CREd Research
CREd Research Project Websites
- School of Education Aspirations Project (SEAP)
- Early Career Teacher Resilience (ECTR)
- Behaviour at School Study (BASS)
- Teaching Reading in Australia
Category 1 Grants
Renewing the teaching profession in regional areas through community partnerships
Marie Brennan (Victoria University), Alan Reid, Faye McCallum, Michele Simons, Helen Strickland, Kathy McEvoy &
Karen Grigg
ARC Linkage Grant 2010-2013 - $164,000
Schools are at the heart of community, social and economic regeneration in regional areas but teacher shortages and high turnover put quality of learning at risk. Improving teacher quality, attracting new teachers and retaining more experienced teachers will expand learning opportunities for young people in rural and remote areas, and make the region attractive to other workers recruited to bring their families to the area - for mining, industry, service or professional employment. This partnership study will enable policy makers, employers, country community groups and teacher education faculties to be more strategic in working together in providing necessary teaching staff; with potential implications for other professional groups.
Negotiating a space in the nation: The case of Ngarrindjeri
Rob Hattam, Peter Bishop, Pal Ahluwalia, Daryl Rigney (Flinders), S. Hemming (Flinders), Julie Matthews (Uni Sunshine Coast) & R. Boast (Cambridge University)ARC Discovery project 2010-2012 - $226, 000
One of the hopeful sites in post-apology lndigenous Affairs in Australia is
found in lndigenous community responses to contemporary governmentality. This
project aims to research the case of the Ngarrindjeri nation and its
negotiations across a complex agenda including caring for country, community
leadership and governance, economic development, media representations, and
inter(national) coalation building. The project is interested in understanding
the negotiation, translation and transmission of cultural difference and aims
to grasp the full range of Indigenous ways to be contemporary, and that includes
especially
engagements with capitalism, bureaucracy and media culture.
New literacy demands in the middle years: Learning from design experiments
Barbara Comber, Helen Nixon (Queensland University of Technology) & Peter Freebody (University of Sydney)ARC Linkage project 2010-2012 - $243, 000
The overall aim of the proposed project is to document and improve the literacy and curricular learning of students in their middle years of schooling. It will undertake a detailed multivariate analysis of large student and teacher data corpus and document collaboratively constructed field experiments. The project will reassert the crucial theoretical and empirical status of the full set of personnel and material circumstances in which teachers and students need to work together. Additionally, it will develop a model of working with education department policy/curriculum officers in terms of analyzing, interpreting, acting on systematic data collection.
Addressing the teacher exodus: Enhancing early career teacher resilience and retention in changing times
Bruce Johnson, Barry Down (Murdoch), Rosie Le Cornu, Anna Sullivan, Judy Peters, Jane Pearce
(Murdoch), Janet Hunter.(Edith Cowan)
ARC Linkage Grant 2008-2012 - $280,000
Early career teacher resilience - The first few years of teaching are difficult for many teachers. Yet research into the ‘problems’ of beginning teachers is nearly exhausted. Few new ideas about how to address these ‘problems’ are emerging. There is a need for a new generation of collaborative research that investigates how beginning teachers develop resilience and sustain their commitment to teaching. Therefore, this project aims to find out how early career teachers deal with threats to their wellbeing. It will identify what internal strengths and external strategies promote teacher resilience. It will provide the evidence base for interventions that will increase teacher commitment and reduce teacher attrition.
Popping the bubblewrap: Unleashing the power of play
Professor A Bundy; Dame GA Naughton; Dr PJ Tranter; Dr SR Wyver; Professor LA
Baur; Professor A Bauman, Professor WE Schiller
ARC Discovery project - $398,923
An innovative playground: intervention to increase physical activity
Professor AC Bundy, Professor LA Baur, Professor GA Naughton, Professor
WE Schiller, Dr PJ Tranter, Dr SR Wyver
NHMRC Grant - $486,000
Epistemologies of workplace change: Transforming gender relations in
engineering
A/Prof S Franzway; A/Prof JE Mills; Prof R Sharp; A/Prof J Gill
ARC Discovery project - $215,000
Teaching reading in Australia: An historical investigation of early reading pedagogy, the figure of the teacher and literacy education
Phil Cormack, Bill Green (Charles Sturt) and Annette Patterson (Queensland University of Technology)ARC Discovery grant 2009-2010 - $80 000
Debates about the best approaches to teaching reading, especially in the early years, have a long history. The territory is marked by an overemphasis on ‘method’ without a deep, historically informed analysis of the role of the teacher and the nature of early reading pedagogy. This study will provide new understandings about the history of early reading pedagogy, the nature of the relationship between teacher, pupil and text, and the role of the teacher of reading. This historical perspective will be used to shed new light on present-day literacy policy and practice in teacher preparation and professional learning.
Mandated literacy assessment and the reorganisation of teachers' work
Barbara Comber (Queensland University of Technology), Phil Cormack, Brenton Doecke (Deakin), Alex Kostogriz (Deakin), Rosie Kerin, Dorothy Smith (Victoria University Canada) and Alison Griffith (York University)ARC Discovery grant 2009-2011 - $173, 000
Australian governments have introduced mandated assessment and reporting mechanisms to make schools accountable for literacy standards. These approaches aim to standardise curriculum and assessment provision but little is known about the consequences in classrooms. How teachers adapt their practices to different contexts and learning cohorts in the face of standardising policy remains to be understood. From the standpoint of teachers, this project explores how standardised testing and reporting reorganises work in contrastive school settings. It also shows the ways teachers deploy key literacy teaching practices to account for the varied student and community populations they serve.
Parents' networks: The circulation of knowledge about children's literacy learning
Sue Nichols, Helen Nixon (Queensland University of Technology) and Jennifer Rowsell (Rutgers University)ARC Discovery Grant 2007-2009 - $160, 000
This international and longitudinal study will investigate the networks accessed by parents in different socio-cultural locations searching for knowledge and resources about children’s literacy learning, the roles of organisations in these networks, and the ideas about literacy, pedagogy and parents’ roles circulating through these networks. It is significant in using an innovative methodology to study texts, images, objects, accounts and practices as they flow through family, community and broader national and global networks. It will inform policy and practice in public community service provision and family literacy, enabling social programs to engage all parents more effectively.
Category 2 Grants
School of Education University Aspirations Project (SEAP)
Rob Hattam, Michele Simons, Barbara Comber (Queensland University of Technology), Marie Brennan (Victoria University), Lew Zipin (Victoria University), Helen Nixon (Queensland University of Technology), Di Bills, Ruth Geer, Margaret Scrimgeour, Faye McCallum, Debbie Price, Elspeth McInnes, Alexandra Diamond, Sue Nichols, Sue Hill, Bill Lucas, and Faye Blanch and Simone Tur (Flinders University)Funded by UniSA, DEEWR - $585, 000
The Project builds career awareness and aspirations in school students and their families by providing ongoing learning projects relevant to contemporary career and employment opportunities.
Future SACE school to work innovation program: Literacy and numeracy project (2010)
Marie Brennan, Lyn Wilkinson (Flinders), Robert Hattam, Annmarie Reid, Dianne Bills, Jenny Barnett, Christine Davis, Jenni Carter, Mike Chartres, Colin MacMullin, Tanya Rogers (DECS), Ruth GeerFunded by the Department of Education and Children’s Services - $455,000
The 2010 Literacy & Numeracy Program will be developed and facilitated by the
University of South Australia and Flinders University, who will work in
partnership with schools to develop teaching materials and pedagogies for
structuring and managing the SACE Research Project.
Our focus will be on assisting teachers to develop tasks and materials which are
accessible to students with lower levels of literacy/numeracy, and that scaffold
such students towards success in independent research tasks.
Future SACE project: School-to-work literacy (2009)
Barbara Comber, Lyn Wilkinson (Flinders), Phil Cormack, Di Bills, Jenny Barnett, Marie Brennan, Mike Chartres, Rob Hattam, Robyn Jorgensen (Griffith), Peter Sullivan (Monash), Lyn Kerkham & Annmarie ReidFunded by the Department of Education and Children’s Services - $112,000
A joint project between the futureSACE Office, UniSA and Flinders University
The broad aim of the project was to provide support for teachers to investigate and document innovative practices that incorporated literacy and numeracy across learning areas – especially English, Mathematics, Work Education and the Personal Learning Plan – in order to support students to meet the achievement standards for Literacy and Numeracy in Stage One. The ultimate goal was to learn how to support students with difficulties in literacy and numeracy to make successful transitions to the workplace and/or further study. The university research team made the task of designing engaging ‘rich tasks’ central to the project as a way of drawing together literacy, numeracy and the PLP. The ‘rich task’ has been extensively implemented in Queensland and New South Wales, and was fundamental to earlier work on authentic assessment.
Future SACE project: School-to-work literacy (2008)
Barbara Comber, Lyn Wilkinson (Flinders), Phil Cormack, Rob Hattam, John Walsh, Marie Brennan, Rosie Kerin, Lyn Kerkham &Annmarie ReidFunded by the Department of Education and Children’s Services - $345,500
A joint project between the futureSACE Office, UniSA and Flinders University
This is a DECS funded project which aims to:
- Provide an analysis of the value of the School-to-Work Literacy Program including evaluative information about the development of the teachers’ knowledge of literacy; appropriate approaches to supporting students experiencing difficulties in senior secondary literacy; and approaches to developing personal learning plans with students
- Document significant aspects of work carried out by schools and teachers
- Collate exemplary strategies and case studies suitable for development into materials to support senior secondary teachers to develop successful whole school ‘literacy across the curriculum’ programs.
The project combined professional development and action research to support Year 10 teachers to design an innovative curriculum that particularly focuses on students identified by the 2007 Year 9 Literacy and Numeracy Tests as having literacy difficulties. Three teachers from 11 secondary schools participated. Seven schools undertook explicit work-related literacy tasks while four have focussed on the explicit teaching of the language features and genres necessary for success in the senior secondary curriculum. There are two schools where the projects have been ‘mainstreamed’ and have potential to become part of the curriculum. In seven schools, focus students have been withdrawn from mainstream classes to take part in the intervention designed by their teachers.
Early school intervention as a means to improve higher education outcomes for disadvantaged students (2008-2009)
Trevor Gale, Barbara Comber, Di Bills, Rob Hattam and Deb TranterFunded by DEEWR - $130,000
An investigation of early interventions in schooling aimed at increasing students' participation in higher education after completing school. 'Early' refers to the school years prior to Years 11 and 12, before the last two years of post-compulsory or senior secondary schooling. 'Interventions' refers to organised and strategic programs 'purposely designed to manoeuvre a population in particular directions'.
Evaluation of the South Australian Supporting Improved Literacy Achievement (SILA) Pilot (2009)
Rob Hattam, John Walsh (Adelaide University), Jenny Barnett, Petra Lietz (DECS), Barbara ComberFunded by UniSA and DECS - $200, 000
The SILA pilot team members and colleagues will conduct rigorous diagnostic reviews in low Socioeconomic Status (SES) schools to identify recommendations for improvement in literacy achievement, based on the DECS Improvement & Accountability framework (DIAf). Leadership, Literacy and Early Years coaches will be appointed to work closely with teachers & leaders to develop capacity to design and deliver effective teaching practice in literacy. Assessments will be implemented pre, during and post the pilot to determine student improvement in literacy.
Investigating literacy years 4-9: A pilot (2009)
Helen Nixon, Barbara Comber and Rosie KerinFunded by DECS - $76,000
This project will pilot ways to comprehensively investigate the literacy requirements and opportunities, and aligned explicit teaching strategies, that are embedded across the learning areas in the middle primary years and first years of secondary schooling. The project will assist teachers in the year 4 to 9 range to investigate and address a number of literacy ‘points of possible disconnection’, e.g. increasing complexity of texts, increasing differentiation of disciplinary knowledge, gaps between traditional ‘schooled’ literacies and the expanded repertoires of literacy required for effective participation in 21st century contexts outside schools. The focus will be on teachers’ documenting explicit teaching strategies to effectively support students not demonstrating appropriate learning outcomes because of the increasing complexity of literacy beyond the early years.
Category 3 Grants
Development of a professional development module for the Research Project, Stage 2 of the new SACE
Rob Hattam, Marie Brennnan, Michael O'DonoghueFunded by UniSA, Association of Independent Schools of South Australia (AISSA) and Catholic Education South Australia (CESA)2009 - $48, 000
The aim of this project is to develop a professional development module that can be used in schools to assist teachers develop appropriate curriculum, pedagogy and assessment for the Stage 2 Research project. In the initial discussions, the module would be a DVD with a hyperlinked set of resources including, key documents, professional development activities, planning templates and case examples. The module needs to be useable in schools with little support. The module would be introduced in some initial professional development about its use and AISSA would be providing school-based support/facilitation for its use in their schools.