Literacy and Thinking Tools for Science Teachers

Literacy and thinking tools, such as Venn diagrams, are construction tools for the mind. Just as carpenters use tools to construct a piece of furniture, literate thinkers learning science can use tools to construct new scientific understandings. Like tools used by a carpenter, some literacy and thinking tools are purpose-built for science education; Josephine used a Venn diagram tool because she wanted to compare her pet bird to a bald eagle. Just as a screwdriver is built to slot into the head of a screw and rotate it, you can use literacy and thinking tools for subject- and text-specific purposes. In this chapter, we examine some characteristics of literacy and thinking tools (Whitehead, 2001, 2004). A list of these tools, together with the chapters associ-ated with their use, is provided in Table 2:1

Osseointegration of Wrapped Dental Implants in Rabbits

Edentulous patients (those lacking teeth) require one of two approaches to augmentation: inserting a vertical bone graft, or subperiosteally anchoring a device on which an implant can be attached. Bone grafts have had unpredictable results and can undergo resorption over time, compromising implant stability and success. As of the subperiosteal approach, current materials have not proven to directly integrate with the bone, in a process termed osseointegration. Therefore, we used additive manufacturing to create a Ti6Al4V alloy surface with a specific roughness to determine if it would be osseoinductive in a challenging rabbit model over six weeks

Music and Persecution

Psalm 96:1-6, Luke 21:7-1

Research based criteria for the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools

This paper describes criteria for the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools. The criteria are that tools should be: (i) teaching focused (ii) learner focused, (iii) thought linked (iv) neurologically consistent, (v) subject specific, (vi) text linked, (vii) developmentally appropriate, (viii) culturally responsive, and (ix) assessment linked

Literacy assessment practices: Moving from standardised to ecologically valid assessments in secondary schools

SSLI test protocol data revealed the dominance of 'central' literacy measures and 'local' subject-specific measures aligned to institutional requirements, curriculum and national examination content. These measures initiate secondary students into a pervasive culture of assessment that generally fails to support further learning; a culture antagonistic towards the use of assessment that reflect how expert teachers address subject-specific literacies. In a culture of content-focussed, high stakes assessment, the use of ecologically valid formative assessment that reveal what students can do with what they know, and that empower teachers to test like they teach, is marginalised. Consistent with Neisser's claim that some experimental measures may not reflect reality, the pedagogy and assessment protocols of many secondary schools fail to reflect the use of literacy and thinking tools, and so fail to reflect best evidence about teaching. Changes in school culture, teachers' pedagogical knowledge and the use of ecologically valid assessments are associated with shifts from transmission to co-construction approaches. Consistent with the work of David Corson the use of ecologically valid assessment that reflect the use of literacy and thinking tools is an inclusive, future-focussed literacy event, but the use of 'central' curriculum and institutional-linked measures is exclusive

World-view perspectives

The foundation of a tolerant society is an ability to foster and respond to the diversity of perspective among its people. Cognitive psychologists have described how perspective influences information processing, while our innate ability to adopt perspective has been established by neuropsychology. Literature, through the use of point-of-view, together with results from researchers adopting socio-cultural paradigms suggests perspective is also a social construct. An ecologically-based framework is described that provides cohesion to the temporal, spatial, universal and other types of world-view perspective associated, predominantly, with indigenous cultures. Culturally responsible types of creative and critical thinking are evoked when world-view perspective is engaged while reading text and reading the world. World-view perspective provides us with a means of critiquing the construction of knowledge through the de-construction of dominant discourses, re-valuing of indigenous world-views and reducing the relational distance between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples

Justifying what we do: Criteria for the selection of literacy and thinking tools

Teachers of English, along with teachers from across the curriculum, have a moral and professional responsibility to nurture literate thinkers. In this article I argue that teachers who accept this responsibility stand to teachers who don’t as imagination stands to memory, as co-construction in a discursive community of practice stands to transmission teaching, and as a sense of what strategic English teaching might be to what it sometimes is. Strategic teachers of English, like literate thinkers, deploy a range of literacy and thinking tools that help their students construct and deconstruct meaning. But what tools should we teach students? What criteria might we use to select those tools, and ultimately, to justify what we do? Nine selection criteria are proposed below, and then applied to evaluate the Effective Literacy Strategies in Years 9-13: A guide for teachers (MOE, 2004). Teachers who use these criteria to select literacy and thinking tools are more likely to nurture literate thinkers. But first, the description of these criteria is set in a wider context that inform