Raising the literacy bar for economically-disadvantaged students. This project aims to promote higher order literacy skills among economically-disadvantaged students. Higher order literacy is critical for productive engagement in academic, economic and personal spheres of life in literacy-rich knowledge economies. Opportunities for disadvantaged students to develop advanced literacy skills are limited if schools serving these students focus predominantly on basic skills training. This project ....Raising the literacy bar for economically-disadvantaged students. This project aims to promote higher order literacy skills among economically-disadvantaged students. Higher order literacy is critical for productive engagement in academic, economic and personal spheres of life in literacy-rich knowledge economies. Opportunities for disadvantaged students to develop advanced literacy skills are limited if schools serving these students focus predominantly on basic skills training. This project will investigate contradictions in policies and practices in Australia and Hong Kong to understand why and how disadvantaged students are supported or unsupported to learn higher-order literacy skills. It also explores successful practices that promote such learning, alongside basic skills, for disadvantaged students. This will provide significant benefits such as providing new conceptual understandings of the policy-practice interface and empirical evidence to inform the design of effective practices that promote higher-order literacy skills, alongside basic skills, for economically-disadvantaged students in Australia and Hong Kong.Read moreRead less
Improving disadvantaged students? Reading outcomes through overcoming reading avoidance and building reading engagement. It is costly for students to avoid reading. Low literacy levels impact negatively on academic success, earning levels and employment opportunities. This project aims to produce new conceptual and empirical knowledge to inform the development of effective teaching practices to promote reading engagement for disadvantaged students.
Supporting schools and teachers to improve students' reading achievement in rural communities. This project focuses on improving student reading achievement in rural and mining communities and developing school-community links around reading. The project will deliver lasting benefits that include: raising the literacy standards of Australia's students and its future citizens and employees; maintaining a knowledgeable and effective teaching workforce in rural and mining communities; developing a ....Supporting schools and teachers to improve students' reading achievement in rural communities. This project focuses on improving student reading achievement in rural and mining communities and developing school-community links around reading. The project will deliver lasting benefits that include: raising the literacy standards of Australia's students and its future citizens and employees; maintaining a knowledgeable and effective teaching workforce in rural and mining communities; developing a sustainable professional learning program that can be used in education systems nationally and internationally; providing empirical data on the efficacy of strategies for reading instruction and intervention; and creating reading-related connections among schools, communities and mining companies that are positive and empowering.Read moreRead less
Bridging the gap for at-risk readers: reading theory into classroom practice. This project will merge theoretical and practical aspects of teaching reading through assimilating research with teachers' pedagogical knowledge and experiences to ensure sustainable, differentiated classroom reading interventions for all P-3 (preparatory year to year three) readers, particularly at-risk students.
Multiliteracies for addressing disadvantage in senior school science. Multiliteracies for addressing disadvantage in senior school science. This project aims to develop discipline-specific pedagogies in senior physics, chemistry and biology to improve disadvantaged students’ engagement and achievement. Many students from disadvantaged backgrounds fail to develop the linguistic precision and symbolic representational dexterity needed to comprehend and communicate senior school science concepts. T ....Multiliteracies for addressing disadvantage in senior school science. Multiliteracies for addressing disadvantage in senior school science. This project aims to develop discipline-specific pedagogies in senior physics, chemistry and biology to improve disadvantaged students’ engagement and achievement. Many students from disadvantaged backgrounds fail to develop the linguistic precision and symbolic representational dexterity needed to comprehend and communicate senior school science concepts. These pedagogies will ‘infuse’ multiliteracies in senior school science to improve access to science-based pathways for these students, and enable them to understand progressively more complex scientific concepts and demonstrate this in examinations. This project is expected to improve student retention, arrest declining enrolments in senior school science, and increase young people working in science.Read moreRead less
Private Literacy Tutoring: A sociology of shadow education. This project intends to investigate the extent and impact of private academic tutoring in Australia. Markets in private academic tutoring or ‘shadow education’ are growing. Globally, studies point to both positive and negative social, economic and educational impacts. In Australia, the federal government briefly funded private tutoring vouchers for students who did not meet literacy benchmarks (2004–08), but in 2013 equity concerns abou ....Private Literacy Tutoring: A sociology of shadow education. This project intends to investigate the extent and impact of private academic tutoring in Australia. Markets in private academic tutoring or ‘shadow education’ are growing. Globally, studies point to both positive and negative social, economic and educational impacts. In Australia, the federal government briefly funded private tutoring vouchers for students who did not meet literacy benchmarks (2004–08), but in 2013 equity concerns about families’ tutoring investments helped prompt a senate inquiry into the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). This project plans to study private tutoring across Australia. It aims to investigate families’ investments in shadow education and the implications of this for Australian literacy education policy. This may also be relevant in other countries where shadow education is also rapidly expanding in response to growing educational competition and testing agendas.Read moreRead less
Serious play: using digital games in school to promote literacy and learning in the twenty first century. Young Australian’s social and cultural experiences are increasingly digital. This project will offer leadership to schools seeking to use and create games to improve student outcomes across subject areas, and will generate new knowledge about how students and teachers approach digital games and the kinds of literacy, learning and pedagogy they entail.