The design and implementation of the professional development model of the New Zealand Numeracy Development Project has been successful in improving teacher knowledge and practice as well as raising student outcomes. Since 2000, more than 25,000 teachers in English-medium settings have participated in the project. In New Zealand the terms English-medium and Māori-medium are used to distinguish the language of instruction. settings have participated in the project. A content analysis across a large data set from evaluations conducted during the first four years of the project, identified three pedagogical tools that participants describe as improving their mathematics knowledge and practice: the number framework; the diagnostic interview; and the strategy teaching model. The article argues that the power of the professional development model lies in the integration of the three pedagogical tools ensuring that professional learning focuses on the core ideas of the project within the context of the teacher's classroom. This focus has enabled teachers to deepen their professional knowledge, change their instructional practice and improve their responsiveness to students' diverse learning needs.
The Numeracy Development Project has been heralded as an example of successful transformation of policy to practice. Evidence of raised student achievement and improved teacher knowledge has been reported for three consecutive years for the Early and Advanced Numeracy Projects (see Thomas & Ward, 2001, 2002; Thomas, Tagg, & Ward, 2003; Higgins, 2001, 2002a, 2003a for a full account). Major factors in the success of the implementation of this policy include on-going evaluation, a developing research base from the findings, and the promotion of the concept of a learning community. This article is a descriptive analysis of the Numeracy Development Project using Rist’s (1998) framing of the policy process and Patton’s theory of utilisation-focused evaluation. It discusses the different interdependent and interrelated aspects of policy formulation, implementation and evaluation that comprise a dynamic approach to the policy process.
Abstract"Doing" science in the form of practical work is one pedagogical approach to learning science alongside others such as talking science, writing science, reading science and representing science. However, scientific ideas cannot always be illustrated through practical work or field trips, therefore, different kinds of activities are needed to represent these ideas. This study focused on the power of cogenerative dialogues for teachers to learn about their students and their video preferences for learning science in a secondary science classroom. The analysis of the use of video as a mediating artefact drew on an interpretive approach framed as authentic participant-centered inquiry and employed multiple theoretical frameworks to generate perspectives on the affordances and constraints of learning from video. Through a cogenerative dialogue intervention we found that video could afford the learning of scientific ideas, however, some videographic features were distracting to students and constrained their learning. We argue that video clips as cultural artefacts are inscribed with emotion that structures students' opportunities to engage with scientific ideas. However, to accept the authoritative information presented in videos as facts uncritically was a missed opportunity to shape students' epistemological understanding that scientific knowledge is evidence-based and subject to critique. The implications for designing pedagogical approaches that encourage a critical stance to explore the ongoing social construction and communication of scientific ideas are discussed.
Purpose: This article examines how and why four leadership functions are enacted in an elementary school, with a focus on hierarchical and "heterarchical" configurations of leadership. Research Design: The data were collected using an exploratory 2-year case study approach, and the data set comprises one-on-one interviews and relevant school documentation from school leaders and numeracy lead teachers engaged in reforming their mathematics teaching at an urban elementary school in a large New Zealand city.
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