the bounds of strict score interchangeability and explored methods for estimating comparability that support a balanced assessment system for state accountability such as the NH PACE pilot. Second, we applied two strategies—consensus scoring and a rank‐ordering method—to estimate comparability in Year 1 of the NH PACE pilot based upon the expert judgment of 85 teachers using 396 student work samples. We found the methods were effective for providing evidence of comparability and also detecting when threats to comparability were present. The evidence did not indicate meaningful differences in district average scoring and therefore did not support adjustments to district‐level cut scores used to create annual determinations. The article concludes with a discussion of the technical challenges and opportunities associated with innovative, balanced assessment systems in an accountability context.