Baring some essentials: boys' achievement, ERO and leadership.

This article identifies some popular concerns about boys' achievement, and concerns raised by researchers. The Education Review Office report on the achievement of boys is critiqued in relation to the role masculinities play in regulating boys' attitudes to learning. The paper concludes with some implications and obligations for educational leaders in addressing issues about boys' learning and achievement within a context of social justice

Building literacy communities of practice across subject disciplines in secondary schools

This paper examines the relationship between communities of practice and literacy as a pedagogical focus in secondary schools in New Zealand in the light of Corson's arguments about critical conditions for effective language policy development in schools. It is also positioned within the current international emphasis (at least in English-speaking countries) on improving students' literacy in order to increase academic achievement. Part of this focus stems from an unbalanced relationship between learning mainly content (what) and learning processes (how and why) through content in secondary school classrooms. If teachers' work is centred on equipping students with the learning and thinking tools that allow them to navigate, make sense of and critically examine subject content, then literacy as a pedagogical focus can be seen as supporting that shift. However, shifting secondary teachers to a focus on learning and thinking processes can be difficult, because it implicates their pedagogical values, practices and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). How schools in New Zealand have developed this focus and made efforts to sustain it are examined through the concept of communities of practice

Editorial

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including electronic learning tools, mathematical tasks of children in primary school settings, and teacher education

Using an extended food metaphor to explain concepts about pedagogy

It is anathema for educators to describe pedagogy as having a recipe - it is tantamount to saying it is a technicist process rather than a professional one requiring active, informed decision-making. But if we are to help novice teachers understand what pedagogy is and how it can be understood, there must be a starting point for pedagogical knowledge to shape both the understanding and design of appropriate curriculum learning. In order to address this challenge, I argue that food preparation processes and learning how to competently cook are analogous to understanding how pedagogy - also about process, design, and making knowledge knowable - facilitates learning about teaching specific curriculum knowledge. To do so, I use evidence from an ITE cohort lecture on pedagogy as a case study. In essence, viewing pedagogy through the lens of food and recipes may help make some abstractions of pedagogy more concrete and make some principles of pedagogy more accessible to novice teachers as they learn to design learning

Continuance theory and teacher education

Continuance theory is usually related to the regular use of technology in the business/industry area. It attempts to explain why people either continue to use specific technologies in their work, or not. Essentially, it links to the perceived value to individuals‟ ability to work effectively, however that is understood in their workplace. In the profession of education, particularly schools and teacher education, the perceived value of continued use is not about individuals and their work, but about individuals‟ work with groups of students and what happens to learning when these digital technologies are used. Continued use is contingent on their students‟ positive responses to these technologies supporting learning. I examine, in the light of continuance theory, what happens when student teachers in an initial secondary teacher education programme report on including digital technologies on practicum. This includes reporting on the effect students‟ responses have on their subsequent attitudes and practices regarding digital technologies in learning contexts

Editorial

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the sustainability of organisational changes for diploma programmes, the development of Preparation for Tertiary Learning (PTL), and childhood teacher education programme in New Zealand

A case for adapting and applying continuance theory to education: Understanding the role of student feedback in motivating teachers to persist with including digital technologies in learning

In New Zealand schools, the adoption and persistent use of digital tools to aid learning is a growing but uneven, trend, often linked to the practices of early adopters and/or robust wifi infrastructure. The Technology Adoption Model is used internationally to gauge levels of uptake of technological tools, particularly in commerce and also in education. However, this model is inadequate when it is used to attribute reasons for teachers adopting technologies for learning. This article offers an alternative view to understanding why teachers continue using digital technologies for learning. It focuses on the role of student voice and teachers’ pedagogical purposes as motivators, even when teachers have technological hurdles to overcome. The article engages with continuance theory as a lens for understanding these motivations via a qualitative thematic analysis of Moodle postings made by a 2012 cohort of initial teacher education students. The intention is to signpost ideas that might better explain teachers’ continued use of digital technologies in classrooms even if conditions for use are not optimal

Partnership experiences in developing the Preparation for Tertiary Learning course in the Teachers in Training programme.

This article is a collection of three partnership voices: Roselyn Maneipuri, Immaculate Runialo and Noeline Wright. The first two, lecturers in the Arts and Languages Department at the School of Education (SOE), Honiara, Solomon Islands, found themselves working with a New Zealander who was tasked with helping them review and develop new courses for a new cohort of teacher education students. The three had never met before, but within about three weeks had to build a professional relationship, build some contextual understanding, establish what elements the course needed, and develop it in time for Roselyn and Immaculate to teach the first cohort of students (currently teaching in schools but without any teacher education background), who were due to arrive in less than three months' time

COWpads: Sharing iPads in a range of secondary school classrooms

This article outlines a mid-point snapshot of the progress of a small teaching-as-inquiry project at Hillcrest High School in 2013. Three teachers (music, mathematics, French) volunteered to focus on using iPads in a COW (computers on wheels, hence the term COWPads) configuration with a junior class during 2013. Each teacher created their own teaching-as-inquiry question focused on specific aspects of their practice. A University of Waikato researcher supported the teachers by observing classes and meeting regularly for feedback, reflection and discussion. Halfway through the year the following themes have emerged: the technical challenges to using a device designed for personal use as a shared device; a positive impact on students’ concentration levels and spans when using iPads, and shifts in teachers’ pedagogical design and practice. The teachers individually contribute their voices to this article, describing their initial experiences of using iPads on a regular basis and what they concentrated on most during the first few months of the project

Stories from the inside: A narrative analysis investigating the professional lives of three New Zealand secondary school heads of English departments

This research is a narrative analysis based on an investigation into the professional lives of heads of English departments (HODs) in three New Zealand secondary schools. The main data collection methods of interviews and observations used in this study, fall within an interpretive paradigm. The research breaks through prevailing silences about the realities of three HODs' professional lives. I propose that while these HODs play a pivotal role in secondary schools, their ability to engage in not only effective curriculum and pedagogical leadership but also effective classroom teaching, is seriously constrained. These constraints have occurred partly as a result of the accumulating effects of over a decade of continual educational reforms in New Zealand, partly because there have been Jew changes to staffing ratios to accommodate intensified workloads, and partly because secondary schools' basic timetable structures have not been able to change sufficiently to reflect other changes. Because consequences of the reforms on the work of these HODs have been largely ignored, I also contend that effective teaching and learning, which is the core focus of schools, is compromised. Emotions and relationships, coupled with the effects of time constraints and complexity, are highlighted as major concerns and significant hindrances to the three HODs' work. In order to demonstrate the impact of such effects, a fictionalised short story 'from the inside' makes the personal political, exposing some of the human costs to HODs' professional lives. This fictional story is from the inside' for at least two important reasons: the data from participants plus my own prior knowledge and experiences as an HOD. The effect of this on the research is also discussed. Essentially, the circumstances in which the three participant English H0Ds work, may be symptomatic of an educational crisis that requires urgent attention, particularly in relation to the amount of time available for HODs to carry out their leadership roles. This research may be one step towards promoting that attention