Funding for projects under TLRI

Thirteen projects have received funding in the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative’s 2008 funding round.

TLRI was set up by the government in 2003 and has annual funding of $2 million. It aims to build knowledge about teaching and learning that will lead to significantly improved outcomes for learners. The fund is open to the early childhood, school, and post-school sectors.

The NZ Council for Educational Research co-ordinates the fund and its associated research programme.

Projects are categorised in different ways. Type I are large to medium scale, multi-year projects that build on previous TLRI or other research and are worth $150,000-$450,000. Type II projects are smaller in scale and more exploratory in nature. Their funding is in the $50,000-$100,000 range.

Expressions of interest were called for in May 2008, with some then selected to make a full application. The successful projects are listed below.

THE PROJECTS

• Shifting the conceptualisation of knowledge and learning in the integration of the new NZ curriculum in initial and continuing teacher education.

Principal investigator: Dr Vanessa Andreotti, Co-investigators: Dr Kathleen Quinlivan, Dr Jane Abbiss.

Partnerships: University of Canterbury and UC Education Plus.

Initial and on-going teacher education will be a key factor in the success of The NZ Curriculum. This project examines shifts in the conceptualisation of knowledge and learning in learning outcomes and course design in initial and in-service teacher education.

Funding allocation $294,667.

• Our place: Being curious at Te Papa.

Project leaders: Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips and Dr Margaret Carr.

Partnership: Wellington Region Free Kindergarten Association and Te Papa.

Based at a new education and care centre at Te Papa in Wellington, this project will research the ways in which young children make meaning from artefacts and exhibitions at Te Papa. It will investigate how they construct knowledge and the opportunities that make this possible and interesting.

Funding allocation $199,992.

• Infants and toddlers as learners: Pedagogy in the first years.

Project leader: Dr Carmen Dalli, Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Jessie Hetherington Centre for Educational Research,Victoria University of Wellington.

Partnerships: Victoria University of Wellington, The University of Auckland, AUT University, Auckland, and a variety of urban early childhood centres in Auckland and Wellington.

The historical emphasis on young children receiving care rather than education means that understanding infants and toddlers as learners can be challenging for many teachers. Using case study methodology, this collaborative two-year project investigates infants’ and toddlers’ opportunities for learning; how teachers construct children as learners; how teachers’ constructions influence their pedagogy; and how learning opportunities may be strengthened.
Funding allocation $200,000.

• Moments of wonder, everyday events: How are young children theorising and making sense of their world?

Project leaders: Keryn Davis and Dr Sally Peters.

Partnerships: University of Canterbury, University of Waikato, and Canterbury Playcentre Association.

The focus of this research is on exploring children’s working theories in action, how they are expressed, and how working theories are understood and fostered in Playcentre environments. This project will consider the features of environments that encourage children to theorise and make sense of their worlds.

Funding allocation $188,733.

• Linking culturally responsive teaching, learning, and assessment to enhance the engagement of diverse students in the primary science classroom.

Project leader: Dr Bronwen Cowie.

Partnerships: Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER), The University of Waikato, with Arataki Primary School, Tauranga and Peachgrove Intermediate School, Hamilton.

This study will explore possible synergies between current understandings of culturally responsive pedagogy, and assessment for learning, in the context of primary science classes with a high proportion of Maori students. Classroom interactions and relationships between three teachers and their diverse students will be traced over two units through the use of video and observation. The project aims to illuminate student and teacher positioning around science knowledge and their understandings of synergies with Maori cultural knowledge, as well as the development of student knowledge of and affiliation with science.

Funding allocation $199,995.

• Exploring e-learning practices across the disciplines in a university environment.

Project leader: Marcia Johnson, University of Waikato.

Partnerships: A multi-disciplinary team from across the University of Waikato, including educational researchers, lecturers, and the team leader for eEducation university staff development.

This is a two-year project exploring ICT/e-learning across several disciplines and with students from diverse backgrounds at the University of Waikato. It will address issues of tertiary-level pedagogy, e-pedagogy, and research. Findings will be used to leverage pedagogical change and to close participatory gaps for students and lecturers.
Funding allocation $199,993.

• Developing communication and participation patterns within Numeracy classrooms: Structuring equitable access for diverse learners.

Project leaders: Dr Roberta Hunter and Associate Prof. Glenda Anthony (Team Researcher).

Partnerships: School of Education, The University of Auckland, Massey University, and West Harbour School teachers.

This is a collaborative research study exploring communication and participation patterns in mathematics classrooms. It draws on the expertise of researchers and teachers to examine the pedagogical practices that provide equitable access for students to mathematical discourse. The data will offer ways to increase our knowledge of the sorts of teaching and learning practices that strengthen diverse learners’ mathematical proficiency, both socially and academically.

Funding allocation $195,933.

• Designing learning environments that encourage a wide range of mathematical abilities and understandings.

Project leader: Dr Caroline Yoon.

Partnerships: The University of Auckland, in partnership with Auckland Girls Grammar School, and Northcote College.

This project seeks to design and investigate learning environments that encourage secondary school students to develop deep conceptual understandings of mathematics, alongside effective mathematical modelling and communication abilities. It will develop principles for designing sequences of modelling activities that require students to build, explore, and consolidate mathematical models of real-world problems, as well as designing teacher tools for identifying and observing the mathematical understandings and abilities that these tasks produce.

Funding allocation $130,000.

• Arts e-learning and the on-line specialist teacher: Increasing opportunities for quality student outcomes.

Project leaders: Jan Bolton, Jan Bolwell and Delia Baskerville.

Partnerships: Victoria University of Wellington with Manutuke School, Gisborne Intermediate, Ormond School, Whakarongo School, and Rangikura School.

The project will research the potential of an arts e-learning environment to provide quality arts teaching and produce successful learning outcomes for students. It involves the implementation of an innovative, web-based programme that makes possible the expertise of dance and drama specialists on-line in year 6-8 classrooms where such expertise would not normally otherwise be available. The project will document the changing process of the implementation and produce insights into the potential ongoing viability of such models to make a positive difference to students’ arts learning opportunities.

Funding allocation $97,500.

• SCIAnTICT-Science Classroom Investigations of the Affordances in Teaching with ICT.
Project leader: Dr Kathrin Otrel-Cass.

Partnerships Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER), the University of Waikato, with St Andrew’s Middle School.

This study seeks to explore the potential of ICT for the teaching and learning of understanding, to understand how teachers can use these tools to support student interest, motivation, expression of ideas, and understanding in primary classrooms in NZ. Video case studies will be carried out focusing on ICT that is available to teachers including the Internet, interactive whiteboards (IWB), data projectors, CD ROMS and other digital technologies.

Funding allocation $129,998.

• Building students’ inferential reasoning: Statistics curriculum Levels 5 and 6.

Project leaders: Dr Maxine Pfannkuch and Pip Arnold.

Partnerships: The University of Auckland and six teachers from a variety of schools.

There is an urgent need to understand how students can progressively develop informal statistical inferential reasoning from Levels 5 to 8 of the new curriculum. The project will develop and implement web applications and new ways of teaching. The findings from the research will have a direct impact on practice and assessment at the national level.

Funding allocation $130,000.

• An exploration of field-based early childhood teacher education in Aotearoa NZ.

Project leaders: Dr Margaret Brennan, Liz Everiss, and Kate Ord.

Partnerships: The Open Polytechnic of NZ, Waikato Institute of Technology (WINTEC), and Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa.

This is a small-scale, multi-­site exploratory study that uses an ethnographic research approach. It seeks to capture the reality of field-based initial teacher education using interactions in the classroom between all participants in the teaching and learning process as a tool to begin to document, describe, and understand the nature and form of field-based ITE. By taking this approach the study will contribute to the limited research base which explores the inner workings of teacher education programmes internationally.

Funding allocation $98,218.

• Developing secondary school students’ understanding of statistical literacy in a data-analysis environment.

Project leader: Sashi Sharma.

Partnerships: Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER), The University of Waikato, and Marcellin College, Auckland.

Researchers will conduct two cycles of teaching experiments in two Pasifika-dominated year 9 classes. There will be three phases: preparation, teaching, and a retrospective analysis phase. The research team will plan activities and envision how dialogue and statistical activity will unfold as a result of planned classroom activities. The teaching phase will involve video recordings of all classroom sessions, copies of all the students’ written work, audio-recorded interviews conducted with students, and field notes of the classroom sessions. Data will be analysed using a grounded theory approach and a hypothetical teaching sequence proposed.

Funding allocation $130,000.