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

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

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

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

Can neuroscience construct a literate gendered culture?

The construction of boys as a gendered culture is not usually associated with neuroscience. Exceptions are publications and presentations by consultants on boys’ education who adopt a “brain-based” perspective. From a neuroscience perspective, my analysis indicates the selective use of primary neuroscience research to construct and perpetuate generalisations and stereotypic representations of boys as a gendered culture. In this article I draw on data obtained over 12 months from a boys’ school that engaged a consultant on boys’ education. The consultant selectively used neuroscience to construct a hegemonic discourse that constructed boys as a gendered culture. I analyse the consultant’s professional learning sessions, question the veracity of populist claims presented to teachers and indicate the degree to which this discourse about boys’ literacy ability and behaviour influenced the school as they revised their language policy and made commercial decisions. My observations suggest that, over the course of a year, the school uncritically accepted sufficient popular interpretations of primary neuroscience research to fulfil their intention of building a marketable, gendered school culture. I further note the existence of a parallel cognitive discourse around principles of learning that influenced teacher pedagogy. These two discourses allowed the school to meet its aims of i) building a gendered educational culture at a school for boys, ii) placing the school in a competitive education market (both primarily based on the discourse of neuroscience) and iii) meeting the educational needs of their students (based primarily on the discourse of cognitive psychology)

Testing like you teach: The challenge of constructing local, ecologically valid tests

In an educational context, local, ecologically valid tests can reflect the use of literacy and thinking tools. These tests present a challenge to central, content focused, high-stakes testing, and to transmission approaches to teaching. They require teachers to accept knowledge as a verb, and to design assessment protocols that reflect co-constructive ways of teaching. This article reports the outcome of praxis action research with middle and secondary school teachers who incorporated topic-appropriate literacy and thinking tools into their teaching. They also redesigned their local tests linked to high-stakes test protocols to reflect the use of these tools. A thematic analysis of observations and interviews suggests that this process impacted on the structural characteristics (morés) of the schools, and posed affective, cognitive and pedagogical challenges to teachers

Justifying the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools

Criteria for the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools that allow educators to justify what they do are described within a wider framework of learning theory and research into best practice. Based on a meta-analysis of best practice, results from a three year project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a secondary school literacy initiative in New Zealand, together with recent research from cognitive and neuro-psychologists, it is argued that the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools used in elementary schools should be consistent with (i) teaching focused (ii) learner focused, (iii) thought linked (iv) neurologically consistent, (v) subject specific, (vi) text linked, (vii) developmentally appropriate, and (viii) assessment linked criteria. Key words: Literacy, thinking, tools, justifying criteria

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Editorial: Plotting new courses in assessment

The articles in this issue foreground some of the tensions inherent in the use of “global” summative, norm-referenced measures of literacy on the one hand, and “local”, site and classroom specific literacy assessments on the other. At a theoretical level these tensions may seem without basis given that “global” and “local” assessments seem to serve different masters and achieve different purposes. However, in reality the wash-back effect of high stakes systemic assessment on classroom work is widely accepted. Furthermore, these tensions are palpable in countries in which the results from high-stakes, high status “global” assessments can lead to the closure of schools. Several of the articles in this issue describe how teachers in schools and universities are attempting to steer a course around and between the omnipresent impact of high stakes assessments and their influence on curricula