Epsy301 Collective Notes - The Learner in Context

Collective EPSY301 Course Notes
Online Collaboration Team

for VUW Diploma of Education
February 25, 2010

1
Copyright
c 2010, Blair M. Smith
Please copy, modify and redistribute under the terms of the GNU Free Document
Licence (GPL FDL) here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-standalone.html
Contents
Introduction 5
1 Module 1—Teaching in Aotearoa-New Zealand 6

Module 1-1: Teaching Images and Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Module 1-2: Qualities of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Links Between the Report and the NZ Working Model for Educators 17
Extended Discussion of the Wylie & Hodgen Report . . . . . . . . . . 19
Module 1-3: Teacher Knowledge and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2 Module 2—Human Development 23

Module 2-1: Historical Ideas about Human Development . . . . . . . . . . 23
Psychoanalysis models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Behaviorist models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Constructivist models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Other Early Theorists of Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Module 2-2: Developmental psychology—ecological model . . . . . . . . . 27
Bronfenbrenner’s models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Other Early Theorists of Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 Module 3—NZ views of Human Development 31

Module 3-1: Maori perspectives on human development . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2
CONTENTS 3
Module 3-2: Ecological Models of Human Development . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The PPCT Model as a Working Model for Human Development in
New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4 Module 4—Learning and Motivation 36

Module 4-1: Overview of ‘theories’ of learning and learning styles . . . . . 36
Useful Models for Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Learning Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Module 4-2: Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Miscellaneous notes on motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5 Module 5—History of ECE & Schooling in NZ 56

Module 5-1: Primary and secondary schools in New Zealand . . . . . . . . 56
Reflective thoughts on Our Time Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Module 5-2: ECE in New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6 Module 6—Diverse Students 60

Module 6-1: Student Diversity in New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Complexity of Community and Family Influences (Biddulph3 report) 62
Maori and Pacific Island Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The Impact of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Module 6-2: Special Needs and Gifted or Talented Students . . . . . . . . 67
Beyond Policy and good Intentions (Bevan-Brown) . . . . . . . . . . 67
Discussion of “Inclusive education policy in New Zealand” . . . . . . 73
7 Module 7—EAL Students 75

Module 7-1: EASL Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Paradigms and Special Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Module 7-2: Who are our EAL students? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
CONTENTS 4
Module 7-3: Principles of Language and Content Learning . . . . . . . . . 87

Website Task—The Seven Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Website Task—Dictogloss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Additional Resources for Language Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8 Module 8—Evidence-based Teaching 95

What is evidence based teaching? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Why use evidence based teaching? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Principles of EBT—Informing Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Synopsis of T&R—Challenging and Changing Teachers’ Schemas . . . . . 97
Discussion of “Challenging and Changing Teachers’ Schemas” . . . . . . . 100
9 Extension: Quick Summary of Key Research Papers 108
Reflection Journal 109

Reflections on Each Week of EPSY301 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Grand Unified Model of Educational Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Motivating Students (and teachers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Dealing with Poorly Performing Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Improving Schools and Improving Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The Seven Principles for Content Language Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Forum 4 Reflections (EAL Learning) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Forum 4 Reflections (EAL Learning) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Introduction
These are free collaborative collective course note for the 2010 online students en-
rrolled in the VUW EPSY301 course. Please copy and redistribute as you please,
respecting the GPL-FDL copyright.
We have included a lot of quotes from the online discussion forums, which has added
to the length of this book somewhat. The suggestion is to not read this book serially,
but to instead scan the topics and delve into the quoted paragraphs as interest guides
you—that way the book will hopefully not seem too daunting to read. Also, these
course notes are not intended as substitutes for the course Module notes, textbook
and readings. The idea is that this book will serve as a reference and memory jog
for all of our future work in education, and not so much as an exam preparation
guide for the course.
5
1. Module 1—Teaching in
Aotearoa-New Zealand
Module 1-1: Teacher Qualities, Teaching Images

and Metaphors
Reading: Module 1, File 1. The following unreferenced articles might also be
worth looking up: (1) (Fox, 1990), (2) (Baker, 2010), (3) (Fraser, 2001), (4) (Snook,
1992), (5) (Dewey, 1993), (6) (Calderhead, 1990). (7) (Britzman, 1986). Each of
these references cite further prior studies, but since this is not a thesis project and
due to time constraints I did not bother looking at further articles.
Focus Activity—Metaphors
The instructions are to;
1. Think about what is important in teaching and learning.
2. Focusing on the roles of teacher and student, think of an image or metaphor

which shows what you believe,
(a) summarize what you believe about teaching and learning

(b) specifically show the role of the teacher(s) and the student(s)
3. Keep this image safe as you will need it for your assignment.
I decided to use two metaphors. One for fun, one more seriously. The fun metaphor is
A Superfluid, chosen because behaviour of superfluids in response to their external
environment is very interesting, and as a purely physical system it poses a challenge
to conjure up enough imagery to fulfill the teacher-student-learning metaphor task,
6
Module 1—Teaching in Aotearoa-New Zealand 7
which should be fun. The serious metaphor is The Tree. was optionally also going
to sketch a metaphor based on The Ocean, time permitting.
The Superfluid Metaphor
The image is that of superfluid fountain flow. Physically this is a collective behaviour
of particles of the fluid (called bosons). Metaphorically it represents the ability of
education to be a collective or an individual effort.
The non-metaphor part: Since this is a metaphor understandable only to those

who know a bit about superfluids, I first need to explain some non-metaphorical stuff.
A superfluid is fluid flow with zero friction and hence zero resistance to motion. So
a superfluid (maintained below it’s critical temperature Tc ) in a container with a
central capillary tube that is heated or stimulated briefly will spontaneously generate
a smooth fountain flow that will continue to flow without any further energy or
stimulus, it will never stop (provided the fluid is kept below Tc ). The phenomenon
is observed in a variety of fluids, but was first discovered in liquid helium. Not every
fluid can become superfluid flowing because for most elements and compounds the
superfluid critical temperature transition is below the freezing point of the fluid.
This is not the case for helium, plus helium has a reasonably high Tc (still very close
to absolute zero ◦ Kelvin though), which is why the effect can best be observed with
helium.
For the case of 4 He, the effect can be explained by noting that the even number of
nucleons and electrons in the 4 He gives rise to a symmetrical quantum mechanical
wave-function for the atom considered as a whole. This is the characteristic of a
so-called bosonic system, which just means the system behaves according to Bose-
Einstein statistics, which in turn just means that the bosonic constituents (in this
case the individual 4 He atoms) can occupy the exact same energy states at any
time anywhere. This is as opposed to the only other particular statistics governing
quantum mechanical systems known as Fermi-Dirac statistics whereby the system
wave-function is antisymmetric and the individual fermions, as they are called,
cannot occupy the same energy state if they are otherwise identical wave-functions.
This attribute—of being able to occupy the same energy level—means that when one
cools a bosonic fluid below some critical temperature Tc (usually very cold, about
−270◦ C or lower) all of the bosons are forced into the same state, that being the
lowest possible energy level (termed the ground state by physicists). That such a
state of lowest non-zero energy exists is a well-established feature of quantum physics
that we do not have the time explain here. Suffice it to say that in such a collective
state the individual bosons basically lose their individuality and cooperate. So if
one of them is nudged a bit, then the others tend to respond as if they were also
nudged, yet without any extra energy required.
That’s how the never-ending superfluid helium fountain can be created. First cool
the described container of 4 He gas to first liquefy it and then bring it down to below
it’s critical temperature Tc . Then give it a brief burst of energy or heat, say with a
laser. The superfluid flowing liquid will then get nudged a bit up the capillary tube,
but it will not settle, it will continue to rise because none of the atoms know that
they were the one that was nudged by the laser, so-to-speak. So they all collectively
‘want’ to move up the capillary tube. The result is a frictionless fluid flow that
spouts out of the top of the tube forming a fountain which cascades very smoothly
(almost glassy-like) back into the container. This fountain is then quite persistent,
since there is no friction to stop the flow by dissipation of energy.
Even in an ideal imaginary frictionless fluid one would expect such flow to cease into
a boiling mild chaos after a while, but the fountain persists eerily beautifully with a
superfluid because of the aforementioned collective behaviour of the boson particles
kept cool in their ground energy state.
The superfluid metaphor (1): OK, so one interpretation of the imagery is this:
a teacher is like the the heat or laser that excites the atoms (analogy: teacher
↔disturbance). But if the societal conditions are ‘too hot’ (analogy: negative soci-
etal pressure ↔ de-motivational or distraction) then the mass of students (analogy:
student↔boson) will be—most of them—in a state above their ‘critical tempera-
ture’ for collective behaviour (analogy: above Tc ↔ disunited or uncollegial ). So
often the teacher is in the position of perturbing the students with basically chaotic
effects, but with perhaps more hope of beneficial educational outcome (interesting
fluid flow in the metaphor) the more the students can be cooled (analogy: more
motivated ). Ideally, a great educational system, wonderful social conditions, and a
teacher willing to perturb the students in the right way will lead to beautiful collec-
tive behaviour of the students as they (now I’m poetic mode) flow up the fountain
of knowledge and return to the real world to cyclically repeat this learning process.
Each journey up the fountain can be likened to a new ever higher level of wisdom
and state of knowledge. Student growth is measured by the number of times they
attain the top of the fountain. Cut off the cooling effects, raise the social heat,
and this wondrous cycle of learning will cease and become more chaotic and less
purposefully directed.
The superfluid metaphor (2): In another reading of the metaphor the teacher
is the capillary tube who facilitates the fountain flow. Indeed, the students (bosons)
reach a higher level (height of flow) beyond the top of the capillary tube, which is
nice. The external disturbance starting the flow is society in general or an active
educational system.
Caveat: I decry any intent for this metaphor to be interpreted as an argument in
favour of extreme socialism or military uniformity! It’s just an analogy. It is not rich
enough to leave the student with an individual identity in the ‘superfluid’ learning
state. So that’s where this metaphor dies.
The Tree Metaphor
This is simpler to imagine. The image is shown in Figure 1.1
• Tree ↔ the world.
• Branches of the tree ↔ teachers.
• Leaves and shoots of the tree ↔ students.
• Fruit and seeds ↔ mature students and school leavers.
• New tree ↔ new world!
OK, I’m having some fun here mangling a metaphor. Perhaps it makes more poetic
and logical sense if the tree is likened to an educational system. When the fruit
ripens and seeds it creates a new educational community, e.g., maybe a family or
another teacher.
As a bonus this metaphor incorporates the McInerney-Maslow’s sunflower model of
human self-actualization (McInerney & McInerney, 2006, p.474). I wrote more about
this metaphor in the EPSY301 assignment paper. The teacher-student relationship
was supposed to be the key focus. The tree metaphor might not be best suited for
this, since it is more holistic. However, one can imagine the teacher as a guide, first
and foremost. The branches of the tree facilitate growth, act as vessels for bringing
the budding leaves and shoots into clear daylight. This is very much intended to be in
accod with social constructivist philosophy, wherein teachers are active and students
are active; and where teachers are informed by students as well as instructors; and
teachers endeavour to know and understand their students’ background and needs.
One thing I was bothered about was whether the metaphor could capture the
teacher-student gap (knowledge gap, age gap, etc.,. . . ) adequately.
Figure 1.1: Imagery of a tree as a metaphor for teaching, learning, and teacher-
student interaction.
Jinxi (Jonathon Hubert) described a lovely neurological metaphor in his essay, which
I have asked from permission to quote here in full. Jinxi’s image is reproduced in
Figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2: Imagery of a brain, at the nueron level, as a metaphor for teaching,
learning, and teacher-student interaction.
“The image I have tried to convey in my metaphor is that of the

interconnectivity between teacher and student, like the neural connections
of the human brain. The image of the of the neural network of the brain
representing the unique nature of the individuals’ ability to connect on
numerous levels first occurred to me when studying neuro-anatomy at
university. It had a certain appeal to my creative tendencies.
“There is a complex flow of information back and forth between teacher
and student where the teacher is able not only to disseminate information
but is also prepared to receive new information as implied by the Maori
word, ‘Ako’ to be teacher and learner. The teacher and the student share
a commonality and have the ability to lean from each other.
“My interpretation of this image is to try and show the nucleus of

the neuron as a representation of the various stages of development. The
number of connections the neuron is able to make is a representation of
the individuals’ potential to connect with physical or cognitive abilities;
some have many connections where as whereas others have only a few.
Some of the connections are to an ability (represented by the ball at the
end of a connection). Other connections are to other people (neurons)
which identify the connection achieved through communication.
“Some of the connections to the teachers’ nucleus are large and ob-
vious yet others are weak and tenuous.
“The information and knowledge that is at the teacher’s disposal is
illustrated by the various blocks and shapes on the table before him. The
idea that the connection to the individual requires a specific block shows
the unique needs of that person.
“The image is attempting to show the way in which information is
able to transfer across the teacher/pupil divide. This is shown by the
attachment of wings to blocks of information and blown by the teacher
in the right direction so that it will engage with the student. I believe it
is insufficient for the teacher to merely present information and expect
the pupils to fully engage. I feel that it is the teachers responsibility
to acknowledge and respect the level of understanding of the class and
deliver that information in a way that is engaging and relevant to those
students.
“Respect for the student is something that I feel is paramount to the
effectivness effectiveness of the teacher’s ability to teach the individual.
In my opinion if the teacher is unwilling to think about the students
background, culture, abilities and emotional and developmental perspec-
tive and respect them as an individual it is unlikely that the student will
see the teacher as something more than an authoritarian figure.
“Ive used an organic image to demonstrate a nurturing flexibility
rather than a mechanical one which is rigid and absolute. The essen-
tial energy and enthusiasm of the teacher is implied by electrical activity
that a neuron creates when stimulated.
“One of the elements that this image does not address clearly is the
influences of motivation. The teacher is able to provide extrinsic forces
and foster intrinsic interests but it is ultimately how the individual feels
that will have the greatest bearing on their learning. ‘It is implied in
expectancy value theory that individuals must feel some ownership of
and control over their success if they are to be motivated’ McInerney &
McInerny, p219.”
I [BMS] particularly like the way Jinxi relates his metaphor to techer-student inter-
action.
Module 1-2: Competent Students and Learners

ASIDE: In these notes a student is anyone who is engaged in studying, whether they
are learning or not, at any educational level or age. It should be clear from context
whether this means one enrolled in a formal program (a school pupil, ECE, Primary,
Secondary or higher) or one studying independently or informally. A learner is
anyone who is learning. A person may be a student but not temporally in a state
of learning. Any person learning is, loosely speaking, also a student (of something)
by definition, but they may not be learning in such a formal manner to consider
themselves ‘scholars’, ‘philosophers’, or ‘academics’.
Note that this differs somewhat with the VUW Education Department usage which
uses ‘learners’ as a cover-all for all students in any of ECE, Primary, or Secondary
schooling.
Activities. Read the Module 1, File 2 material, and the report (Wylie & Hodgen,
2007).
The focus activity was to write a summary paragraph and share it with someone
else on the course, then re-write the summary if necessary.
After sharing my effort with a colleague, here is my adjusted version:
Key Ideas about NZ Children - As I’ve Gleaned from the Module 1-1 Material:
New Zealand children are diverse, and therefore require diversity in their education.
So to the extent that different children learn things differently the education sys-
tem needs to be flexible enough to nurture all the diverse students, in order to be
fair to all. The demographic data suggests that this diversity is great enough to
significantly influence the education system (NZ/Pakeha/European are a numerical
majority overall, followed by one-fifth Maori, then roughly equal Pasifika and Asian
students, with other ethnic groups make up less than 2% of the student population).
Although students are still compartmentalized and stratified into ECE, Primary and
Secondary “levels”, at least the aim and scope of each level has a sound social ra-
tionale and leads (one hopes) smoothly towards the level above, so that cognitive
development is followed by increased socialization and ultimately gaining of skills
and knowledge that will enable each student to contribute meaningfully to society
when they leave school. Although progress has been made in NZ towards break-
ing down old and worn-out teaching ideologies, there are still statistically significant
disparities that appear to emerge, such as correlations (in gender, ethnicity, family
environment and socioeconomic levels) of students with their (presumably) tested
performance in various subjects. However these correlations may to some extent be
natural given each individual’s different background, and so reflect bad social condi-
tions rather than necessarily poor schooling systems. It is then hard to say whether
schools can be the greatest source of help in overcoming the worst of these disparities
(if they are deemed large enough to warrant “correction” that is) or whether it is
the whole society that must adapt—from the student’s attitudes themselves, their
parents input, their teachers and their future employers. It is interesting that recent
longitudinal study data suggest that the education level of a student’s mother is the
strongest factor influencing, or correlated with, student performance (both cognitive
and attitudinal factors) and suggests—in the absence of contrary evidence—that we
(society) need to be more systematic in ensuring that the first educators of children
(their mother’s, typically women) are given greater educational advantages—even,
dare we say it, positive biases—and greater opportunities than they currently pos-
sess. (The longitudinal study author’s interestingly focus more on the need to give the
likely disadvantaged children the extra support rather than their mothers, whereas I
would consider both ways of providing societal help as valid.) The most critical idea,
I think, is that people are capable of change, and therefore a slow and traumatized
student can grow into a bright and confident student if they are recognized as having
this innate potential to grow.
The longitudinal study mentioned in this summary is a reference to the report (Wylie
& Hodgen, 2007).
Note that summarizing is a recommended technique for aiding learning mentioned
in the course textbook. While helping others prepare for the course examination
Leah contributed this nice summary of the report:
“Competent Children, Competent Learners , Wylie and Hogden,

2007. A summary.
• Longitudinal study began in 1993.
• 500 children in Wellington area.
• 7 phases age 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16.
• Charts development of competencies in the context of home, leisure
and educational experiences and analyses whether the experiences
may account for patterns in young peoples performance.
• Children all sampled from Wellington area, of reasonable wealth,
with English medium education, and mother with trade/tertiary level
qualifications.
• Competencies likely to be higher than a national representation.

• Cognitive competencies assessed to form basis of relationships
between other competencies.
– Mastery and skills in literacy and numeracy at an early age
underpins children’s paths through school.
• Attitudinal competencies assessed by teachers, asking to rate
students.
– Used multiple teachers, including teachers of students favourite
subject and teacher of students least favourite subject.
– Thinking and learning; Focused and responsible; Social skills;
Social difficulties.
– Each competency formed a distinct group.
• Relations between the competencies
– Found that students who scored high on one of the three positive
competencies also scored high for two others, but correlation
was low.
– To some extent, good scores in literacy and numeracy could
determine high scores on attitudinal competencies.
– Three positive attitudinal competencies could predict cognitive
competencies. Overall, thinking & learning, and focused and re-
sponsible were the more important for scores on cognitive com-
petencies.
– Social characteristics account for some variance—seen through-
out study.
– Maternal qualifications associated with higher cognitive and at-
titudinal competencies.
– Family income associated with literacy and numeracy.
– Strength of correlation is less than at age 14 (with maternal
quals, and income at age 5).
– Gender carries more weight than ethnicity and family income
in competencies but not literacy or numeracy.
• Development of competencies
– Over time, reasonable consistency in cognitive competencies.
– Patterns emerged, same as previous phases:
∗ Attitudinal competencies can predict cognitive competencies
at the same age, and attitudinal competencies at the next
two ages.
∗ Cognitive competencies can predict attitudinal competencies

at the next age and cognitive competencies at the next two
ages.
∗ Consistency strongest for students in the lowest quartile of
scores, or in the highest quartile of scores.
• Retention rates increased in most quartiles as age increased in cog-
nitive competency scores
• More change in place in retention in quartiles for attitudinal com-
petency scores.
– This fits with other data, that cognitive competencies are more
predictable from earlier ages. Attitudinal competencies seem
more related to students current situation.
– Students who moved quartiles did so gradually.
• Social characteristics and competency development over
time
– Females show slightly higher tendency to move up quartiles over
time.
– Maori/Pacific more likely to be in lower two quartiles.
– Those who moved were more likely to be Pakeha/European or
Asian.
– Students whose mothers had no formal qualifications tended to
be in and stay in lower two quartile groups of composite cogni-
tive competencies and for attitudinal competencies.
– Family income results were similar, but not as pronounced as
maternal education results for cognitive competencies.
– Males slightly more likely to be in lower two groups for compos-
ite cognitive competencies.
– Family income which was low tended to have children who were
in and would stay in lower two quartile groups for composite
attitudinal competencies.
• Study shows that students can change, although their development
can be reasonably well predicted.
• Links with policy
– When students become disengaged, they do so before 12 years
old.
– Important to make efforts to engage students in their earlier
years.
– Need to provide support for children from disadvantaged homes

and make it ongoing, rather than one off.
– Will new policy and new generation of students show different
scores?
• The strongest correlations with attitude and achievement were, (a)
first a mother’s educational level, and (b) income/socio-economic
status.
• A need for stronger support for students from families with low ma-
ternal qualification levels and low income is suggested a as conclu-
sion from the study.
To this summary we could add a little critique (the obligatory ‘grains of salt’):
“Some limitations of the study were the geographic limits (only Welling-
ton schools were sampled); the sample base was taken from only ECE
students, so did not include Kohanga Reo students; the sample was
biased towards high-income families; and data on school leavers aged
15 upwards were dropped from the study. One could also critique the
choice of factors that were considered—only ‘ethnicity’, ‘age’, ‘home’,
‘leisure’ and ‘education level’ factors were considered (e.g., why not look
at teacher influence, paternal qualifications, etc)—probably had funding
limitations, so not all factors could be covered. There was also the dif-
fered approach to ’attitudinal competencies’ taken for aged 16 onwards,
although they dealt with this adequately by cross-correlation.
“Another critique could be that, had they used alternative assess-
ments of general maternal value placed on education–rather than just
looking at formal maternal qualification level—they might have seen an
even stronger correlation between this factor and cognitive and attitudi-
nal competency. (One can easily imagine there was not enough funding
for such in-depth surveying to be done.)”
Some of these points are discussed below in excerpts from our online Q&A forum.
Links Between the Report and the NZ Working Model for

Educators
[EDITOR: this section is incomplete, I did not want to over-influence anyones exam
answers. I would appreciate more thoughts on this topic throughout the year. For
example in our EPOL courses, will we gain any knew insights that relate to curicu-
lum specific features of PPCT models? That is, do PPCT models need tuning
depending upon the type of subject, or is the model fairly universally applicable
without modification on a per subject basis? I think of computaitonl fluid dynamics
modeling here as an analogy: there is no computer coe that works as a model for
all fluid flow. In fact there are about as many codes as there are types of fluid flow!
Plasmas differ hugely from weakly-ionized and non-ionized fluids, liquid flow differs
markedly from gas flow, turbulent flow requires different models to laminar flow,
flow in tubes differs hugely from free flow, climate models are vastly different from
local weather predictive flow models, and so on.]
Here are some brief points of note about the implications of the Wylie & Hodgen
study for the working model of human development for NewZealand educators. The
working model is of course Bronfenbrenner’s revised ecological model or Person-
Process-Context-Time model (PPCT). You can decide for yourself whether each
point is a weakness or strength.
• The geographic limits of the study, and consequent bais in sampling mainly
studetns from high income families and the studies overall low proportion of
M|aori and Pacific Island studetn populations is a significant limitation with
regard to PPCT modeling.
• For the same reason (not fully representative sampling) the study is of limited
use for informing PPCT model variables related to student diversity.
• The longitudinal time span of the study is a necessary requirement for any
conncetion to the PPCT model, since the PPCT model is very much concerned
with evolution over time and micro-setting continuities and discontinuities
as well as macro-time changes (such as governement policy, school policy,
economic situation, family movements and so forth).
• The study only includes investigation of one inter-generational factor, maternal

qualification level. This is a limititation in regard to the PPCT model, since
it does not provide a full set of data on all the strongest possible interactions
that a student may have that influence their competencies.
• The study does at least identify two dominant influences in childhood compe-
tency development, family income and maternal education level. If these are
assumed to be universally dominant factors then they can provide very useful
input into any concrete model of PPCT ideas, since the variables of any puta-
tive implementation of the PPCT model can be tuned using the report data.
Lesser influences will not effect the model too much provided the time spans
are not extended beyond what the study is limited to, and interrelationships
between factors are not highly non-linear.
• The interrelated cognitive and attitudinal competencey measures are very good
sources of information for any PPCT model. PPCT demands data on such
relationships because PPCT is a highly contextual model.
• The study did not include Kohanga Reo students, and hence probably did not
sample Kura Kaupapa schools either. so there is missing input data that PPCT
would demand. For example, the PPCT model is concerned with language and
semiotics (use of symbols), so in a multicultural society with heavy bicultural
legal demands and dual languages, the data on differences due to language
immersion effects and so forth would be desirable.
• The study did not examine shifts due to government and school policy, not
shifts that may have been influenced my increasing levels of inclusive educa-
tion. Such macro-setting effects are of interest to PPCT models.
• There is little data in the study relating to learning impaired students. Such
data might be very interessting to examine, especially looking at whether at-
titudinal competencies are less tightly correlated with cognitive competencies
for such students. And of course following such correlations over time as in-
clusive education policies become more refined and dominat would be of huge
value to PPCT models.
• The PPCT model is interested in multiple psycho-physical levels, from the

individual to the family and siblings and on up to the culture and global en-
vironment and even world geopolitics and ideology shifts. So the Wylie &
Hodgen report cannot hope to provide data that informs all of these interre-
lated levels. No single sub-million dollar study could acheive this, the data
gathering demands would be prohibitively expensive.
Extended Discussion of the Wylie & Hodgen Report
The online Q&A had some interesting discussion surrounding this report. Part of
the problem relates to interpreting raw data. To some extent, without information
about details of how the data were collected, it is difficult to do more than trust
the conclusiosn of the report authors. If we had more time to study the report for
thesis work then we could dig deeper into the interpretation of the statistics. Here,
for example, is a set of questions from Loesje, followed by some contributed replies.
“According to the Wylie and Hodgen reading, maternal qualification

has a major influence on both the cognitive and social competencies.
“But did these mothers raise these children by themselves? Or is it
that mothers with such qualifications are more likely to be in a job out-
side the house, with the result that the children have been in professional
childcare? If so, does that mean that these children do better at school
because they have had professional early childhood care/education? So
does that credit go to them?
“Or are we talking about mothers with degrees that were at home
looking after their children? If so, doesn’t it make sense to put more
importance on mother education if it has such a major influence?
“And is it really the degree they have in their pocket or is it the
intelligence they hold? What about two generations ago, where mothers
would not go to uni full stop? they might have been smart enough but
they just didnt go because that’s the way things were? Did the children
of these mothers also do better at school?
“To use this information to our advantage we need more information
about these mothers!
“If anybody knows of any research that answers these questions, let
me know!!!
“(I am a mother, I wanna know if I’m doing the right thing for my
own child ha ha)”
While not exactly answering Loesje’s questions, Vivienne added this annecdote,
“Just from personal experience, I was married to a man who was

a talented builder but could not read and write very well (not such
a requirement back in the 70s). I had a degree in education. When
our marriage ended my son lived with his father and my daughter with
myself. My son failed school cert so came to live with me to repeat the
year. He passed with flying colours.
“I understand from this personal experience that my husband did
not see the importance nor did not know how to encourage, motivate or
support our son academically. When he came to live with me for that
year we worked on homework, creating colourful mind maps, sample
short answer and essay writing skills. I downloaded previous exams for
him so that he could learn to read the questions and practice the answers.
I feel my son was also motivated through my own achievements.
“There are many other wonderful attributes my son gained from his
father, however, this experience assists me to make sense of evidence
that educated parents are more likely to have a positive effect on their
children’s learning.
“I hope this wee story helps.”
One question of common concern was how the study may have missed accounting
for “unseen” qualifications of mothers, such as worldly wisdom and personal value
placed upon the importance of education. Consider Nic’s observation,
“It’s a very complicated concept. In my mother’s era—it wasn’t

common for most people, let alone women, to go to University. yet she
was exceptionally literate, highly intelligent, loved teaching us vocabu-
lary and spelling, and provided a very high language rich environment
for my brother and I. She would correct my primary school teacher’s
grammar (if my teacher wrote corrections on homework etc., that were
incorrect)—which was quite hilarious at the time. So our high literacy
and good education at home (Mum didn’t go to work until we were both
in primary school) was definitely not based on Mum’s recorded academic
background, but moreso her natural ability; and her background. I did
find this paper very interesting, given it totally contradicted our family
background/environment. Perhaps it’s more pertinent to our present so-
ciety, where University (and women in University) is more the norm than
the exception. Whereas, in my opinion, it was definitely the opposite 40
years ago. Nic ;-}”
Surely such mothers, and families in general, who place a high value on educa-
tion, would be missed by a longitudinal study that only examined on-paper formal
educational attainments. On this theme, Leah related the following.
“I had also had some thoughts about the maternal qualifications data
on the study, which relates to the place I work now. The study claims
to be able to reasonably predict a child’s achievement level for the com-
petencies at age 16, based on the child’s situation at age 5 (I think I’ve
got that much right). Where I currently work, we run an education pro-
gramme for young mums. One of the tutors of the programme was herself
a young mum, and now has her daughter enrolled on her programme (as
a young mum). At the time the daughter was 5 years old, the tutor
(mother) was not well educated. In the time her daughter has grown up
and before the daughter was 16, the tutor has been involved in further
study and gaining qualifications (and becoming a tutor). How would
this data have been analysed? Would the authors still have predicted
the daughter to have low achievement levels because her mother was not
well educated when she was five? It’s a bit of a mixed up scenario, but
I’m curious if you think there is a possibility of the data being skewed
significantly by parents who further their study at the same time their
children go through school?”
That’s a fair point. Of course we swallow the conclusions of such studies as Wylie
& Hodgens with an appropriate amount of salt. But it could be said that after
statistical averaging the report is actually weaker than it could have been. For
example, suppose W&H were able to grab more funding to deeply investigate the
general wisdom of the surveyed mothers, rather than just looking at their stark
formal educational level, then surely one might expect to see an even stronger
correlation between this sort of ‘unseen’ maternal wisdom and a child’s attainment
success, as described by Nic. That’s just a provocative thought to ponder. Along
the same lines, a detailed look at solo parents and in-particualr solo fathers who
have to take on the role of a mother (so to speak), would be interesting. Might
one hypothesize that in this case the father’s education level would again correlate
most(?) strongly with child success?
Module 1-3: Teacher Knowledge and Reflections

See the Reflections Journal chapter (page 109) of these notes.
The chapter by Grossman A Tale of Two Hamlets seems like a clichéd anecdote, but
I could easily believe it was based on a couple of real experiences. Some people know
a heck of a lot but cannot teach effectively. I think in modern times it is almost
taken for granted (at least in education research circles) that specific pedagogical
content knowledge and contextual knowledge are crucial requirements for any good
teacher, perhaps more crucial than is subject matter knowledge.
It is drilled home to us later on—how important a teachers’ schema’s are—especially
the negative influence of false schemas and prejudices about students. This relates
closely to techer knowledge base and how reflective a teacher is in being preapred
to question, test and ultimatel;y adapt or change their schemas. This is discussed
in more depth in the section reviewing the Timperley& Robinson article on page 97
and extended discussion on page 100).
2. Module 2—Human
Development
Module 2-1: Historical Ideas about Human Devel-

opment
For this module we just read the course notes and then read extra material from
McInerney++. The historical ‘western’ theorists in focus are,
• Early child psychologists
– G. Stanley Hall—foundations of psychology.

– Arnold Gesell—standardized ratings of judgments.
• The Grand Three
– Psychoanalysis—Freud and Erikson

– Behaviorism—Watson and Skinner
– Constructivism—Piaget and Vygotsy
My pithy summary of all this history and philosophizing is in the section of my

Reflection Journal p.112. Further notes on the Three Grand Systems follow.
Psychoanalysis models
Freud’s psychosexual models. Freud’s work is often charicatured as overly

psycho-sexual. His unfortunate choice of terminology for the stages of psychological
development are easy to lampoon. However, the sexual forces that he supposed were
the driving force behind mental development are, in fairness, ill-understood by lay
23
Module 2—Human Development 24
people. The libido is much more than a sexual energy, it is according to Freud’s
work a more general living energy. It’s opposite, the thanaotos or dark energy,
forms the basic dichotomy in Freud’s model of human psychology (echoed later in
the antinomies of Erikson’s eight stages). The notion that the unconscious mind is
a vast reservoir of potentially unresolved tensions and conflict were probably over-
stated by Freud, but he had no knowledge of modern neurological science (his first
specialty) to know any better model. Interpreted in a sympathetic light, and with
the hindsight of modern neurology, I think Freud’s work still has some significance.
The main lesson being to provide as warm, balanced, and loving an environment
one can for all children, so that their development is not hindered by guilt, primed
neuroses and worse. Id. Ego. Superego. Anxiety. Defence mechanisms. Projection.
All of these ideas are useful.
Modern behaviorist research. Chapter 6 of McInerny++ gives a nice overview

of more enlightened behaviorist research. By relaxing the strict robot view of human
beings the modern research ends up being quite valuable and insightful and becomes
a lot closer in spirit to modern constructivism. Some highlights are: Renewed
emphasis on importance of positive feedback. Praising children for good behaviour is
a powerful classroom management method. Direct instruction is a powerful method
for improving performance of low achievers who are still motivated. Something as
banal as classroom seating arrangement can be important (for example, if you want
to stimulate solo or individual study for aa period then the traditional row format
of seating works best).
Erikson’s psychosocial models. Erikson extended and softened Freud’s some-

what harsh approach. The brick and mortar of Erikson’s model is not all that
different from Freud’s. Erikson made note to place more focus on human interre-
lations, rather than the libido and thanatos. So the role of higher levels (family,
culture, and so forth) of social structure play more importance, rather than just
the individual’s mind in itself reacting to the external world. (This same theory-
transition would be echoed later in the way Piaget’s ideas would be modified by
the rediscovery of Vygotsy’s ideas.) Erikson’s eight stages of human life and the
associated ‘crises’ or antinomies that require resolution for healthy development are
worth trying to memorize, if only because they are useful to have in the back of
one’s mind when trying to help (especially younger people) get through difficult
moments in their lives. This is a good refinement and extension of Freud’s stages of
development. The basic lesson from Freud’s model remains largely unaltered.
The course module notes are worth reiterating here:
At each stage there is a potential for positive and negative experi-

ences. Healthy personality on the whole needs positive resolution of these
antinomies. For example, infants who experience consistent loving care
gain a sense of trust in the world, while those who experience neglect
develop mistrust (thats in the birth to 1 yr old stage). With increasing
mobility young children who are given autonomy and support learn that
they can control themselves whereas those who are overly controlled ex-
perience shame and doubt (the 1 to 3 yr old stage). If children are given
freedom to initiate and test new powers of communication and physical
competence they will develop initiative but if they are overly restricted
or made to feel they take too long, or make too much mess, they can
develop a sense of guilt over self-initiated tasks (the 3 to 6 yr old stage).
So you get the idea? The added value on top of Freud’s psychoanalysis was this
more detailed and refined itemization of various stages in mental development. It
is of practical use, since a teacher or guardian can observe children (or youth, or
adults) and try to figure out what issues they are struggling with to resolve, and
provide help by steering the person towards a calm resolution on the positive side
of the antinomy. Thus, for a 7 year old child one would not want to denigrate their
efforts, one should not be dismissive of their attempts at tasks, because they could
be struggling to resolve a sense of industry (getting on with things) versus growing
sensitivity to inferioty, we want to minimize their feeelings of inferiority at this stage.
ASIDE: note that later on in life, the way I interpret Erikson, it might not be such
a bad thing to be more stern with someone older who needs some humility! It is
just around the 6 year to puberty age that Erikson urges we show some empathy
for industrious activity and forgive any seemingly inferior attempts.
Behaviorist models
I think of behaviourism as a minimalist version of learning theory. The big take-away

lesson is that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement
(praise in favour of punishment), and that (say in the classroom) children will tend
to work to avoid negative feedback. Behaviorism was a brave attempt to study
human psychology more scientifically than ever before, but it’s limitations are now
well known. It is none the worse for this, as long as the conclusions of behaviorist
research are not taken out of context. Reinforcement. Extinction. Immitation and
modelling behaviour. Self-efficacy. All are useful thinking tools for analyzing human
behaviour and learning.
Constructivist models
Piaget the biologist. The world owes Piaget and his colleagues an immense
debt of gratitude for the full emancipation of child education from the clutches of
residual Victorianism (or whatever the equivalent flavour of oppression was in other
societies). I do not see anything significantly worng about Piaget’s models, they
work fine for giving teachers some insight into how children can be sympathetically
instructed and aided in developing robust minds and psyches. I do not see why
there is controversy about the cross-cultural studies that ‘contradicted’ Piaget’s
structuralism—I’m sure Piaget himself would have welcomed any such adjustments
to his so-called cognitive constructivist theory, and he would have embraced the
modern nature through nuture thinking. Adaptation. Assimilation. Accomodation.
Schemas. Qualitative stages. It all seems good and useful as a window into human
psychology.
Vygotsky the sociologist. Vygotsky’s own life is a bit of a tragedy, but what a
great thinker and contributor to the field of human developmental psychology. I’d
guess some people have latched on to social constructivism a bit too firmly, but there
seems nothing wrong in the basic ideas. It is only a pity that Vygotsky did not live
long enough to try to develop more universal abstractions from his raw ideas. To the
extent that humans are social creatures (extraordinaire I would argue) Vygotsky’s
ideas, in some form, will never fade out of significance. Vygotsky seems to downplay
the imporance of biology and qualitatively distinct phases in human development,
but who are we to say that had he lived longer he would not have embraced a
lot of what Piaget revealed? I think Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories can easily
be synthesized. Most likely that is exactly what is happening in current research
and policy. Co-construction. Internalization. Appropriation. Zone of proximal
development. Scaffolding. All are neat ideas and relevant.
I particularly enjoy the image of scaffolding. It gives the teacher an active role as
well as the metaphorical excitement of seeing the scaffolding removed revealing a
pristine sculpture—the student who has mastered a subject.
Other Early Theorists of Note
This is a brief sumary of some other human development theorists and other theories
(windows into the world of education) who could be considered pre-modern.
• Jerome Bruner—enactive, iconic and symbolic stages. Sequential instruc-

tion. Personal constructivism. Need for flexible thinking (both analytical and
intuitive). Spiral curriculum (building up layers, towards higher abstraction).

Discovery learning (very effective, hard to implement continuously).
Critics say pure discovery learning is not cost-effort-effective, so guided discov-
ery is often advocated.
• Ausubel—reception learning. Idea that learning is more effective when ex-

amples are presented that meaningfully relate to the students prior knowledge.
Methods such as demonstration, explanation, narration, practice and revision.
• Gestalt psychologists—the ‘ah ha!’ experience. Insightful learning (exciting

to achive the ‘ah ha!’ or ‘eureka!’ moment. Law of similarity, law of proximity,
law of closure, law of continuation. Search for poatterns. Brainstorm and draw
together ideas. Create puzzles and novelty.
Module 2-2: Developmental psychology—ecological

model
This module looks at modern educational psychology, focusing on global ‘theories’
and covering roughly the years 1980 to 2000.
Focus activity: Think again about ideas we have covered about human develop-
ment.
• To what extent are these commonly shared understandings?

This is hard to answer—how do I know they are common? Judging from what
I suppose others think, I would conclude that, generally speaking, most of
the ideas about human development are commonly understood, and there is
little that seems contentious. It is difficult to see any two philosophies that
are truly contradictory in this field, when sympathetically viewed. It seems
to me the ‘different’ theories differ mainly in the relative importance attached
to, and varying focus upon, the various dimensions of the human mind and
of society. This is despite many academics who like to point out ‘huge’ differ-
ences. For example, unless one interprets Piaget literally then there is little
conflict between his ideas and Vygotsy’s. Freud marks a departure in that he
aggressively postulates psycho-sexual causes for most psychological conditions,
but I think modern ideas about Freud’s work have softened the importance of
these aspects without ignoring the main contribution Freud made which was
a recognition of the hidden iceberg of the subconscious. The behaviourists
were just nutty scientists trying to be objective, they simply narrowed the
definitons of learning and as a result came up with some useful findings, which
are fine if viewed within the narrower contexts that they chose to work within
(objective, repeatable, laboratory experiments observing human behaviour).
• How would you define development?
In the context of human psychology I would say that it means the change in
one’s physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual character and personal-
ity over time. It can be negative or positive, progressive (towards goals) or
retrogressive.
The term ‘healthy development’ then generally refers to positive and progres-
sive general development.
• Think about your own development as you moved through the education sys-
tem. Try to use the ideas of one or more theorist to discuss your own devel-
opment.
Refer to the file bms edu autobio.pdf (submitted assignment for EPSY301).
• Jot down some notes, as you think about this. These will be very useful as
you start to work on the assignment. (Refer to the notes below, as well as the
notes above for module 2-1.)
Bronfenbrenner’s models
While I can see that Bronfenbrenner’s “systems view” of human development has
had an impact on education policy and other fields, I still have not quite grasped
what new ideas it contributes that are useful in everyday practice. The ecological
model stresses the interrelatedness of all things. It also stresses the role of time and
context on all levels of the system from the global environment down to economics
and politics, through to society, families, firends and finally the individual. This
model is really just a statement that all the significant factors that play a role
in any individual human’s development are (a) subject to adaptation and change,
(b) include all of the aforementioned levels, (c) include interactions between levels
that are complex or non-linear. So that human education is a life-long process and
is a complex adaptive system.
Because these ecological models are so sweeping and vast in the range of factors
they incorporate, they are less useful, I feel, in providing concrete predictive tools
for education practice. The impact of such models may then be best brought to
bear on policy and guiding philosophy. My fear is that this sort of theorizing can
be taken too often as a substitute for a full recognition of the human spiritual
dimension. Person. Process. Context. Time. All good, they seem to capture most
of what is important (as long as culture is implicitly recognized as part of context).
As a side note: I wonder if many people have realized that general systems theory
might be applicable to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. A useful multidisciplinary
approach to education and learning heory research might be made by thinking about
ecological models in the light of systems theory and information processing theory.
(Bronfenbrenner’s work is reviewed again in Module 3-2.)
Other Theories of Note
This is a brief summary of some other human development theorists and other
theories (windows into the world of education) and models which could be considered
modernist.
• Metacognition—thinking about thinking. Encourage students to think about

how they learn. Demonstrated success in improving student learning. Setting
goals. Selecting strategies. Think about alternative methods. Self-awareness
and self-monitoring. Self-regulated learning. Ask oneself questions. Use re-
flection. Effective use of declarative, procedural and conditional knowledges.
Seek feedback. Make adjustments and adapt.
• Multiple intelligences—people learn in differer ways and have preferred
aptitudes: logico-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial-geometric, bodily
kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, existentialist.
Sternberg’s triarchic model (componential intelligence, experiential intelligence,
practical intelligence). Attempts to provide multiple intelligence theory with
some sort of concept pertinent to ‘everyday success’ which might not involve
any particular expertise. Intelligence viewed more as a sort of mental self-
management.
• Cognitive loading—when learning the working memory of the brain is in
high use, but has limited capacity. When sufficient knowledge transfers to
ones long term memory then interesting reversal effects are seen, e.g., be-
ginners work best when studying worked examples, whereas experts learn and
consolidate more from doing problem solving. Split attention conditions. Dual
coding (audio+visual). Do not repeat redundant information (howto power-
point!).
• Cognitive dissonance—any method that seeks to correct or improve stu-
dent understanding by presenting them with a clear logical paradox between
two or more beliefs they simultaneously accept, forcing them to confront this
dissonance usually results in a positive change in their mental schema. This
could be as simple as rejecting the less attractive idea(s) and adopting the
new idea(s) instead. D.J. Campbell’s podcasts talk about this in more depth.
Similar to Gestalt psychology.
• Learning strategies—Chunking. Story-grammar training (same as anticipa-

tory guides). Self-questioning. Summarization. Mnemonic imagery (acrostics
and acronyms). Representation imagery. Method of loci. Concept mapping.
Repetition and drills. Consolidation of complex task learning via distributed
practice. Placing important information at beginning and ends of lists (to
overcome the serial position effect). Proactive and retroactive facilitation (fol-
low up learning of similar concepts). Avoidance of interference effects (e.g.,
learning to spell ’ie’ words followed by spelling ‘ei’ words). Occam’s razor
(eliminating unnecessary assumptions).
A word of caution about learning strategies (see also the topic for Module 4-1,
page 36): none of the learning strategies are likely to be very effective if the
student is not interested and engaged. Or, in other words, the most effective
teaching strategy is to capture the interest and attention of the student.
• Conceptual complexity—metrics for answering: how many variables are

needed to process information in parallel? (Typically four variables at best.)
Advocates use of segmentation and chunking to overcome these limits. Also
seeks to find the properties of symbolic cognition (as distinguished from sub-
symbolic and associative cognition)? Three posited levels: non-structured,
functionally structure, symbolically structured. Improves predictions e.g., of
what infants are capable of discriminating.
• Prior knowledge activation—for example anticipatory guides (see module

7, and page 75).
3. Module 3—NZ views of Human
Development
Module 3-1: Maori perspectives on human devel-

opment
I found these notes quite interesting. The Maori perspective seems to gel nicely
with constructivist and ecological models of human development. A lot of the basic
spiritual needs of children are annunciated. The metaphors were less helpful in
generating insight, but serve a useful purpose—such as allowing one to easily recall
the basic principles behind te ira tangata (the life principle of people).
Note also the close similarity between Mauri =life force or essence, and Freud’s
concept of libido. It seems Maori culture had an implicit undestanding of modern
social constructivist principles, making it all the more tragic to read the data in the
reports by Wylie & Hodgen and Jill Bevan-Brown’s analysis.
Module 3-2: Ecological Models of Human Devel-

opment
The course notes summarize Bronfenbrenner’s revised ecological model—his so-
called Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model. The importance of change over
time is emphasized and links with the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of
Children are made. I have made additional notes above (see p.28).
Focus Activity. Referring to David Eklind’s notion of the modern “hurried child”,
we are asked to Write a list of as many different settings we can identify which the
typical young child experiences in the span of about a week. Here’s my list.
31
Module 3—NZ views of Human Development 32
Daily: Being woken up somehow; Breakfast (or not!); Meeting friends at school;
Sitting/working in class (and maybe learning); Playing at break-times, possibly
having fun, possibly being bullied; Having afternoon doldrums and tiredness in class;
Walking home (or socializing after school); Playing after school; Doing homework;
Eating dinner; Interrogation by parents (nicely or horribly!); Being ordered (nicely
or horribly) to go to bed; Dreaming (anxiously or happily).
Weekly (not for just one single child): Practicing a hobby (artistic, musical or sport);
Learning a new language; Shopping (alone or with a parent or guardian); Attending
extra-curricula classes or clubs (athletics, swimming, tennis, cricket, rugby practice
or any sports club, music, drama or any arts club); Playing at a friends place;
Being disciplined or rewarded at home; Reading a book; Watching TV; Renting and
watching a DVD; Playing video/computer games.
Monthly: Interacting (or not) with visitors (welcome or unwelcome!) to the family
home; Being disciplined at school; Being rewarded at school; Being disciplined or
rewarded at home; Going to see a movie; Working on a hobby project.
Comment on Eklind’s notion. I am not convinced that the perceived increase

in the demands upon children, and the more chaotic schedules they may be subjected
to, are completely good or bad. It would depend upon their motives and the motives
of their parents or guardians who are subjecting them to busy schedules. If a child
desires and craves a lot of activity it might be unfair not to grant them reasonable
outlets. However, anecdotal stories can be found suggesting parents and guardians
can cause unnecessary stress in children under their care by demanding such hectic
activity. The quality of the activity is also paramount—if it is stressful and negative
one can easily foresee a negative influence on the child’s development that may
persist longer into youth and even adulthood, which may not be a healthy thing.
The PPCT Model as a Working Model for Human Develop-

ment in New Zealand
The course Module Notes suggest Bronfenbrenner’s revised ecological model PPCT)
is a good working model for New Zealand human development. There are probably
few who would debate this. However, there is nothing particularly ‘Kiwi’ in flavour
about the model other than it’s appeal to holism and ecological principles and
metaphors, which could eb said to accord quite well with Maori and Polynesian
perspectives on human development.
Melissa Lovie had these thoughts about interpreting Bronfenbrenner for Aotearoa,
“. . . from my interpretation, it relates to NZ educators because as

teachers, we are expected to understand and get to know our learners
individually. This requires us to acknowledge and try to understand
many factors about our students including their biological, behavioural
and emotional qualities, the timing and setting of their development
(i.e., what is the community? Who are our students associating with?
Where do they live geographically? etc) because as the module states,
‘the time, place, circumstance and community into which the child is
born will dictate the direction and shape that development takes’—This
is where the PPCT model comes into it. (I think!)
“The module also discusses the concept of micro and macro time.
Micro time refers to the conscious and unconscious interactions that
take place in the short term, for example, daily, weekly and monthly.
Macro time is change that happens in the larger context of society and
community over time, which can occur within and across generations.
The way that I feel this relates to NZ educators is that we need to be
aware of what changes are occurring and what effects these will have on
learners, both individually and as a collective group.
“The recent implementation of NZ standards for reading, writing and
arithmetic, is an example of a Macro-time event where the expectations
for schooling have changed and as such an intervention has been imple-
mented.
“Not sure if this is correct or even whether I have helped to shed
some light on your question, but hopefully it will give you some sort of
direction for further investigation.”
Fiona Lanyon added,
“Another example of the macro time factors influencing today’s chil-

dren is the recent/current recession which would affect family finances,
possible job losses for parents and caregivers. This has potential to cross
generations to grandparents (who can also be caregivers), who may have
been raised in the 1930’s depression years. The impact on the children
can be seen on financial ‘belt tightening’, stress within the home and
worse case scenario, an increase in violence and parent separation. All
these factors would influence the learner within the NZ education sys-
tem.”
Oldrisa had another take on this topic, relating it to the Wylie & Hodgen Competent
Leaners @ 16 report. In her words, Oli “wanted to find limitations that relate to
the PPCT model.”
“I have been thinking about cultural tools, and how that fits in with
this model. Looking at the context in which a child learns, means looking
at what tools they have available to facilitate learning, such as computers
and the internet. Do these developments of technology occur in macro-
time? Also, not all learners within New Zealand will have access to the
internet, whether by choice i.e., Steiner School, or because of remote lo-
cation or lack of funding. Available tools for learning may vary between
schools, i.e., private versus state. Just a thought, as the Wylie study
sample was soley from Wellington, this restricts the sample geographi-
cally. Does the sample take into account the context for learning and the
effects of that on student’s competency and outcomes, aside from ma-
ternal education and family income. Moving schools, family seperation,
moving cities and disruptions to ‘enduring forms of interaction’ would
surely all influence an individuals learning as would things such as the
recession as others have mentioned and are not accounted for. Sorry my
ideas are a bit scattered, as I too am trying to relate the PPCT model to
teaching in NZ schools, as well as to the past exam topic of limitations
in the Wylie study. I would be interested to hear what peoples thoughts
are.”
There ensued a little mini-debate about whether the Wylie & Hodgen report really
had any bearing upon the Bronfenbrenner ecological working model for New Zealand.
Some colleagues advocated caution in taking the findings of the Competent Leaners
@ 16 report finding too far. We have noted the limitations of the study before. No
longitudinal study can assess all factors unless cost was of no importance! Others
thought Oli had a good point. Cherie noted,
“On page 17 of the Wiley report it states, ‘The attitudinal compe-

tencies appear more strongly related to the students’ current situation:
the current family income; peer pressure and school culture.’ I think this
relates somewhat to what you have stated Oldriska. There is a correla-
tion to the familys’ income and student attitude. In light of our current
economic situation, students whose families are feeling the pressure of
diminished income will feel the impact and this will likely have an ad-
verse affect on the students’ attiudes toward school thus requiring more
support from the school to fill the void.”
To which caution in data interpretation was again urged. Oli responded,
“In my opinion a reduced income could put a huge burden on a family

and this could affect a child’s focus and motivation in their school work.
Yes, it is a nice thought that parents with a reduced income will be

able to spend more time with their children, and this obviously does
happen in many families, however for some it may also result in stress,
depression, and tensions within family, especially families who have a
low income to start off with. Some families in the recent depression have
lost their sole income. For some it isn’t a matter of cutting out outings
etc, it is really a matter of paying bills and survival. For some the effects
of the recession have not been as temporary as for others and the effects
could be ongoing.”
It is correct to note that the Competent Learners @ 16 report should not be too
harshly criticized for veering away from Bronfenbrenner’s model. Such studies have
to be taken for what they are, to paraphrase one colleague. Again, the issue of
research funding crops up—how much money would it take to fully analyze New
Zealand education through the lens of Bronfenbrenners PPCT model? Billions of
dollars probably. Nevertheless, Oldriska has given some interesting angles to look at,
and this is just a start on thinking about the ecological PPCT model as particularly
relevant to New Zealand.
[EDITOR: we’d love to get more thoughts on PPCT as a working model for NZ
educators. For example, how can it inform us and help us overcome the education
and poverty gaps that prevail in Aoteroa? Is there anything unique or special about
New Zealand that the PPCT model can shed light upon? Or are our social inequal-
ities pretty much universal—the same in basic form as many other mixed culture
countries? And isn’t that really how we should be thinking about our beautiful
country—as mixed in culture—rather than just ‘bicultural’ or ‘multicultural’ as if
the culture’s are immiscible like oil and water!? Or is that a bit controversial? We
do not want to dilute any culture for example, to extend the fluid analogy.]
4. Module 4—Learning and
Motivation
Module 4-1: Overview of ‘theories’ of learning and

learning styles
One of the objective of this module is to gain an introductory knowledge about
learner needs. Leah noted that this relates to satisfying children’s physiological
and safety needs prior to them being able to learn—some of Freud’s theory and
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (McInerney & McInerney, p.445) relate to this. In its
crudest form, it states that there are fundamental needs that need to be satisfied so
a child can process new information. Without basic needs met (food, shelter, feeling
a sense of belonging, etc) their defense mechanisms can kick in, which can reduce
their productivity and capacity to achieve.
Previously, Module 2-2 discussed many learning strategies related to various educa-
tional psychology theories. We noted that none of the learning strategies are likely
to be very effective if the student is not interested and engaged. Or, in other words,
the most effective teaching strategy is to first capture the interest and attention of
the student. It is worth keeping this in mind when discussing learning styles. “The
teaching of cognitive strategies to students should emphasise that the learner must
construct meaning from the material, otherwise strategies may become harmful and
simply be used by students to commit facts and definitions to memory without any
real meaning or applied value for the individual” (McInerney & McInerney, 2006,
page 115).
Classic Learning Theories
In this module we reviewed ideas and philosophies on how people learn, as advocated
by,
36
Module 4—Learning and Motivation 37
• Behaviorists—Watson, Skinner.
This is a narrow view but has some important universal implications. From
the behaviorist perspective ‘learning’ is simply a change in behaviour, which is
a restriction of more liberal concepts of learning. Also, promoting learning can
be accomplished by providing rewards—also a narrow view of more modern
liberal ideas about effective teaching methods. One important behaviorist
finding is that positive feedback is more effective than negative feedback. A
good way to learn new complex concepts is to begin with discrete parts and
gradually build up to wholes.
• Cognitive constructivists—Piaget.
These ideas had good backing from research, as do behaviorist principles, but
again are found to be too narrow to capture many important factors. In cogni-
tive constructiveness the child is assumed to learn by itself with external stimuli
providing the grist. The structural stages identified by Piaget imply that ex-
ternal stimuli should be provided that match the child’s stage of development
(sensory-motor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational).
• Social constructivists—Vygotsky.
Learning is a social activity (not simply internalized as in Piaget’s philosophy);
we learn best in our zone of proximal development (ZPD—the gap between
what we can learn without assistance and what we can learn only with assis-
tance, and the gap to what we cannot learn even when assisted); and teachers
(‘knowledgeable others’) should approach their job by building the intellectual
scaffolding required for understanding concepts or whatever, to bridge across
the ZPD gaps, and then gradually remove it leaving pure understanding (I
don’t really understand exactly what this means for teaching practice, but I
get the gist of it, it’s just a metaphor: to build a nice structure you might
need a lot of temporary scaffolding that will be later removed.).
Both flavours of constructivism have much in common and little to distinguish them
in terms of principles that promote effective learning. If one imagines twisting and
warping Piaget’s cognitive constructivism a little then basically the same ideas be-
hind what effective learning needs to involve become almost identical with Vygotsky,
with the only differences being relative weights or importances for various learning
factors. For example, in both philosophies one cannot learn effectively if one is not
ready or prepared to learn; and in both philosophies this involves interaction with
the environment (society or whatever).
Progress on understanding learning. In recent years views on learning have

merged a lot. One senses this even with a modest survey of the literature. One
strong emergent theme is that social context is always important, so that one cannot
isolate a unique set of teaching methods or styles that will work across the board
in every country, or even in every school in one country. Cultures are diverse and
people as individuals are diverse. Individuals themselves change over time in their
needs, motives and abilities. Hence diverse teaching methods and styles are always
needed to make teaching and learning effective. One can even now say that new
teaching methods may need to be continually developed to reach the full potential
inherent in any given student. A banal example is the use of video games as learning
tools–something that was not possible a generation ago.
Before going on to discuss the required course reding for Module 4-1, we have inserted
here more notes on learning theory. These concern mainly the very rich information
processing models of learning.
Useful Models for Learning
Memory. Cognitive load theory and evidence suggests humans learn using a work-
ing memory subsystem in our brains, it is like a fast processor and RAM, but limited
in capacity like computer RAM. We have to work fairly hard then to imprint ideas
and connections between them into long term memory, which is almost endless in
storage ‘space’. If we use up our RAM then learning becomes less efficient, so the
model goes. It is interesting to look at why we have difficulty remembering things
and how we can do a better job of remembering, since this is such a critical aspect
of any learning. Basically, we want to do some metacognition and figure out how
to make efficient use of working memory and how to store memories for easy recall.
There are many techniques that help.
Some reasons why we forget things, and in italics ways to counter them,:
• Insufficient initial transfer to long-term memory

—recovering information from fragments is hard. Best to distribute learning of
complex topics over a longer period rather than try to absorb all in a short time
with intensive effort. Develop habit of always summarising a long topic, e.g.,
making a synopsis. This could be in words or words & pictures for even bet-
ter recall (concept mapping, mind maps, brainstorm notes, etc, see McInerney
pages 111–113.). Use more effective intial learning strategies, such as PQ4R
(Preview–Questions–Read–Reflect–Recite–Review) procedures. Activate prior
knowledge before embarking on intensive learning (anticipatory guides). Use
whole-part teaching: for complex knowledge structures that can be broken down
into simpler parts, first provide elementary schema in discrete parts, then con-
solidate as a whole. Do not use whole-parts for knowledge that is holistic and
irreducible to parts.
Most of the above are learner strategies that teachers can help students use.
Teachers themselves can help by taking note of learning effects, such as the
serial position effect—students tend to fall asleep or wander in attention in
the middle of long sequences of instructions. In particular, a lot of talk and
lecturing can be wasted time, better to hand out printed notes and engage
students in active tasks that require reading the notes. The teacher then only
needs to quickly summarize the layout and purpose of the notes. See also the
next paragraphs on memory enhancement.
Other teacher behaviours that help are:
Providing opportunities for active involvement. Multiple and varied types of
teaching. Stimulate higher cognitive processes, such as all the various metacog-
nitive theory tricks. Mkae sure lessons are coherant and not too chotic and
make themrelevant to students interests. Use plenty of corrective and positive
feedback. Use assessment as a way to jog memory. Make it clear when novel
information is about to be given. Use analogies and relations between current
topics and past lessons. Build on prior knowledge.
• Un-used memory fades
—consolidate memory using refreshers. Don’t sweat it if you forget, maybe it
was never that important. Keep off-brain memory, such as log books, computer
notes, etc, lots of bookmarks basically oprganized for fairly rapid access when
needed. Be systematic abot organizing web browser bookmarks for example.
• Inability to retrieve cues
—learn stronger simpler cues. Use acrostics, anagrams, method of loci, and
other memory recall tricks. Make extensive use of good analogies. If appro-
priate, resort to practice and drills, provided a basis in deep understanding
is given along the way. Use dual coding (e.g., audio+visual) especially when
split-attention material is presented.
• Interference and confusion
—try to sequence learning in short chunks that do not overlap or interfere.
Test recall before moving on to acquire potentially interferring knowledge.
Do you think it is interesting that the problems of memory retention are few in
category but many in solution?
Finally, in this subsection on memory, here are some links between information pro-
cessing model of learning and constructivist philosophy, c.f. McInerney & McInerney.
The idea is for the teacher to teach students the following metacognitive tools,
• focus on understanding
• practice applying strategies to new situations and new domains
• think deeply rather than superficially, allow time to meditate
• consciously make connections to familiar material
• monitor self performance and monitor strategy use, find out what works best
for you.
Teachers can help do these things by,
• allow students to construct their knowledge with scaffolding help
• use groups to create diverse view points and input
• monitor student progress
• encourage questions and free-flowing debate and criticism
• encourage application of knowledge to new situations
• model constructive learning by using completely novel problems and solve

them in real time in front of students and using student suggestions
• for assessment make clear and emphasize testing for understanding rather than
fact retrieval
• always be aware that offering unsolicited help can be counter-productive, wait-

ing instead for students to ask for help can be better for their self-esteem, so
devise ways to encourage studetns to freely ask for help.
A last bit of theory is that all of these learning strategies and the later motivational
strategies and metacogitive techniques are only means to an end. They are not
ends in themselves, unless one’s purpose is research into learning theory. So while
a teacher will want to familiarize students with these methods, even putting names
to them, the methods should not end up dominating class discussion. For otherwise
students will end up being experts on how to learn, say, foreign languages, rather
than becoming experts in the actual foreign language of itself.
Learning Styles
Next we discuss learning styles and the article by Cullen. We note a few traps that
teachers can fall into if they take an overly rigid view of these ideas (such as the
stubborn view that might be expressed by, “I know what my best style is so that’s
how I will teach!”).
The required reading for this module is (Cullen, 2001), and we are urged to take
notes.
Cullen begins by summarizing behaviorism, cognitive constructivism and social con-
structivism. Along the way she introduces important topics such as,
• The information processing metaphor (working and long term memory, audio
and visual processors).
• Meta-cognition (thinking about thinking).
• Schemas (internal representations we make of the world, combining objects

and ideas and relationships into a single ‘chunk’ of cognitive memory).
• Importance of interaction and context.
• The learning zone (ZPD) and scaffolding.
• Co-construction (knowledge and meaning can be collective, shared, jointly

constructed).
• Post-Vygotskian theory is now multidisciplinary and research has broadened

away from just “focus on the individual learner”.
Cullen then lists six related propositions about how students learn that had implica-
tions for instruction (citing research by Jones, Palingscar, Ogle and Carr), quoting
(Cullen, 2001, p.52) “learning is:
• Goal-orientated.
• Linking new information to prior knowledge.
• Organizing information.
• Acquiring a repertoire of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies.
• Occurs in phases yet is nonlinear.

• Influenced by development.”
The social context is then woven in by introducing the ideas of Vygotsky and his
idea of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Cullen notes that the two research
fields of (i) learning and (ii) development, have converged somewhat in that they
both “draw upon interactive and contextual explanations”.
Cullen then discusses New Zealand research on learning. There seem to be some
important missing elements in the overview of learning theories discussed by Cullen.
In particular I was worried to read that Cullen discusses only three “basic questions
that teachers can use to help understand the nature of children’s learning:”, these
are given as,
• “What knowledge base does the learner bring to the activity?
• What strategies is the learner using?
• What evidence is there of socially constructed learning?”
These three basic questions seem insufficient to me. One must also inquire into the
spiritual development of each child and offer them support in opening their inner
eyes and ears to the unseen world of the human spirit. Piaget thought that only
mature youth in the formal operational stage of development could comprehend
abstractions, but this denies the possibility that elementary abstractions can be
grasped by even young children. My feeling is we should not assume this is so, and
endeavor to open the eye of all students at all stages to the realm of abstraction,
through the most elementary instinctual spiritual qualities such as beauty, fairness
and honesty.
As illustrations Cullen discusses three research examples that demonstrate answers
to some of the above three questions. First, observations of play amongst 3-to-4 year
olds: showing that children could initiate complex activities but they would often
dissipate unless adults made some input which increased the complexity and pro-
longed the learning experience. Second, findings from the “Understanding Learning
and Teaching Project”, due to Nuthall as cited in (Cullen, 2001, p.58), such as “it
is the whole of what goes on in classrooms that determines how children think and
learn”—in particular—both public discussion and private talks promote learning;
relationships with other students influence participation; and differences in indi-
vidual background knowledge do not relate directly to the amount learned. The
third example given by Cullen looks at strategies used to teach mathematics, citing
research by Anthony (Cullen, 2001, p.60), which identified six strong barriers to
learning in the mathematics domain:
1. The barrier of failing to recognize a cognitive problem exists.
2. The barrier of insufficient strategic knowledge.
3. Applying sufficient strategic knowledge incorrectly.
4. The barrier of not desiring remediation (wanting to be spoon-fed).
5. The learning environment is not supportive of strategy use or mistakes (allow-

ing textbook explanations rather than insisting students reinterpret or para-
phrase and summarize).
Then three implications for classroom instruction were suggested to overcome these
barriers,
1. Give students access to relevant prior knowledge and meta-cognitive knowl-

edge.
2. Teach a variety of strategies.
3. Provide sufficient opportunity for students to use various strategies.
(I would add that instructors should also provide a motivational spark to get students
out of slumps and show them the intrinsic beauty or thrill of learning.)
Cullen warns that more research is needed on the dynamics of classroom life beyond
the curriculum. Teachers need to related subject material to the student’s lives,
making learning relevant.
Next, Cullen summarizes what research has taught us all about learning, under the
section “What is Learning?”:
• learning is strategic
• learning is reflective
• learning involves content and processes
• learning involves shared interests
• learning is socially constructed
• learning is influenced by motivation and personal goals

to which I would add true learning implies deep understanding and connection of
knowledge with ever larger contexts, for example, learning how to find the extremums
of a curve could eventually be related to the concept of optimization and the beauty
of least action principles.
Cullen then notes that research cannot yet tell us what mix or importance weights
of these six aspects dominates in a particular context. Then the bombshell is that
there is no research to date that documents “convincingly that children’s cognitive
functioning improves as a consequence of informal instruction” 1 (Cullen, 2001, cit-
ing research by Day, Cordon and Kerwin from 1990), and “In 2000 there was still
little knowledge about the long-term impact of pedagogies that draw upon social con-
structivist perspectives” (Cullen, 2001, p.65). That’s extraordinary—so the main
thrust of modern academic ‘theory’ of learning (social constructivism) has very lit-
tle research proof of it’s efficacy.
I also thought the five final principles given by Cullen (from the research of Alexander
& Murphy) were incomplete, but otherwise of value. These were five principles that
should “guide educators in the provision of learner-centered education”, they are:
1. One’s existing knowledge serves as the foundation for all future learning through
processes such as guiding, organising, associating and filtering.
2. The ability to reflect on and regulate one’s thoughts and behaviors is essential
to learning and development.
3. Motivational and affective2 factors, and motivational characteristics of learning

task, play a significant role in the learning process.
4. Learning is influenced by individual differences and developmental pathways

that reflect both inherited and experiential factors.
5. Learning is as much a socially shared understanding as it is an individually

constructed enterprise.
What I think is missing here is again a spiritual dimension. I would for example
add the following sixth principle of guidance for teachers,
• Children can not only comprehend the abstract by aid of the concrete, they can
also comprehend concrete concepts by aid of the abstract (e.g., understanding
1
Emphasis added.
2
An ‘affect’ is something that excites emotions (typically positive, generating likability), in
other words, something that causes affection. However in psychology the word can mean exciting
negative (disaffection) or positive affection.
the power of unity can lead to knowledge about what to do in a real conflict),
so learning should include training for the soul, not just for he mind.
The guts of this topic is well summarized by the last sentence of the module precis:
Effective teachers use a variety of presentation/teaching strategies to

help all learners.
Module 4-2: Motivation

There are two required readings for this module: (McInerney & McInerney, 2006,
Ch.7) and (Boekaerts, 2002). This is a critical section I felt, so I took copious notes.
There are many more lists of things that teachers should endeavor to do. Rather
than be overwhelmed by all the lists and advice from the various theorists, I think
the salient approach is to just read and try to absorb it as much as possible. Most of
the advice is similar and common sensical, but some of it—when put into practice—
requires careful, astute observation of one’s students in order to select appropriate
classroom strategies to raise motivation levels. There are also two focus activities.
The first focus activity:
• Take a moment to think about the way you are motivated. Draw a continuum
with Intrinsic motivation on one end and Extrinsic motivation on the other.
• Try to identify activities or events in your life that you can place on the
continuum. For example, you may have had one job that you did because you
loved it. At another time you may have had a job that you did only for the
money.
My Extrinsic↔Intrinsic motivation diagram is given in Figure 4.1. I became a bit

bored of this activity. I thought of many more activities that would only litter
the diagram, but I think the pattern that emerged with just these few identified
activities/events is quite revealing.
The second focus activity:
1. Think about your own experiences of motivation as a learner. Identify two

examples of times when you were motivated and two examples of times when
you were not motivated.
Extrinsic Both
Intrinsic
o /
Writing IRL Reports GNU Hacking Studying GA

(employment motive) (job advancement↔fun) (aesthetic pleasure)
Passing exams Exercising Studying Lie algebra

(academic achievement) (+ve health↔self-image) (aesthetic pleasure)
Educating daughters Studying classical mechanics

(social obligation↔love) (aesthetic pleasure)
Tutoring Studying philosophy

(money↔enjoyment) (aesthetic pleasure)
Figure 4.1: A map of some of my personal activities rated on the intrinsic-extrinsic

motivation axis.
2. Write a commentary of your motivation using the ideas presented in this mod-
ule.
3. Post your example and your commentary to Forum Two.
Here is my contribution for the second focus activity:
One situation I remember vividly when I was highly motivated was

in my 7th form year studying for Bursary and Scholarship exams. I
recall no one at my school thought anyone would win a scholarship apart
from one exceptional genius who happened to be my best friend. I was
determined to prove everyone wrong (Boekaerts, 2002; the 4th principle).
I studied like mad, not very systematically, but did enough to be awarded
a university scholarship. The motivation was only partly extrinsic as just
described, since I also loved the subjects I was studying. So I was tapping
both the good and bad aspects of Boekaert’s 4th principle (mastery-
orientation and ego-orientation).
A second good example arose when I had to write a magnetohy-
drodynamics simulation code for a research project. I was not really
experienced enough, but I had a colleague share some simple code which
got me started. I spent many 36 hour days working on the job because
I did not want to disappoint the project leader—who I thought of as an
older brother, a true friend—and so I got the job done in time. I was also
intrinsically motivated because I found producing realistic simulations of
plasma fluids very interesting and when the code worked it was a delight
(positive feedback=good—c.f. B.F. Skinner).
A sad moment in my life occurred a couple of times when I was trying

to ‘learn-on-the-job’. I had a report to write and I had not spent enough
time in the laboratory to gather enough data for a respectable report.
My boss (this one not a friend) criticized my draft report and offered
no positive feedback. As a result I was thoroughly de-motivated and al-
though I had six months to gather more data for the final report, I really
felt mentally ill and under pressure and I worked much less efficiently
as a result. I was putting in a lot of effort but getting no perceived
value (stimulus, encouragement) q.v. (Boekaerts, 2002; the 5th princi-
ple). Plus I had more interesting research hobbies that I would focus on
outside of work hours, so this slowed me down at work (Boekaerts, 2002;
the 8th principle—my work and play goals were not entirely compatible).
Another more humorous episode occurred when I first moved to the
USA. I was completely unmotivated about driving a car over there, I pre-
ferred to bike (a) because work was within biking distance and (b) be-
cause the sight of all the SUV’s and gas-guzzling American automobiles
sickened me. There was a theory test (learning the USA road code) and
a simple practical test. Before the theory test I had a quick read of the
US road codes as I was waiting in the queue, so I new the test was simple,
almost laughably so, but I got one too many (multiple choice) questions
wrong! I was so embarrassed having to resit the test that I swatted like
a college student the next time. One could argue I was motivated by
fear of failure, (Boekaerts, 2002; 2nd principle), which is not considered
a very stable form of motivation, but since this was a highly transient
task it was no problem to be motivated in this way.
Bonus case: I am increasingly unmotivated to do fill our dish-washer
because my wife always reorders the dishes afterwards. The reward of
getting the dish washing done is removed. I have intrinsic interest in
doing the dishes to keep the kitchen clean, so this will sustain my efforts
for a while (until I get sick of hearing the dish-washer being re-stacked).
One wonders if the fear of failure possibly motivating our sports teams like the All
Blacks is something that should be overcome or replaced, since they will tend to be
continually needing to deal with the associated stress. It would be better if they were
most highly motivated by the desire to play a perfect game, since that is something
that is stable and can be continually striven for in a positive way.
Teaching Practices that Encourage Intrinsic Motivation
The essentials for stimulating intrinsic motivation are considered to be:

• Level of challenge—provide tasks that test students in an interesting way

(in a way that interests the student).
• Prior interests—build upon students’ prior knowledge and interests.
• Curiosity—provide surprise and enthralling activities,
• Sense of autonomy—allow students to make decisions about classroom man-

agement; allow them to make choices about what materials or procedures to
try; and give students a chance to self-evaluate and to test different strategies
and skills.
• Fantasy and simulation—acting out scenarios, role playing, play games that
have a clear learning objective.
• Active involvement—create situations that students can actively participate

in.
• Positive feedback—provide as often as you can, make it immediate and

appropriate.
• Sense of achievement—Give students time to set and achieve goals.
• Peer interaction—allow work groups and cooperation and task sharing.
• Autonomy development—provide opportunities for students to determine

things and show initiative.
• Provide a model—showing intrinsic motivation through outward behaviour

will enable students to pick up on it (infectious enthusiasm).
• Safe environment—provide a safe, trusting and supportive environment so

that students feel ok about making honest mistakes and ask questions.
• Expect success—expect the best from students, make sure they know that
you expect them to succeed.
• Show ever greater contexts—allow students to understand the big picture,

and teach towards spiritual goals such as love of knowledge, appreciation of
beauty, warmth of generosity and so on.
Note on self-determination theory—c.f. Ed Deci’s research. I found this

to be quite interesting (McInerney & McInerney, 2006, p.212–213). Research shows
all people have basic psychological needs,
• Competence—happy about abilities.

• Relatedness—need for a sense of worth.
• Autonomy—feeling of having some control, able to exercise some initiative.
Deci and colleagues believe these three needs are key for enabling people to internal-
ize extrinsic motivations, i.e., turn initially extrinsic motivation into good intrinsic
motivation. Another key finding was that,
“Tangible rewards tend to decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas pos-

itive feedback enhances intrinsic motivation.”
—Ed Deci, quoted in (McInerney & McInerney, 2006, p.212).
Expectancy-value theory. In this model students are classified along a spec-

trum from high need achievers and at the other end low need achievers. Strong
performance and motivation occur when there is a high expectancy of success and a
high perceived value for that success. The values were broken down into,
• attainment value
• intrinsic value
• utility value
• costs.
The implications for teaching practice are,
1. Set challenging but realistic goals

2. Be vigilant of bad (i) failure avoiding strategies (no go, no effort, false effort,
irrationally high goals), and bad (ii) success-guaranteeing strategies (cheating,
low goals, over-striving).
3. Increase expectancy of success by,
(a) help students do things associated with successful learning (ask questions,
reflect, research,. . . )
(b) teach students meta-cognition and study strategies

(c) provide individual support (tutoring, automated techniques or whatever)
4. Enhance utility value by,
(a) help students clarify actions and consequences

(b) ensure effort and achievement are positively recognized
(c) be equitable about dispensing awards
(d) ensure students understand consequences of long-term effort
(e) support students with long-term goals when parental support is lacking.
5. Enhance attainment value by,
(a) find out what values students place on the school work and then relate
this to the effort they expend
(b) reinforce student awareness of the harm of not making an honest effort
(c) model positive consequences of effort and achievement and reinforce with
appropriate rewards.
Still on the topic of expectancy theory. A note of caution: optimistically positive

teacher expectations need to be backed-up by effective teaching, otherwise the well-
intentioned expectations will be largely useless!
Attribution theory. In this theory students are assumed to attribute their suc-
cess and/or failure to specific causes. If they attribute it to the wrong cause then
the alert teacher should pick up on this immediately and correct the attribution.
Eventually a teacher will want to steer any attributions of success towards ability
and effort (rather than luck or ease of task); and likewise they will want attributions
of failure to move towards lack of effort and luck/silly mistakes (rather than lack
of ability or difficulty of task). So there are simplistically four types of cause of
success/failure:
1. ability
2. effort
3. task difficulty
4. luck
(This list has been refined by theorists as noted in the course notes for this module.)
Each cause is situated on four control dimension axes:
1. internal–external
2. stable–unstable
3. controllable–uncontrollable
4. global–specific
One wants to steer students towards dimensions that lead to increased self-esteem
and control. When failure occurs we do not want it to be due to any stable dimen-
sions (e.g., too difficult=stable+external; or lack ability=stable+internal), so we’d
lower the difficulty in these cases. If failure is attributed to a specific task then the
student need not feel too bad, it’s not a global failure. For success one wants to steer
students clear of attributions that are external (i.e., due to luck=external+unstable;
or ease of task=stable+external+stable) since they do nothing or little to bolster
motivation or self-esteem.
Weiner’s contributions to attribution theories. Bernard Weiner has two re-

lated theories, one for intrapersonal behaviour (striving for success) and one for
interpersonal behaviour (evaluating failure/success of others). In his theory most
effects of motivation and attributions can be analyzed by considering how a person
(1) thinks (attributes causes), then (2) feels (emotions about failure/success) and
then (3) acts on these thoughts and emotions. They key to good motivation is to
then either positively reinforce, or negatively reinforce the student, or do nothing,
according to whether they have correctly attributed causes and responded in the
best way or not. Weiner gives some examples:
• Success at an easy task ⇒ do not provide positive reinforcement, rather provide

a more challenging task.
• Failure at an easy task ⇒ provide negative reinforcement, but also provide

support.
• After failure at a doable task, and the student thinks they lack ability or effort
⇒ do not offer sympathy, offer concrete support instead.
• If a student thinks they lack ability ⇒ do not automatically offer unsolicited

help, wait until they ask for help or sensitively manipulate them so that they
ask for help (otherwise you’ll reinforce their belief that they lack ability).
• Never provide unneeded help (it is unneeded!), for otherwise the effect will
almost always be to demotivate.
This set of ideas seems very behaviorist in flavour, however the logic seems to make
sense. I personally would not ever advocate expressing anger at a student, as Weiner
seems to recommend (McInerney & McInerney, 2006, as quoted on p.229), rather
in the face of a failure due to lack of effort or failure on an easy task I would
recommend a teacher counsel the student to explore why they either lacked effort
or avoided success. For success on an easy task one need not comment but merely
give the student a more challenging task.
Goal theory.
• Mastery goal lef trightarrow desire to succeed for intrinsic pleasure of mas-
tering the task.
• Achievement goal lef trightarrow desire to succeed for sense of self-worth or

recognition.
• Morality goal lef trightarrow a desire to help others and cooperate, often leads
to effective learning.
These seem closely related to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation discussed above.
This area of research shows quite conclusively that students with a mastery orien-
tation tend to develop deeper strategies, are more meta-cognitive, are more self-
regulated, and demonstrate more efficient recall from long term memory. Achieve-
ment oriented students on the other hand are complex—they are more easily ‘un-
done’, more likely to withdraw from difficult tasks (to, perhaps paradoxically, avoid
low achievement), are more inclined to let laziness get the better of them, more likely
to decline at school as demands increase, are more likely to cheat. A strongly achieve-
ment oriented student can also be trained to develop stronger mastery orientation—
the teacher just needs to demonstrate ‘the pleasure of finding things out’. See the
Reflection Journal (115) for (another list of) ways to spot mastery (alternatively
achievement) oriented students.
Boerkaerts’ principles for motivation. The final set of ideas for this section
come from the booklet written by Monique Boerkaerts (Boekaerts, 2002). Nine key
principles of motivation for learning;
1. Motivational beliefs can act as favorable contexts for learning—so use

each student’s beliefs about motivation to “make good use of their favorable
motivational beliefs and prompt them to reconsider unfavorable beliefs”.
2. Students are not motivated to learn in the face of failure—so help

them to experience some success.
3. Students who value the learning activity are less dependent on en-
couragement, incentives and reward—so help students find value and/or
personal meaning and worth in a subject.
4. Students who are mastery-oriented learn more than students who

are ego-oriented—so down-play ego-orientation (you are not interested in
correct answers) and praise effort and industry.
5. Students expect value for effort (research evidence is clear: domain-

specific self-efficacy beliefs influence effort investment, and not the other way
round)—so provide assignments that require students to predict the effort
needed to do a task. After finishing the task, students could be asked to
reflect on the invested effort. Was it sufficient or superfluous, and why?
6. Students need encouragement and feedback on how to develop mo-

tivational strategies—so get students to think abut their goals, what’d be
fun, and reflect on them, set some goals and acct on them.
7. Students need encouragement and feedback on how to develop will-

power—ask your students to compare and contrast the amount and type of
effort invested in various tasks, this will help them gain insight into their own
willpower.
8. Students are more committed to learning if the objectives are com-

patible with their own goals—be flexible about goals, don’t impose your
own unnecessarily (‘I say you must always work alone’), negotiate and inter-
rogate each student’s goals.
9. Adapt these principles to the local context of your classroom—so

observe students and discover how the previous eight motivational principles
work in your classroom.
Miscellaneous notes on motivation
Communicating goals. Schools communicate goals, even if not intended! En-

hanced mastery orientation by (a) setting tasks that employ intrinsic motivation,
for example, allowing students o select problems, (b) evaluate their work non-
competitively, using say a portfolio and individual goal setting routines. Avoid
social comparison. Avoid normative testing.
Personal investment goals. Emphasize task goals (for intrinsic interest). Em-
phasize social goals (approval, welfare for others, responsibility, affiliation, survival
as in, “we’ll get through this together, don’t worry!”. Social goals, in addition to
moral goals: establish a community of learning in the classroom that extends even
outside of school hours. Let low-achievers mix with high achievers (star-dust effect).
Student knows best? Sometimes this is true. The student knows best what
excites them, so let them choose among a variety of topics and problems to study.
The probe of adolescent fall-off in motivation. The research suggests schools

need to lift their performance and adapt their structures in later student years.
Traditional schooling is ‘obviously’ not all that much fun for older teenagers, so we
have to change to make it fun, or we lose them. For example, it might be better to
sacrifice some time spent on curriculum topics if necessary, in order to make lessons
more fun if possible by facilitating study of off-curriculum topics.
Summary of Motivation. Motivation is such a key component of effective teach-

ing, it cannot be over-estimated. The good teacher is always trying to excite intrinsic
motivation within their students.
A word of caution: teacher expectations can be self-fulfilling . But this can be used to
some advantage. Ths, always expect good things form students in the absence of any
reason not to! Also sustained false expectancy can be bad when in eality a student
may ave made significant change in behaviour or internal thought, that has gone
unnoticed (or at least atempted to do so). The teacher must therefore be prepared
to always adjust expectations—which implies some sort of consant monitoring and
appraisal system (ideally any such monitoring system should be as simple as possible
to avoid excessive time consumption, yet without losing accuracy). For example, a
short regular one-on-one chat with students you suspect of having poor motivation
or low self-efficacy beliefs could go a long way, if you make discrete, consise, apposite
notes.
General advice that always holds: expect personal bests from your students! So you’d
better have some system for monitoring PB’s!
Final word on motivation goes to McInerney++: citing a study by Newby, (McIn-

erney & McInerney, 2006, p.247) note that the highest motivation enhancement
success was with the strategy of relevance: that is, relating the task and objec-
tives to the student’s personal lives, and teachers giving sound reasoning for the
importance of each wider task.
Assignment—Personal Educational Autobiography

Due at the end of the second week, about when Module 4-2 should have been
completed. Refer to the file bms edu autobio.pdf. [Might add as an appendix
later.]
5. Module 5—History of ECE &
Schooling in NZ
Module 5-1: Primary and secondary schools in

New Zealand
After reading the module precis, the focus activity was the following:
• Draw a time line of your own educational history, showing the key dates.
e.g. 1990 born Invercargill, one of six children 1994 started kindergarten,
very unhappy to leave Mum 1995 started primary school, scared of the bigger
children.
• Note important milestones such as prizes you won, changes in your family,
events that made a difference.
• When you have completed your time line try to identify places in your educa-
tion where you were influenced by changes in government policy. It might be
useful to talk to parents or other family members about this.
Reflective thoughts on Our Time Lines
[EDITOR NOTE: I thought it would be indulgent to add everyone’s timelines here.

So Instead let’s focus on making comments one any thoughts that came to mind as
a result of going through this exercise.]
[BMS:] My onw time line has a few events that may have been influenced my gov-
ernemnt policy, but it is difficult to identify what impact they may have made. I’m
not sure if there was any specific government policy that led to the establishment
of a few ‘open-plan’ schools, but they did have a nice positive effect: my parents
56
Module 5—History of ECE & Schooling in NZ 57
enrolled me in two such schools towards the end of my Primary school years. The
non-traditional work arrangments, assignments to various teacher’s throughout the
day, and the seating arrangements, seemed to be beneficial, they gave a sense of
some freedom and diversity in the classroom, and interacting with many different
teachers throughout the day was a great way to easily experience different teaching
styles. I vaguely recall that the “New Mathematics” curriculum in the early 1970’s
had some effect on the way I was introduced to mathematics. There was an empha-
sis on set theory (considered the foundations of mathematics). Some people thought
this was misguided, but I actually thought it was neat. The “Tomorrows Schools”
implementation occured after I had left high school. Changes to University occured
while I was studying at university, but they did not effect me in any way, aside from
making me wonder if I should be more politically active.
Module 5-2: ECE in New Zealand

Focus activity:
• Think about your own early childhood education.
• What role was played by your family, by church, by kindergarten/childcare/playcentre?
• Talk to your parents or other family members about the choices they made
about your early childhood education.
Here’s one blurb [BMS]:
“I started off attending Playcenter at Otangarae, Whangarei. My

parents thought the free style education meshed well with their philos-
ophy. In particular my mother liked the philosophy of parent involve-
ment and education. She would go to Playcenter and study Alex Grey’s
‘big book’ of child development. She fondly remembers the supervisor,
was Noreen Moorehouse. There was also leadership training course, fa-
cilitated by Pam Ringwood, who would become reacquainted with my
mother’s through the Bahá’ı́ Faith. At the Otangarae Playcenter I met
my first best friend, Michael Chan. He and I had similar interests in art,
sport and Kung Fu. Playcenter got me involved in art at an early age,
encouraged by my parents. I painted bright red fire engines, eventually
adopting a style where virtually the entire canvas was just red. My sister
on the other hand ate the play dough.
“When I was about 6 to 8 I attended Sunday Bahá’ı́ Children’s

classes, with a tutor Rona Barrell. She was into drama and was also a
speech therapist. She was tremendously good fun, and these classes were
nothing like the horrid religious indoctrination that traditional Christian
Sunday school promulgate. We focused mainly on history and philoso-
phy and the power of virtues such as kindness, justice, love, and service
to humanity. This had a huge impact on my life, although I resisted
identifying myself as a Bahá’ı́ (since I thought it was a bit peacenik-like
and sissy).
“When I was five I attended a kindergarten for a couple of terms
along with my friend Michael. It was a good step into primary school,
with a correct amount of additional structure that Playcenter lacked,
which helped calibrate me for primary school. From childhood onwards
my parents adopted a very liberally guided approach to my education.
They would teach me to value higher abstract things such as the virtues
(the so-called ‘spiritual attributes’ in their minds: such as love, mercy,
compassion, kindness, honesty, and so forth). They would leave decisions
about what I should be interested in entirely free for me to determine.
This had good and bad impacts.
“They were not vigilant enough to ensure that I avoided the trap
of being sucked into competition and studying to pass exams with top
grades. I asked my mother about this, and she revealed that they thought
I was studying because I was intrinsically motivated and mastery-oriented,
which was initially true, but no one, myself included, altered the trajec-
tory I was on towards the black hole of purely studying to achieve good
grades. I slipped down into this black hole due to anxiety and depres-
sion, because I knew inside I should be studying for pleasure, but at the
end of every year the focus always became exams and would overwhelm
me with waves of pressure and a need to achieve and earn recognition.
“I am not sure what changes in my ECE would have steered me
towards a better path, I suspect my parents and ECE centers did ev-
erything correct, initially, to avoid such a trajectory. It was probably
the later school norms that really tipped me towards the event horizon.
Overall though, my ECE was positive and highly beneficial and I am
thankful for New Zealand’s enlightened views in comparison to other
nations.”
Comments. [BMS:] I have few additional comments, most of what I recalled and
spoke about with my mother is stated adequately above. The Playcenter movement
was the main important influence for em and my parents, and other than my parnets,
siblins and friends, there seemed few other influences of great note. I do not recall
any of my ECE teachers other than the people mentioned above.
[EDITOR NOTE: Please add your own reflections about your time line here.]
6. Module 6—Diverse Students
Module 6-1: Student Diversity in New Zealand

The focus activity for this module is as follows:
• Think about yourself and your culture. Make a list of the different groups that
you belong to.
• Think about the visible and invisible aspects of your culture(s).
• Share your list on the forum. (150-200 words).
Here’s my short list.
Groups I ‘belong to’: Bahá’ı́ (not very ‘observant’). Male geeks.

X-gener. Liberal philosophers. Scientists. Amateur hackers. Free soft-
ware movement. Introverts. Parents (of school children). Adult children.
Amateur writers. Amateur artists. Maori (Ngati Kahungunu). Pakeha
(via Yorkshire and Scotland). Pacific Islander (Pitcairn island ances-
tors). Sports fans. Citizen of the world. Visible aspects: Playful
(in a semi-serious way). High curiosity. Annoying (but shy) activism.
Concern for promulgation of peace. Shared software. Sharing of ideas.
Patriotism for local/national sports. Patron of arts (when affordable).
School committee work. Supportive of progressive movements. Invisi-
ble aspects: Non-proselytizing philosophy. Intellectual snobbery (usu-
ally accompanied by heavy doses of humility). Little or no social life.
Anxiety and depression when research and hacking hobby progress is
slow. Loneliness of intellectual pursuits. Desiring a more egalitarian and
harmonious society, not just a cold meritocracy. Loath the way most
mainstream media report world news (so depressing, ignoring the good
stuff). Trying to live by the Golden Rule. Appreciation of beauty. Lover
of nature. Always dreaming.
60
Module 6—Diverse Students 61
Comment. (This could be moved to the Reflection Journal.) It’s always healthy
to know oneself better. But at this point of the course I’m still hoping I can absorb
enough to actually become a better teacher (rather than just getting warm fuzzies
thinking I will be a improved teacher). I’m not sure all this reflection has helped
in a concrete way. I still know how not to teach, and all the abstract educational
psychology theory is slowly seeping into my soul (if not absorbed already), but in
terms of day-to-day teaching practice I am still somewhat terrified of doing my
prospective students a disservice. My guess is when we get to study how to create
practical lesson plans and manage classrooms (and finish the teaching experience
weeks) some of this trepidation will dissolve away.
A nice summary of many feeling that arose from this activity was given by our tutor
(Secondary B group) Linda Hogg:
“Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, for sharing these

personal details. As Diana said, it’s not that easy sometimes to apply
these questions to ourselves, and see exactly what our own culture is.
However we know that an essential first step in working effectively with
students from diverse cultures is to be able to recognize one’s own culture,
and recognize that we are all cultural beings. Many of us are pakeha: it’s
the dominant culture, and this is to be expected. Of course that’s fine,
I’m making no judgement here. However, for those of us who are in
the dominant culture, including me, it’s very easy for us to simply see
ourselves as ‘normal.’ I remember as a very young Catholic child in
Blenheim where I grew up, I thought everyone who wasn’t in this group
was someone to be suspicious of. Later of course as I grew close to people
from many different cultural and religious backgrounds, I began to look
back in horror at that attitude. It can be hard to see that there are many
versions of ‘normal.’ But that in fact will be important to our success as
teachers.
“As Tarena said, as trainee teachers we need to learn how to reconcile
our own beliefs and values with those of others, somehow building moti-
vation of students from diverse groups, and addressing the needs of these
diverse individuals. It is important for everyone to feel comfortable and
have a sense of belonging in the classroom. For example, different peo-
ple have different ways of interacting together, different protocols: Is it
okay to interrupt each other? How is it okay to be playful? What should
happen before a meal begins? Different groups also vary in their under-
lying values. For example Asian cultures value constant work, as shown
in their proverbs, whereas some other cultures value taking long rests.
Another example can be seen in the expectations that people in different
cultures have of each other: e.g., what am I individually responsible for,
and in what circumstances can I ask for help?

“Another element which complicates life is our increasing hybridiza-
tion: increasing numbers of us do not fit neatly into one culture. Hannah
is a terrific example of this. For myself, although my ethnic background
is Italian and British, my daughter’s father is Maori, and my partner is
French Carribean, and so my life is definitely hybridized.
“And Anna made a good point when she said that it can be easy to
make judgements about people when we meet them, based on what is vis-
ible. . . and of course when we do this we are making assumptions, which
may well be incorrect. That’s why getting to know individual students
and their families is so valuable.
“One activity I love to do with students, which breaks down any
stereotyped ideas that we may be holding, is called Two Truths and
a Lie. This is a great activity to do when you get students to form
a group together; it helps break the ice within the new group. Students
think up three statements about themselves; two are true and one is a
deliberate lie. Each student shares these in small groups, without telling
which is the lie. . . can you fool the others? It’s up to the group to guess
which one is the lie. People tend to try to work it out by looking at the
person and making judgements about them. . . for instance, knowing that
I am 49, would you believe that I enjoy MIA? that my daughter is 17?
that I have been to 6 weddings in my life? On Monday I’ll put in a new
posting to tell you which one is the lie.”
Complexity of Community and Family Influences (Biddulph3

report)
The reading for this module is (Biddulph, Biddulph, & Biddulph, 2003), there so-
called best evidence synthesis of community and family influences. Notes on this
reading follow.
All of the studied influences seem to fit what common sense would expect in terms
of positive/negative impact.
• Note: Impact factors are typically deeply entangled.
• Note: There are no simple relationships and predictors, it is a complex system.
• Note: Further research would be helpful in the following areas: Peer influences.
Social networks. Media and information technology. Income levels. Fam-
ily mobility. Extended whanau. Academic guidance. Partnerships. Parent-

teacher interviews.
• Major positive cultural factors
– Early Childhood Years:

Early childhood education. Range of family resources. Active parental
support. Stable caring home. Range of quality experiences (anywhere).
Genuine partnership between home and ECE center. Early treatment
for hearing loss. Integrated programs empowering parents (health, ed.
resources, respect culture).
– Primary and Secondary School:
Active parental support. Stable caring home. Range of quality experi-
ences. Genuine partnership between home and school. Early treatment
for hearing loss. Programs to enhance parental understanding of children
and empowering parents (respect culture and dignity).
• Slightly positive influences

Higher levels of parental education. Community support networks/caregivers.
Use of community resources/experience. Community support and socio-
cultural capital. Popular culture. TV viewing [one suspects limited].
Computer use. Higher levels of parental education. Parental expecta-
tions.
• Negative factors

Neighbourhood deprivation (inconclusive for NZ). Level of parental edu-
cation. Poverty and low SES. Single parent family. Hearing loss. Unsta-
ble home. Child abuse (particularly found in Maori and low SES groups).
Restricted range of quality experiences.
Excessive TV viewing (> 4 hours/day). Culture and ethnicity esp. Maori
and Pasifika when not respected in assessment contexts. Deficit assump-
tions. Poverty and low SES. Low level of parental education. Single
parent family. Meagre family resources (which are not supplemented).
High family mobility. Hearing loss. Unstable home. Child abuse (partic-
ularly found in Maori and low SES groups). Truancy and absenteeism.
Restricted range of quality experiences. Lack of links between home and

school.
• Possibly positive or negative factors

Community ‘messages’ about gender [including cultural messages?]. Peer
influences.
Community ‘messages’ about gender. Peer influences (positive when for
support and encouragement, negative when for anti-social and mediocre
achievement expectation). Parental separation.
Other highlights include: Quality ECE seems to have a positive influence for up to
5 years. Quality resource availability correlates with SES. The home environment is
often a dominant factor. Providing supplementary help to raise parental education
and support can make a big positive change—such programmes may seem costly
but appear to be worth the investment. High parental education level and cultural
capital are minor positive influences. Poverty and low SES are correlated with
poor health and negative emotional development—which can be largely offset by
raising the mother’s education level. Unstable and/or abusive homes are linked with
hyperactive children and poor cognitive abilities. The full potential for television
and computer games to enhance learning has not been realized. Schools need to help
students better utilize the power of community involvement. Lower development of
Maori and Pacific Island children can be correlated to poverty and lower SES and
disrespect for culture in assessment methods. Partnerships between schools and
families need to be genuine and not based on assumptions of deficiency. Separation
of parents can be beneficial if it reduces stress levels (but comes with other costs).
The complexity-theoretic aspects mean that the results of changed influences on a
particular child will be idiosyncratic.
Recommendations of the Biddulph3 report.
1. Further work on comprehensive combined programmes of support for children

and families most in need.
2. Suggested use of school facilities for out-of-school community activities.
3. Teachers could be better trained to establish school-home partnerships.
4. Extend already successful programmes running in New Zealand.

5. Incorporate school-like activities into family activities.
6. Increased spread of low-cost programmes to help parents of children struggling

in particular curriculum areas.
7. Increase the availability of critical resources for families who lack them.
My comment. Whoa. . . , a lot of obvious stuff in this report. One hopes it did not
cost the tax payer too much! They refer to complexity theory seemingly without any
technical notion of complexity, yet it does not take a genius to know that education
is complex.
Maori and Pacific Island Students

Allowing ourselves a somewhat liberal stance—that a strong Pakeha hegemony exists
in New Zealand—it is interesting to study the data on education achievement and
aspirations of minorities, in particular the dominant minorities in Aotearoa of Maori
and Polynesian students. It is not controversial to note that generally Maori and
Pacific Island students achieve statistically lower educational attainment. Out-lier
data however suggest that there is no reason why these minorities cannot achieve as
well, if not better, than any other students. It is however, controversial to venture
an opinion why this is the case. So a question has to be asked, “why does this sorry
state of exist?” Can’t we as a society do better for our indigenous population and
other non-European-Pakeha minorities.
A good source of data for studying this issue is given at, www.educationcounts.-
govt.nz/themes/maori-education/31351. In particular see the statistics collected
here, www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/maori education/13182/36805.
Some interesting things to note:
• Improvement in education for Maori students is improving, but not at a sig-

nificantly faster rate than non Maori improvements! So the absolute trends
are in the right direction, but there is still lack of relative convergence.
• Look at the graph labeled ‘Figure ML1: Percentage of school leavers qualified
to attend university’ on the above webpage. It shows a dramatic convergence
(a good thing) for Maori students who have attended bilingual and Maori
language immersion schools.
• The identified targets for 2012 seem too low! Why can’t we achieve equality by
that time? What will it really take to change attitudes, beliefs and practices
to support all students fairly?
Another controversial question could be asked (as has been debated and even im-
plemented in the USA for example) namely, “is it appropriate to introduce a short
term level of so-called affirmative action?” to achieve better targets, in effect re-
kick-starting Maori education as originally envisioned in the goals behind the de-
velopment of Kohanga Reo. Te goal being to level the playing field so that the
hegemonic structures and attitudes can be done away with without having to wait
another entire generation for positive change. Note, it is not the absence of positive
change that is a problem—this is happening. Rather it is the rate of convergence of
the educational gap that is of concern. In New Zealand we seem to have managed to
arrive at an education system and general culture that allows minorities to advance
at an equal rate of progress, statistically speaking, but not at a differential rate that
would in time close the education gap.
The noteworthy exception is the case of bilingual and Maori language immersion
students. This strongly suggest a renewed effort to introduce Maori language as
perhaps a mandatory element of all child education in New Zealand? Does that
seem too controversial? How much should a minority culture be expected to ‘help
itself’ as ultra-libertarians might argue should be the case? What debt does New
Zealand society as a whole still owe minorities, and Maori culture in particular? Has
enough work been done to redress past injustices and prevailing hegemonies?
Some personal thoughts are welcome. My own [BMS] is that surely we cannot
consider past injustices as fully recompensed until there is manifest equality in edu-
cation and other social metrics (child welfare, income, literacy, employment profiles,
and so forth).
The Impact of Culture
Many examples are given in the course Module notes and textbook and readings of
the cultural impacts on teaching and learning or ‘ako’. It might be helpful to note a
few more to drill home the lesson. The emphasis on memorization as an important
and revered technique in Chinese culture was noted for example. Another cultural
effect that is mentioned in (?, ?) concerns Tongan students. In Tonga there is a
saying, “Tonga mo’unga ki he loto, which literally translates as ‘Tonga’s mountain
is it’s heart’. Another common saying is: ko e loto pe Tonga ia ki ha me’a pea ’e
lava ia’ (‘If a Tongan agrees to perform a task then it can be done’).” (?, ?, page
63).
What does that imply for you when you consider teaching Tongan students? One
thing that comes to mind is that—if they a strong in their culture–a Tongan student
may avoid performing challenging tasks because, suppose, their self-efficacy is low
for the given task. A wise teacher might understand the culture and therefore realize
that it is merely the sense that the task might not be accomplished that the student
is hesitant to begin. In other cultures a student might not be so worried and might
just give things a go and not worry too much about making mistakes or failing to
complete work (e.g., from a carefree, lacadaisical cultural attitude—does that remind
you of any culture in particular?). How would you then encourage the hypothetical
Tongan student here to make an attempt? Perhaps you might demonstrate a worked
example, or guide them thorugh the task to give them confidence that it ‘can be
done’. Basically, just don’t leave such students wondering whether they might fail,
even if they ultimately do fail (which is not necessarily a bad outcome as has been
noted previously), just given them the initial confidence to start. Another stratgy
would be to emphasize that the real task is to just actually show the effort, not to
achieve a successful outcome. That is, they aught to be able to agree that they can
at least make an effort, and that, in your sight, is exactly the task to be done.
[EDITOR: Please contribute more examples, so that we build up a repertoire of
possible everyday impacts of culture.]
Module 6-2: Special Needs and Gifted or Talented

Students
The recommended reading for this module is (Bevan-Brown, 2006), and we are urged
to make notes.
Beyond Policy and good Intentions (Bevan-Brown)
The paper focuses on the need to provide true inclusive education for a particular
minority class of students, namely Maori children with special needs. Barriers to
such inclusiveness exist that face both the students and their whanau.
It seems that the legislation already in place that testify to the special rights of Maori
children with special needs, is not being adhered to in the practice of education in
New Zealand. There is however a lot of official support for Maori students with
special needs. So the main question Bevan-Brown poses is,
“How can this situation exist in a country where there is so much

‘official’ support for culturally appropriate, inclusive education and what

can be done to rectify the situation?”
Among fully 60 barriers one factor stands out:
“This is the widespread shortage of culturally appropriate special

education and disability services, assessment measures, teaching pro-
grammes and resources for Maori learners with special needs.”
(Note: that is really four critical things lacking: appropriate (i) services, (ii) assess-
ments, (iii) programs and (iv) resources.)
There are three postulated causes for such inadequacies, (1) each child has an
individual study plan, so culture is irrelevant, (2) funding is insufficient, (3) shortage
of teachers with professional special needs experience. Also (partly as a result of
lack of resources), (4) parents are being forced to choose between supporting either
their child’s Maori heritage or their special needs, but not both.
Bevan-Brown also notes evidence of a fair amount of ethnocentrism in NZ schools
with: blithe denial of cultural differences. Low teacher expectations of special
needs Maori students. Negative stereotyping. Abdication of responsibility for cul-
tural input. Economic rationalizations with commercially driven values. Overly
meritocratic-individualist-competitive ideologies. Ethnocentrism with differences
perceived as deficits.
Curriculum inclusions are suggested to redress these imbalances: Treaty of Wai-
tangi. Effects of colonization. Total immersion and bilingual education. Majority
cultural influence in education and society. Maori language, cultural beliefs, cus-
toms, practices and values. Strategies for working with parents, whanau and the
Maori community. Causes, impact and maintenance of unequal power relationships,
oppression, prejudice, racism, disabilism, social injustice, inequality and poverty.
Another crucial reason why there are inadequate services for special needs
students is because those in power have no personal experience of learning disability
and were not exposed to special needs students in their own schooling.
Bevan-Brown then notes that
“. . . the full inclusion of Maori learners with special needs into our
schools and society. By themselves, cultural input and inclusive prac-
tices in educational establishments are not enough. There is a need for
multifaceted, multilevel and wide-ranging societal changes to increase in-
clusion and improve the life chances of Maori children with special needs
in particular and Maori people in general.”
Bevan-Brown thinks the biggest obstacle is unequal power distribution. But in

my opinion this cannot be addressed without completely changing the attitudes of
those who wield the most power in NZ decision making about special needs educa-
tion, and education in general. In other words, I think a sea-change in NZ attitudes
will be needed before the imbalances can be dissolved. I also think that Bevan-Brown
vastly underestimates the power that today’s new generation of teachers could have
in instilling these very attitudes (cultural sensitivity and ethno-egalitarianism) into
the children who will be tomorrows leaders.
A good suggestion in my view is
“A major step in the right direction would be to devolve to Maori

genuine decision-making powers in all areas that affect their lives. In par-
ticular, they should have input into determining what counts as knowl-
edge; how it is transmitted, assessed and rewarded; how special needs
are defined; and how they are provided for.”
This seems in-line with the enlightened principles of constructivism, such as provi-
sion of some autonomy, positive motivation and control to the currently disadvan-
taged minorities. But it should also be considered everyone’s responsibility to blend
all people and all cultures into a truly inclusive educational and socio-economic
Aotearoa. I would add that the ‘sea-change’ I would like to envisage would see
such an inclusive and multicultural New Zealand that it would be impossible to
even identify ‘minority cultural groups’ in any meaningful way! I would call this a
‘citizen of the world’ culture.
Discussion from the Online Blackboard
Here’s a good question posed by Jenna,
“. . . cultural beliefs and traditons are what make families and iwi
unique, how can the school presume to teach such subjects? Tradition
and beliefs (culture) should surely be taught at home, and it should be
the role of the school to accept and encourage the uniqueness of every
student in their class.”
A few of the replies to this question went as follows,
“My understanding of that passage, was that due to a lack of special

needs resources and personnel who also speak Te Reo, children who
attend Kura Kaupapa Maori are less able to access these special needs
resources. Therefore, parents of children with special needs are having
to choose to EITHER attend the Kura Kaupapa Maori (addressing their
cultural needs), or mainstream schooling where they are more likely to
have their special needs addressed. It was a case of limited resources as
opposed to an attack on mainstream schooling as such.”
Another long, but good 2 cents worthy, reply was,
“My personal view is that it’s possibly due to our hegemonistic soci-
ety and a bit of ethnocentrism that one would come to ask the question
of ‘Couldn’t the parents meet the cultural needs, and mainstream school
meet the special education needs?’. For most people who are NZ Eu-
ropean, the school system is meeting their cultural needs because the
values, way things are expressed and emphasised, and what is important
roughly mirror those delivered from home by their families. For many
Maori families, however, this is not the case and no matter how ‘inte-
grated’ we might think everything is from our side of the fence, there’s
no denying that Maori culture is actually significantly different to what
is delivered in mainstream schools. Just take a quick big-picture look
at it, what language is it taught in? What ethnicity are many of the
teachers and learners? What sports get played in PE, or activities done?
Much more soccer and hockey and running than Kapa Haka, Mau rakau
or Taiaha,. . .
“It’s like (and if we ignore the special needs bit for now), being in
a foreign country and going to a school where everyone is from another
culture, and has different values to you, and maybe not all of the teachers
are good at helping you to fit in to this other culture which is different
to everything you’ve experienced at home, so you feel uncomfortable
because nobody values what you care about and maybe you start to
feel like your culture is not as important. Maybe you struggle a bit to
get your ideas across simply because you think in a different way to the
majority. Now imagine that that’s the situation, but you actually live
in your own country, where your culture existed first, and your language
is considered official, and large amounts of legislation exist saying you
should be equally valued and given the same opportunities as the other
kids, but it’s still clearly not the case in your school. If your parents
had the choice to send you to a school where the teachers understood
you, you could communicate clearly, you shared values and colloquial
language and jokes from within your culture, and were reached on your
level, so you could achieve much more, then surely you and your family
would want that? Now, it makes it more complicated if you have special
needs of some kind and you have to choose between the foreign school
which can meet them, and the school of your own culture which you’re
more comfortable in and could achieve much more. . .
“I think it’s all well and good to say that the parents could meet the
cultural needs at home, but children spend a huge amount of their time
at school as well, and for the child to really develop to their potential,
both parts of that microsystem need to be functioning smoothly, and
both should be meeting their cultural and special needs.
“We could flip it over, how about if all schools were Kura Kaupapa,
and every child in NZ had to attend and learn in Maori, learn Maori
culture and such, and parents of all other ethnicities were responsible for
meeting their kids cultural needs at home each evening. Whilst I think,
theoretically, that that would be great to provide some perspective to a
lot of ignorant NZers out there, I’m very sure that their would be a huge
uproar from parents who don’t feel the nature of that schooling would
mix with their own values and goals they have for their children. Maybe
they would start NZ European schools, so their kids could play soccer
and sing songs about Fush ‘n’ Chups, but imagine if the government
didn’t provide enough support, and special needs children could only
have their needs met in the Kura Kaupapa. . . Now NZ European parents
would have to choose between education for their children which mirrors
their own values, and education which can meet their special needs. It’s
not ideal for anyone, no matter how you spin it.
“I just wanted to rearrange the situation a bit because I felt like
your question was initially coming from a place of not really feeling
like switching from Maori immersion education to mainstream schooling
would be much of a loss. I think we have a huge (often subconscious)
tendency to undervalue the other cultures in our country, and to see
different as inferior, and I think it’s one of the main problems we have
with our education system failing many of our youth.”
Going back up one level of the thread, Roseanna wrote,
“Kia ora tatou, the work of Jill Bevan-Brown and her research, has
shown that often maori children do not get their needs met because of
the inherent cultural components of assessment, resourcing and special-
ist support. In her work with regards young people who have special
educational needs she has shown that unintended consequences of not
recognising maori culture when assessing, or when teaching, or when pro-
viding specialist support does make a difference to maori children who
have special educational needs. Some kura are not able to access appro-
priate resourcing and support and this is one of Bevan-Brown’s issues.
Others have also written of the ‘double disadvantage’ and it is seen in
our NZ stats on those who receive special education support (there is
a high and disproportionate students who are maori and receiving spe-
cial ed support). Consider what this might mean in the context of the
Bevan-Brown reading.
“Melissa makes a good point that we need more Maori educators
in mainstream schools and with special education qualifications. We
have very few EdPsychs who are Maori in New Zealand, and they have a
different way of working, often using maori pedagogy, that can inform all
our work. Russell Bishop’s research shows that all teachers can support
maori learners, and the first step is to listen to their views and understand
from their point of view. Some of the ideas are as simple as requesting
that their name is pronounced correctly.”
Shane pitched in with,
“I think the reality of the problem is that our school system does
not suit Maori because its foundation is European. It is also hard to get
away from that and have a completely bilingual or mullticultural system
as they often conflict, and each teacher has a culture they default to.
When the majority of teachers are white the system will naturally lean
towards their culture. We need more Maori teachers in mainstream
schools. They are the ones who will comunicate Maori culture most
effectively. Europeans can try and encourage Maori in their culture,
language and learning but at the end of the day we come from a white
worldview. (Another issue—I think bilingual is more important than full
immersion as I have worked with a number of 16–25 year olds with full
immersion backgrounds who are hindered from getting jobs or higher
education as they have low or no english literacy. When the rubber hits
the road, business and employment is generally in english.)
“It is interesting that programes like Te Kotahitanga (Developed
by Waikato Uni and implemented in about 50 schools throughout NZ
emphasisng strong relationships between teacher and student, ‘Ako’—
teaching each other, and co operative learning—is enhancing european
students learning as well as Maori. What works for maori, seems to work
for all.”
In reply to Shane, Lauren wrote,

“Thanks for that Shane, it seems like good logic to have more edu-
cated Maori teachers in our schools. Do you think there a problem with
our Maori young people being able to get to the tertiary level because
the current system is failing them?”
Discussion of “Inclusive education policy in New Zealand”
Another course reading related to the same issues outlined by Jill Bevan-Brown is
the article by Alison Kearney and Ruth Kane (Kearney & Kane, 2006). Titled,
“Inclusive education policy in New Zealand: reality or ruse?” this article provoked
some interesting online discussion. This section takes a brief look at Kearney &
Kane article as well as various comments made on the 2010 online forum. Unless
otherwise stated all the citations for this section are from this article so we will not
clutter up these notes with references. Chapter 9 of McInerney & McInerney may
also be useful to quote on occasion.
First up, it seems uncontroversial that a sea change in attitudes and assumptions
needs to be made if special education is to be fully inclusive. Until that time it
would seem wise to continue to allow parents of special needs children to have some
freedom in selecting either an inclusive mainstream school or a specialist ‘special
education’ school for their children. But in Skrtic’s words, special education would
require “a different frame of reference and a different set of assumptions theories and
meta-theories”. So the first question is what are these different assumptions,
theories and meta-theories?, and the follow up would be how can we test
them, and if worthwhile, put them into practice?
• The paper begin by outlining the default view of special education, whiihc is
that it is based upon the individual students’ pathologies (clinical symptoms,
or statistical divergence from population mean).
• Inclusion is described as a learning culture where everyone belongs and is

accepted and supported. The focus is on the education program—it should
be made accessible to all students—and not so much focused on individual
student ‘abnormalities’.
• Social justice is advocated as one reason to try to avoid exclusionary schooling.

Policies of exclusion are posited to be historically sanctioned and have no basis
in sound educational psychology theory.
• Inclusion policy can be dynamic, gradually evolving from mainly exclusion

towards more inclusion.
• As a waring, the article notes that the idea of inclusive edcation has been
‘interpreted and used by different people in different ways.’
•
7. Module 7—EAL Students
Before reading this module we were supposed to enter our agree-disagree answers
in the first column of the Table 7.1. This is one method for background knowledge
activation (a way of priming students for a topic to pique their interest). For clarity,
in the second column (after reading through Module 7) I have only marked the rows
where I changed my initial opinion.
My thinking for the first question was from background knowledge about Noam
Chomky’s theory of universal grammar. Language is to some extent innate and
young children tend to acquire language much more readily than adults because
(a) their brains are more plastic and (b) adults don’t tend to experience the same
immersion environment that young children find themselves in having to rapidly
learn a language to figure stuff out (children are more focused upon and motivated
to pick up languages). The other questions seemed uncontroversial. EAL students
will generally need to speak a lot of English unless they can find a ready translator,
since the typical teacher won’t know the EAL student’s native language. If the
teacher respects the EAL student why should they not achieve the same level of
work—all it takes is for the teacher to give them tasks that they can work on
without needing to understand English like a native speaker. I guess an exception
would be in the study of English language comprehension. But in that case the EAL
student would probably show much greater relative improvement than their peers!
One could even argue they’d be in effect doing a lot more work and achievement.
We can see from the second column that my views were changed slightly by reading
the Module 7 material! That’s good. I learned some new stuff.
Discussion. The phenomenon of the Silent Period (a common experience of a time

sometimes up to a whole year, during which a newcomer is unwilling to speak in the
second language) changed my opinion about whether or not EAL (in particular ENL
students, see below) students should be encouraged to speak English immediately.
It would be very rough on them to demand this if they were only starting to learn
English. Moreover, CALP or Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, can take
75
Module 7—EAL Students 76
Tick the statements you agree with: At start of module At end of module
!
Young children are better at learning
language than adults
!
EAL students should be encouraged to speak in
English as much as possible ?
Group work benefits EAL students !
%
EAL students cannot be expected to reach the
same level of work as other students in class
Vygotsky’s theory applies to EAL students !
Table 7.1: Module 7-1 learning anticipation table.
up to 7 years to develop, so it might be nicer to find ways the ENL students could
participate and learn non-verbally as well as practice English, such as with games
and computer aided instruction that could be generated in their native language,
without being seen as a crutch.
So it is important to engage them in some form of English communication to help
their acculturation process, and to do so often, and especially with the academic
terms for the class subject could be introduced to them (since they’ll often be new
to all the students). I guess the qualification “as much as possible” means I still
generally disagree with the statement, but with the above reservations firmly in
mind.
Module 7-1: EASL Students

Focus activity 1. Think about these situations for yourself. Focus on your feel-
ings during one of these situations.
1. Have you been in an unfamiliar situation where you did not speak the lan-
guage?
2. Have you lived or traveled in a country where you did not speak or read the
language?
3. Did you learn to speak a language other than English fluently?

Sample “Answers”. [BMS:] I certainly have been in such unfamiliar situations.

A typical case was when I was a young child growing up in Whangarei. My mother
used to take me and my siblings to community meetings where a fair amount of
Maori, Samoan and Tongan was spoken (also a lot of Farsi and some Kenyan). I
was grateful for this because it gave me less self-consciousness about being in such
situations in future, and that a lot of body language and a smile or frown are
universal for communication.
One other memorable occasion was when my brother and I were visitor guides at
the New Delhi “Lotus Temple” (Mashriku’l-Adhkár). It was very weird. We mem-
¯ ¯
orized a few stock phrases in Hindi. But a lot of villagers speak other Indo-Sanskrit
dialects such as Urdu or Bengali. So we never really knew if people understood our
instructions or were just amused, or just acting politely when they nodded. Who
knows, maybe a nod in India or Bengal is body language meaning something like,
“you are a complete idiot, but bless your heart for trying”, we did not know. We did
know that in many Indian cultures a shake of the head (like our “no” head shake)
is body language indicating interest or affirmation!
I took French lessons for two years, but never attained fluency. At fist it was easy,
but I lost interest over the so-called “gender” usage (‘le’ versus ’la’ and so forth).
Selecting a language one enjoys learning is critical I think. I had few motives to
learn French. Mandarin would have been better (but probably a lot harder) and I
would have liked to learn more Arabic and Farsi, and of course Te Reo (my great-
grandmother was gently outcast from her tribe because she married a Yorkshire-man,
so I was never reared and steeped in Maori culture). [End of BMS piece.]
Three Level Reading Guide. This seemed quite useful, so we’ve quoted the
webpage here for reference,
“Reading beyond the surface level is a challenge for many secondary

school students. The three level guide was devised by Herber (1978) and
developed further by Morris and Stewart-Dore (1984) to help students
think through the information in texts. The teacher writes the guide to
help the students locate information in a text, interpret what the author
means, and then apply the information. The three level reading guide
has a series of statements divided into three levels:
• level one (literal) - the student reads the lines to work out the writer
says;
• level two (interpretative) - the student reads between the lines and
infers what the writer means;
• level three (applied) - the student reads beyond the lines and relates
the knowledge to other contexts.
“The three level guide helps the student to focus, first of all, on the
information in the text. The student then thinks through this informa-
tion, and interprets what the writer is trying to say. Finally, the student
critically evaluates the information and relates it to what they already
know.
“Students will need a period to work through the three level guide.
In class the teacher should:
• introduce the topic and text;
• ask the students to read the text independently, or read it aloud to
them;
• ask the students to work through the reading guide by themselves;
• put them in pairs or small groups to discuss their answers;
• make sure the students explain their answers and justify their views.”
References:
Herber, H. (1978). Teaching Reading in the Content Areas. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall.
Morris, A. and Stewart-Dore, N. (1984). Learning to Learn from Text:
Effective Reading in Content Areas. New South Wales: Addison-Wesley.”
Quoted from the website http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/ESOL-Online/. . . /Three-level-

reading-guides
The other website for reference and information on how to activate prior knowledge
mentioned in the module is here: http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/ESOL-Online/. . . /Acti-
vating-prior-knowledge. It gives at least another four methods (we’ve added a fifth),
• Strategies to activate prior knowledge include:
• Concept map
• KWLHchart (Word file 34KB)
• Brainstorming (Mind Tools website)
• Graphic organizers
• Mindmaps.
For Concept Maps one arranges a preset list of topics or words (initially in unsorted
boxes say) linking them in a way that illustrates structure and relationships, arrows
linking boxes can be labeled. The Brainstorming website is quite a good source
of information and tips on how to run an effective brainstorming group (or solo)
session. It also has some cool variations on brainstorming for making it effective in
numerous settings, such as when there are more than a dozen or so people, or for
product improvement, or when evaluating proposals, and so on. Graphic Organizers
include things like spider diagrams, cause-effect diagrams, cycle charts, decision tree,
flow charts, network diagrams, pie-charts, fish-bone diagrams (Ishikawa charts),
tables/matrices, tree diagrams, Venn diagrams, and more. The KWLHchart is just
a table of three columns a student can fill in, the headings are: What I know; What I
want to learn; What I have learned (Know-What-Learn-How), see also the website
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/. . . . Mindmaps could be a subset of graphic organizers,
they are intended to utilize all the different processing units in our brains (we’re not
sure how this gels with cognitive loading theory (McInerney & McInerney, 2006,
p.126–128)).
It is worth checking out the “Done too much, too young” anticipatory reading guide:
it is quite provocative for teachers to read and education administrators to ponder.
Focus activity 2. The 2nd focus activity for this module file was to visit the
website: http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/essential vocab.php and find out
about some of the terms used in the field of EAL or ESL. Then answer the questions,
“What did you find out about second language learning from these terms? How
could you apply this in your teaching?”
For your reference we will just cut&paste the webpage here:
“Terms for our students or programs

Here are some of the essential terms used to talk about our students
or programs. All of these terms are used to describe students who are
learning to understand, speak, read and write in English.
• ESL means English as a Second Language.
• ESOL means English to Speakers of Other Languages.
• ELL(s) refers to English language learner(s )
• ENL refers to those students for whom English is a New Language.
• LEP refers to the current description of students abilities—that
they currently have limited English proficiency.
• Bilingual refers to the fact that students speak more than one lan-
guage. All of our ESL students are bilingual.
“Terms for understanding second language acquisition

• Culture Shock is a normal stage in the acculturation process that
all newcomers go through. Being in a strange place and losing
the power to communicate can disrupt a persons world view, self-
identity, and systems of thinking, acting and feeling.
– Students feel frustrated, angry, hostile, sad, lonely and home-
sick.
– Students may develop physical ailments such as stomach aches
and headaches. They are often devastated by the emotional
upheaval caused by moving to a new culture. They may exhibit
behavior such as depression or sleeplessness. They may become
overly aggressive or withdrawn.
• The Silent Period is a varying period of time during which a new-
comer is unwilling to speak in the second language. Nearly all
students go through a silent period. This stage could last for as
long as one year. English language learners should not be forced to
speak until they are ready to do so.
• Comprehensible input means that the spoken or written message is
delivered at the learners level of comprehension. The concepts being
taught should not be simplified, but the language used to present
the concepts must be made comprehensible. Basic concepts should
be presented in a variety of ways.
• Affective filter is a ‘wall’ a learner puts up if his/her anxiety level is
high. The lower the anxiety level, the lower the filter. ELLs must
have a low affective filter in order to learn English. The more com-
fortable students are in their school environment, the more ready
they will be to learn.
• BICS are Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills. These are the
language skills needed for everyday personal and social communica-
tion. Second language learners must have BICS in order to interact
on the playground and in the classroom. It usually takes students
from 1–3 years to completely develop this social language. BICS
are not necessarily related to academic success.
• CALP is Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency is the language
associated with native language literacy and cognitive development.
These are the language skills needed to undertake academic tasks in
the mainstream classroom. It includes content-specific vocabulary.
It may take students from 5 to 7 years to develop CALP skills.
CALP developed in the first language contribute to the development

of CALP in the second language.”
Sample answers to the 7-1 questions. The interesting things about the ter-
minology for me were (a) the ‘Silent Period’, and (b) the long time it takes for ENL
students to acquire BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills, may take up
to 3 years) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, could take up
to 7 years). The places an entirely new complexion (for me) on the needs of ENL
students. As our colleague, Hannah Taylor, noted in the forum discussion about
Bevan-Brown’s article: just imagine putting yourself into a foreign language school
immersion environment. Even with a little imagination you can easily think about
how nasty it could be if you were not sympathetically treated.
As noted earlier in this section (page 75), there are a number of implications for
the classroom. For example, using non-verbal means of teaching, using non-verbal
games, extensive use of graphic aids, mime acting roles, using computer instruction
programs in the EAL student’s native language, inventing a rough sign-language
for fun. Also, how about just being totally considerate and respectful of the stu-
dents’ plight! (Instead of expecting them to understand English unnaturally fast—
cognitive load theory again.)
[EDITORS NOTE: contributing authors could append their own answers here, or
in an appendix.]
Paradigms and Special Needs
First, note that special needs could be a term that covers gifted and talented students
as well as learning impaired students. Secondly, if all our colleagues on this course
were relocated to a classroom at MIT or Caltech then we would quickly become
special needs students (of the second type)!
Now here is an interesting question. Did it seem odd to you that the Module 7-1
course notes state that the ‘functional deficits paradigm’ of special education implies
that teachers need to fix the students’ problems, and have lower expectations of
them, rather than adapt ourselves to the students’ needs? Well, it seemed odd
to me [BMS]. There is nothing logical or even vaguely rational about the basis
for the functional deficits paradigm that implies to us any need to see our job as
merely fixing or making-up for a students’ difficulties without bothering to adapt
our teaching plans. There is, I feel, an irrational negative view of learning impaired
students that has grown up surrounding excessively ‘functional deficits’ thinking
which disregards basic humanity.
Taking the biophysical basis for the functional deficits paradigm as a reality, and
applying a little bit of humanity, one could easily arrive at exactly the same conclu-
sions reached by inclusive education philosophy. Let’s consider this thesis on more
detail.
Paradigms are defined as (c.f., WordNet version 2.0) ‘the generally accepted per-
spective of a particular discipline at a given time’. In this Module 7-1 Notes we are
told that there are broadly speaking two paradigms for special needs education.
1. The functional deficits paradigm—medical and statistical thinking.

2. The inclusive paradigm—social justice thinking.
While reflecting on this the thought occurred that these two views of special
needs education are actually not incompatible, and are in fact complementary.
The problem with the so-called functional deficits paradigm is not the basis
for it (medical science) but rather the way people have reacted to it—namely
that people tend to isolate learning impaired students, treat them differently
in a negative way, and assume lower expectations from them.
We suggest a change in attitude rather than a blanket change in paradigm
basis. In other words, lets change the paradigms—what follows after stating
the foundations—but retain the valid basis for each. We could for example
synthesis the above two paradigms, creating
3. the functional inclusion paradigm.
What this implies is that we acknowledge the scientific basis behind identification
of special needs students, both the biological and nurturing origins of gifted and
talented students, as well as the clinical basis of functional disabilities. The word
‘functional’ is quite important. It gives a fair way of thinking about disabled learn-
ing. The idea is that learning impaired students are functionally impaired, but are
not assumed to be mentally impaired internally. To synthesize this nicely with the
inclusion basis, we note that principles of justice and prejudice-free thinking de-
mand that we do not assume that we know what goes on deep inside the mind of
any student. In particular, we aught not just assume that special needs students’
brain scans indicate deficient mental operations. Clearly, severely learning impaired
students medically have a range of physical problems filtering and perceiving infor-
mation and processing output. Don’t we all at some time or another. But there is
no objective evidence that such people really think differently to all of us internally.
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.
Most likely learning impaired students will have associated psychological problems
resulting from frustration with not being able to rapidly filter information and pro-
cess their output. These psychological problems are emergent and not fundamental,
they arise from the biological and physical disabilities. We have no idea what, if any,
mental abilities any student possesses. All we can do is examine what the student
is able to express when their learning is assessed. They may know a lot more than
they are physically able to express. This is a working assumption for an holistic
approach to special needs education.
The thesis suggested here is that this third synthesized paradigm gives a balanced
view of special needs education and implies almost exactly the same practical ap-
proaches that the inclusive paradigm advocates. It does not subtract anything from
the inclusive paradigm, but only adds. For example, in addition, the medical reality
of any students’ biophysical makeup is acknowledged so that educators can adapt
their teaching methods accordingly, using whatever aids are available to overcome
communication barriers. We need to make use of science, not reject it, and at the
same time fully incorporate basic principles of justice and humanity. The same
principles work for EAL learners when they are in the language pre-mastery stage.
We could add that the opinion of Corbett and Booth cited in Kearney, 2006, “if
we can break down the barriers and exclusionary pressures, we can take away the
disability,” is a valid argument. People are in effect only ‘disabled’ because others
have set up a society that defines them as disabled relative to some sort of norm.
However, I also think this type of thinking, if taken to an extreme, does a slight
injustice to medical science. For example, a small isolated community of cooperating
severely learning impaired people (say stranded on a desert island) are objectively
less likely to be able to survive compared to a similar community of cooperating
fully able people or a mixture of disabled and able people. So there is an objective
culturally independent meaning to the adjective ‘disabled’ when speaking about
human abilities. It is not just culturally defined as perhaps Corbett and Booth
seem to imply according to Kearney.
Of course if I [BMS] were stranded alone on a desert island I would not last very long.
So I would only be ”able” if living in a community with a sufficient number of other
able people (who may have their own unique disabilities in some areas). So I can
still clearly see that there is a strong social construct in the meaning of “disabled”
and, for that matter, “learning impaired”. The term ‘special needs student’ needs
to be considered as a moving target to do us all justice.
Module 7-2: Who are our EAL students?

There were two focus activities for this submodule. The first Focus Activity is to
answer these questions,
1. What languages have scripts that are very different from English? Ask a
speaker of another language what sounds are different from English? If you
have learned a language at school, think back to some of the grammatical
features that are very different.
2. What is the effect of these differences for EAL learners who are required to
demonstrate their knowledge orally and in writing in English? How does this
impact on the assessment of these learners?
Sample Answer 1. Assuming the language’s ‘script’ is the symbolic representa-

tion, then a (very) short list of my favourite languages with differing script to English
might include: Arabic (Naskh script), Chinese-Mandarin (kăishū script), Indian-
Hindi (Devanagari script), Japanese (kanji script), Namibian-Kalahari (!Kung lan-
guage), Russian (Cyrillic), Thai (Thai Dam script), Urdu (Kaithi script).
At high school I learned a bit of French (Latin script same as English, typically
with more diacriticals) for a few years. The sound for the letter ‘r’ is a guttural
pronunciation using the back of the throat which is not used in English and so takes
a few hours practice to perfect, and even longer to get used to sounding when trying
to speak fluently. The !Kung language (spoken by the Kalahari Bushpeople for
example) uses lots of clicking sounds (similar to the cluck sound we make in English
when we want to gently tick someone off. . . ‘tsk! tsk!’).
[EDITORS NOTE: please add more to this list.]
Sample Answer 2. Some effects on EAL learners could be: much longer process-
ing time responding to verbal questions; complete confusion and bewilderment (not
recognizing the words at all); incorrect work due to misinterpretation; frustration;
defensive posturing; argumentation; dejection; depression, and so on. It need not be
all bad with good teaching practice. For example, a teacher might encourage some
levity and humour when things get misunderstood or mistranslated, and think of
the language barrier as a challenge and something fun to try to overcome with some
ingenuity.
Assessment of EAL student work is similarly effected. A poor teacher might down-
grade the EAL student’s work due to some of the above difficulties. One remedy,
which allows the student’s innate knowledge and understanding to shine forth, would
be to simply give them a lot more time, as needed, to complete work without
feeling under pressure or mounting frustration. Patience is needed, and if possible a
teacher could use non-verbal, non-written assessment methods, or computer-based
assessments programmed in the student’s native language—not as a crutch, but as
an aid until they master English sufficiently well to be assessed partly in English
language mode.
Second Focus Activity. The task was to select one of these cases and reflect on
how these factors would impact on the individual student. What other information
would you like to know about the student?
1. A three year old Burmese boy whose family have moved to NZ by way of
refugee camps in Indonesia. His family were farm labourers and do not have
a high level of literacy in their own language.
2. A shy, 16 year old Korean girl who is an international student. She has learned
English in Korea for 9 years. She intends to go to a NZ university.
3. A 8 year old Chinese boy whose parents are economic migrants from a large
city in mainland China.
4. A 14 year old Samoan girl who has spent some of her primary school education
in NZ, then returned to Samoa, but now has to live with relatives in New
Zealand.
Sample Answer. (BMS: I was too hesitant to tackle a 3 year old, but would be
interested in how many books and materials in either language the Burmese child
might have access to, among other things.) For the 16 year old Korean girl: such
a shy student would probably have difficulty communicating with other students
despite having nine years of English language tuition. The BICS factor (Basic
Interpersonal Communication Skills) might be her weakness. One could imagine
such a student coping well with strictly academic tasks, particularly mathematics
and sciences, but struggling perhaps in written English, and withdrawing into herself
as a result. Maybe she would be ashamed to share her work or express ideas openly.
However, inside she would probably be boiling with questions and holding back a
lot of frustrations.
So I would want to find time to converse with the student alone, with few distrac-
tions, so see how they are feeling. I might want to find out what hobbies she has,
what music, pop culture, sports, games, and other past times she was interested in,
and for sure get to know her preferred academic subjects to give her a good start
for university. I would, time permitting, like to ask her to tell me, or the whole
class, some interesting things about Korean culture, starting with their cuisine (of
course!). It would even be a cool classroom exercise for her to instruct the class
in some Korean language words or phrases that are pertinent to the class subject
(for example, in mathematics, how to pronounce the names of some famous Korean
mathematicians correctly, and learn a few key words expressing their theorems or
original ideas in Korean). That’s just the beginning of a sample answer to this focus
activity.
So that sets the scene. Now what about the other factors affecting her learning?
The strength of the girl’s oral language and literacy in their first language is, let’s
suppose, very good. So the focus for her and her teacher would be on breaking the
communication barrier to express her thoughts in English. In particular, gaining
confidence to speak and contribute, so it would be good to structure class activities
that naturally encourage informal talk and discussion—for example using Dictoglass
or some other technique. Her age might be a hindrance since she would be more
self-conscious about expressing herself in English. The trouble is, even with 9 years
of learning English while studying on Korea, she probably is lacking a lot of local
linguistic competence, particularly facing difficulty with colloquial Kiwi-English.
The ‘whaddayaupto’ problem! This would adversely effect her socialization and
would add to her shyness. So a kind teacher would look for ways to get this student
gently engaged in group activities, and encourage her to question Kiwi-isms and
phrases that she did not comprehend. This also relates to her exposure to English—
good exposure to English vocabulary (9 years) but hardly any exposure to everyday
language and social communication.
What about her opportunities to interact in English? These could be fairly limited
since she is so shy, but as an international student, let’s suppose, she is staying
with a New Zealand family or in student accommodation surrounded by English
speakers. Again, the classroom group activities would be pivotal i helping her gain
more confidence.
The main affective factor for the Korean girls might be her shyness and introversion.
This has been noted above. There might also be issues with her motivation: is
it achievement oriented or mastery oriented, extrinsic or intrinsic. Supposing she
is intrinsically motivated by her favorite subject (say graphic arts and marketing
studies), but strongly extrinsically motivated for achievement. These are things
we would want to know as her teacher because it would be useful to draw upon
her achievement goals to enhance her mastery of English. One could do this be
trying to relate English phrases and speaking to her interests in graphic arts and
marketing. For example, using dictogloss to study some art history, or whatever.
This student would also likely need a very supportive and safe environment. Braking
up the class into small discussion groups might be a good approach here, making
sure she is placed in a group with sympathetic students and kept away from the
more ‘disruptive’ or dominating students in the class, if there are any.
As for her cognitive and physical learning ability, we might note that she is very
bright, aspires to attend University, and so is not overly cognitively challenged with
academic topics, however, as noted before, her comprehension of everyday spoken
English would need to be tested and constantly evaluated by her teacher. As her
teacher we would want to gently and humanely check to see if she is comprehending
the spoken English in the classroom. The trick is to do this without giving her any
self-conscious sense of inferiority or embarrassment. That’s difficult to accomplish
within the limited time of a class period. Again, small break-out group activities
might help, with the teacher monitoring her progress in a very non-obtrusive way.
[EDITOR NOTE: authors—please add more ideas and elaborate. Fill in answers
for the other student cases.]
Module 7-3: Principles of Language and Content

Learning
This module urges us to now check our anticipatory guide and to fill in the second
column. This was done in Table 7.1 above, page 76.
After a day or two reflecting on these questions, I now find the 2nd question a little
ambiguous. Recall the statement was: “EAL students should be encouraged to speak
in English as much as possible (agree/disagree)”. At first, after reading the module,
I changed my opinion and thought, due the the ‘silent period’ phenomenon and the
time lag in developing BICS and CALP, that one should give ELL students the
slack, to gradually start using English, at their own comfort and pace. However,
it also seems important to engage them in some form of English communication,
and to do so often, and especially with the academic terms for the class subject
could be introduced to them (since they’ll often be new to all the students). I guess
the qualification “as much as possible” means I now only mildly agree with the
statement, but with the above reservations firmly in mind.
Website Task—The Seven Principles
Visit this website http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/. . . learning-across-the-curriculum, and

read about the principles for content and language learning. Reflect on the questions
under each principle. What do they mean for you in your teaching situation?
The seven principles are listed below, along with the associated questions and initial
notes. The same list is repeated in the Reflection Journal at the end of this book
for continual updating as future notes on the questions are brought to light.
Principle 1: Know your learners—their language background, their language profi-

ciency, their experiential background.
What do you know about your students’ language skills? What do you know
about their prior knowledge? How will you find out this information? How
will it affect your planning?
NOTES: We need to, first of all, open some kind of communication channel
with the students to find out this information. Graphical methods could be
used. Automated translators (there are plenty of internet sites that provide
such free services, more or less accurately enough to be intelligible) might
be used, whereby questions can be supplied to the student in their native
language.
Principle 2: Identify the learning outcomes including the language demands of the
teaching and learning.
What language do the students need to complete the task? Do the students
know what the content and language learning outcomes are?
NOTES: If the outcomes can be communicated ‘through the language barrier’
and echoed back (like a game of secret whispers) and the echo is more or less
the same as the communicated goal, then we can safely say we have effectively
communicated the learning and language demand objectives. (This is similar
to the principle used in error correction codes used in computing.)
Principle 3: Maintain and make explicit the same learning outcomes for all the
learners.
How can I make the lesson comprehensible to all students? How can I plan the
learning tasks so that all the students are actively involved? Do my students
understand the learning outcomes?
NOTES: For a solution see the note under the previous principle (2).
Principle 4: Begin with context embedded tasks which make the abstract concrete.
How can I put these concepts into a concrete context?
NOTE: If an abstract concept has no real world value then it need not be
taught! So every worthy abstract concept can be presented in a concrete
example, we just need to think a bit to find an appropriate example. I’m sure
we could all think of great ways to teach highly abstract qualities like virtues
(honesty, justice and so forth, for example by using play acting scenarios).
What about an extreme example: how would one make the abstract idea of
a quantum field concrete enough for teaching EAL students? Well, first of
all, is that on the curriculum? Well in 10 years time it just might be a topic
in secondary schools (average human intelligence is always rising). So let’s

tackle this case! An easy, and obvious solution is to use graphic, that is, visual
teaching methods. A space-time field is an ethereal concept but it can be
depicted by a picture of a closed universe with labels or values for the field at
every single point, which can be drawn with some artistic ability using contour
lines or ‘fluid flow’ vectors and so forth.
NOTE: Use mimes as kinesthetic activities if possible, and play acting. Get
muscles and bodies involved as well as mouths and brains.
Principle 5: Provide multiple opportunities for authentic language use with a focus
on students using academic language.
Is the language focus on key language? Do I make sure the students have many
opportunities to notice and use new language?
NOTE: setting up interactive group activities will help provide such opportu-
nities for EAL students.
NOTE: this is something we simply need to put some effort into remembering
to monitor. If the teacher has a computer available then a reminder system
could be easily automated. The students could even be co-opted (with suitable
rewards) to try to catch the teacher out if they forget this sort of task.
Principle 6: Ensure a balance between receptive and productive language.

Are the students using both productive (speaking, writing) and receptive (lis-
tening, reading) language in this lesson?
NOTE: another potential application for a semi-automated reminder system
(see the 2nd note for 5).
Principle 7: Include opportunities for monitoring and self-evaluation.

Am I using ‘think alouds’ to show students my strategy use? What opportuni-
ties are there for reflection and self-evaluation?
NOTE: another semi-automated reminder system case (see the 2nd note for
5).
Since these seem like questions to re-reflect upon once we are teaching in a classroom,
we will copy this list to the Reflection Journal section of this book (go to page 119)
and update it when the principles can be put into practice. We have just started by
making just a few notes on anticipatory ideas for dealing with these questions.
The web resource http://www.tki.org.nz/. . . /principles/. . . looked like an excellent
place to revisit often for hints on how to implement these seven principles in the
classroom.
Website Task—Dictogloss and Mixed Ages
(No, this is not a wax cosmetic for certain male parts.) Here we take a quick look
at a specific teaching strategies. The online forum discussions were so rich that we
have had to hold back on quoting some vey good commnets. So at the end of this
section we have selected just a small sample of reflections. Further comments and
stories related to EAL learning difficulties are quoted in the Reflection Journal on
page 119
Primary and secondary student teachers are asked to look at the dictogloss method
on the follwoing websites.
http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/. . . /Dictogloss
http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/dictogloss.htm
The following description of dictogloss is quite comprehensive.
“What is it? Students work in cooperative groups to recreate a text

that has been read aloud to the class. (Process adapted from the one
provided in the source listed below)
“What is its purpose?
• To introduce key words at the beginning of a work sequence
• To encourage students to focus on meaning when listening to a text
• To develop effective listening strategies
• To develop proof reading and editing strategies
• To provide an authentic opportunity for cooperative learning
• To assist NESB students and others who need a lot of support with
reading and writing activities
“How do I do it?
• Find a suitable text - usually one that is short and cohesive
• Divide the class into groups.
• Ask students to write down the key words as the text is read.
(Teachers might need to read the text more than once.)
• Have students work in cooperative groups to recreate the text.
• Groups proof read and edit their texts before presenting them to
the class in spoken or written form.
• Students compare their texts with the original, attempting to justify
the differences between them.
“How can I adapt it?

• Students might be given title of the topic and asked to predict the
key words
• Some (or all) of the groups could be given copies of (some or all)
key words before the text is read.
• Ask groups to work out definitions of the key words
“How can it be used to evaluate students’ language learning? Teach-
ers and students might be able to collect information about each stu-
dent’s ability to:
• recognise key words in a piece of extended prose
• retell word meanings and definitions
• use effective speaking and listening skills
• work cooperatively
• share information with a group or the whole class
• create a written retelling and compare it with the original
• extend proof reading and editing skills”
—From the second website: http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/. . .
Then answer the question,
• how could you use this in your classroom teaching?

Take the tricky example of a mathematics teacher as a challenge. One ap-
plication would be to teach some mathematics history (for example, the lives
and work of Euclid, Eratosthenes, Pythagoras, Zhang Heng, Ibn Sı́ná, Músá
al-Khwárizmı́, Leonard Euler, Srinivasa Ramanujan, and so on). So plain En-
glish could be used, no need for equations. This dictogloss idea seems well
worth trying out, since it could be adapted to any subject, and could be fun
as well as stimulating.
Note that Steve McGuire (http://jalt-publications.org/. . . /wajnryb.html) cited five

reasons for the succeses of dictogloss, as practiced by Ruth Wajnryb using the
dictogloss procedure in her own classrooms (it provides for the practice of language
and an opportunity to evaluate performance; it is motivating; it offers experiential
learning and is text based, challenging, and stimulating; it is communicative; and
students are exposed to the text concept, a move away from the sentence-as-unit
philosophy towards a use of whole chunks of language which is highly beneficial to
the learner’s language awareness). This is repeated here just to give us some good
arguments for using dictogloss methods in case other teachers question us about it.
It would be interesting to add notes to the Reflection Journal if or when we happen
to make use of the method ourselves.
Early childhood student teachers are asked to study the website, http://www.-
educate.ece.govt.nz/. . . /MixedAgeSettings. . .
Then, consider the role of mixed ages in early childhood centres in creating a lan-
guage rich environment where interaction among children is facilitated. Answer the
question: how does this interaction aid the process of language acquisition for EAL
learners?
Forum task. Take one focus activity task and one website task. Write 200 words
maximum outlining how both these tasks contributed to your understanding of
teaching EAL learners. Give feedback or comment to at least two other people in
the forum.
Here is one sample outline:
“Focus Activity reflection: They were all valuable. I’ll comment on

the 1st FA of 7-2—‘What languages have scripts that are very different
from English? etc.,. . . ’ Recalling my time overseas, mainly in India
trying to speak canned Hindi to visitors to a Mashriku’l-Adhkár, was a
¯ ¯
great way to ‘put myself into an ELLs shoes.’ I can relate this experience
to the other focus activities somewhat, but the other main thing that
struck me was the long ‘Silent Period’ time and the time lags for devel-
opment of BICS and CALP. It was truly a new insight for me. I had an
inkling of the long time it takes to master a language (Vladimir Novikov
once remarked that he could think in English like a genius, write English
like an expert, but spoke English like a baby) but no idea how it really
impacts an ELL who is desperately trying to do well academically and
fit in.
“The website task I found quite interesting was the background knowl-
edge activation methods investigation. All of the methods referred to
sound interesting. The ‘anticipatory guide’, which was the main method
of this focus activity, seemed nice and simple, and an elegant way to gen-
erate classroom discussion and engagement with a topic, and to gently
test one’s assumptions and schema. I will be sure to use this method as
well as experiment with the dictogloss method.”
It is good to read the comments on this topic posted by non-native English speakers,
such as this one from Dave Zora,
“ I’ve chosen to reflect on how it feels when new migrants and refugees
or EAL learners engaged in every day life where they find them selves in
unfamiliar situation. For me as English is my third language, I found my
self in many situations which led to laughter and others being frustrated,
embarrassed and experienced a bit of fear. There is a lot to talk about,
but to cut long story short, before twelve years ago, when I arrived to
NZ, my wife, son and I went to social welfare (WINZ) to register our
self in their system in order to receive the unemployment benefit. At the
interview the case manager said to me, ‘could you grab a chair please,’
I just stood there looking at my wife and talked to her in our Christian
Aramaic language saying, ‘what does this lady want me to do?’ despite
having a high level of education and having read lots of research papers,
I couldn’t understand this word. Then the case manager stood up and
walked to the next office which was two meters away and brought a chair,
and straight away I told her, ‘oh, ok you mean to bring the chair!!!!’ I
just laughed and also was embarrassed telling to my wife, ‘what is this
lady going to think about us.’ Colloquial language is quite important to
know as well. In a classroom setting where most of the students are
EAL learners, the teacher should explain to them every colloquial term
that might be exposed in the classroom in case they wouldnt understand
it.”
Appreciating the humour of mistranslation is also helpful, as well as an opportunity

to have a laugh while teaching EAL learners about colloquial nuances, as in this
annecdote from Charlotte,
“I have a friend from China who was working for a mutual friend of
ours when he first came to New Zealand. She was organising a surprise
party for her husband and she invited him to it. A few minutes later he
was carrying a log of timber with her husband and he said to him, ‘I hear
your wife is having surprise party for you tomorrow’!! Woops!”
Additional Resources for Language Learning
The module notes point to the following resources,
• esolonline.tki.org.nz/. . . Secondary-ESOL (e.g., for ‘English Language Inten-

sive Programme Years 7-13’ resource units).
• Graphic organizers examples, esolonline.tki.org.nz/. . . Graphic-organisers.
• Dictogloss, wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/dictogloss.htm
8. Module 8—Evidence-based
Teaching
This module is something of a culmination of all of the previous lessons. All teh
theory in the world is fine and good as far as one can absorb it all, but is useless
without real world data and evidence to monitor and back-up a teachers’ practice.
The question we ask ourselves is, “how do I know my application of all that theory
I studied in EPSY301 is really working?”
We violate our course notes rule of note regurgitating the module notes here just
once, since evidence based teaching (EBT) is quite a difficult subject to implement
in practice. So it is worthwhile going over the theory one more time.
What is Evidence Based Teaching?

The module notes give the following description. Evidence based teaching is,
1. the collection, analysis and interpretation of information about learners to

inform teaching and learning,
2. the use of evidence to make a difference to learning,
3. family and community consideration: assessment should involve families, whanau

and the community;
4. empowerment: assessment of childrens learning should enhance their sense of

themselves as capable people and competent learners,
5. relationships: assessment is influenced by the relationships between educators

and children, and these relationships should be taken into account during
assessment,
95
Module 8—Evidence-based Teaching 96
6. holistic development: assessment of children should take place in the same

context as activities and relationships, and should encompass all dimensions
of childrens learning and development and see the child as a whole.
The module notes go on to elaboprate,
In recent years there has been a shift from assessment of learning

to assessment for learning. In other words assessment should enhance
learning and be part of learning rather than just measuring what a learner
knows. This means that Teachers should be asking, “How effective is my
teaching in impacting on learners’ learning?” rather than just, “How
well are my learners doing?”
Why Use Evidence Based Teaching?

The module notes give nine good reasons.
1. Examining evidence of learners achievement for its implications for teaching

helps raise achievement.
2. New technologies mean large amounts of data are readily available.
3. Accountability and data are at the heart of contemporary reform efforts world-
wide (that is, it is a bit futile to attempt reform or improvement without clear
evidence for both the need, extent, and how to improve things).
4. Data an important part of an ongoing process of analysis, insights, new learn-

ing and changes in practice in learning centres and communities.
5. The most powerful way to raise learner achievement is to foster excellence in

teaching.
6. Teachers have marked and meaningful effect, rather than just a positive one.
7. An evidence-based approach informs professional teaching practice.
8. Teachers ability to build on learners’ prior experiences and scaffold effective

learning opportunities is crucial to enhancing learning. (Whilst it is very
important that teachers are caring towards learners, teachers must also care
about effective teaching.)
9. Learning is enhanced by the extensive use of assessment practices that are

diagnostic, descriptive, formative, motivating and provide quality feedback.
(So assessment needs to include student self-assessment and peer assessment
as good learners take increasing responsibility for their own learning.)
We assume the authors of the module have used evidence-based research to arrive
at these reasons!
Principles of EBT—Informing Practice

Therr are five key principles of EBT given by the module, citing (Timperley &
Parr, 2005).
1. The process of making teaching decisions involves a consideration of both the

curriculum and the evidence of student achievement with regard to specific
learning intentions. (Decision bases.)
2. The focus should be on the effectiveness of day to day teaching activities, not
additional programmes. (Focus.)
3. The collection of evidence needs to be ongoing and should be used both to
identify student needs and to monitor the effectiveness of the intervention.
(Collection.)
4. Best practice is established by examining the data by class and finding the
most successful teacher or teachers who can assist the others. (Best practice.)
5. The process should be an inclusive one at all points. Achievement information
is analysed together and interpretations and decisions are collectively owned
(all teachers, all students). (Disclosure, inclusiveness or openness.)
In some cases one suspects it would be advisable to not reveal all assessment evidence
publically, but certainly the involved teachers and the individual student should have
mutual full disclosure of the data and evidence of their EBT history.
Synopsis of T&R—Challenging and Changing Teach-

ers’ Schemas
Before discussing the findings and implications of this research paper, we first sum-
marize the article (Timperley & Robinson, 2002). The key points were,
• Only 2 out of 35 schools in the region selected for the professional development
program cited any problem as due to internal school processes. All schools
cited mainly external problems with students or their backgrounds (deficit
thinking).
• To force a change of existing schema all schools required at least three exter-
nal interventions—if we count the initial professional development program
invitation as the first intervention. One school (Pleasant Road) required four
interventions.
Apart from the initial contact, the remaining 2 or 3 interventions were either,
– Challenging the existing schema.

– Recommended testing, to see discrepant data.
– Offering of alternative methods (literacy programs usually) and/or alter-
native interpretations of the data.
Resistance after the second intervention stage was either of the form,
– to explain-away the discrepant data,

– to find fault with the professional development contractor, or to endlessly
test or look for other effects,
– to resist the need for testing assumptions,
– or to resist wholesale changes.
Twenty four of 26 eligible schools opted to enter the professional development pro-
gram and accept the funding. The paper looks at four of the schools as prototypical
examples of the different processes that took place.
The processes each of the selected four schools for the case study went through are
summarized here:
1. Viscount school: Their schema 1.0 was to blame low-entry skills.
(a) challenge to their schema—why not test assumption (external input-2)

(b) testing revealed discrepant data (students had good skills)
(c) resistance was to explain-away the data (an ‘exceptional intake’ that year)
(d) consultant provided alternative interpretation (external input-3)
(e) recognition of their poor interpretation led to revised schema (the stu-
dents really do have a good foundation).
2. Pleasant Road school: Their schema 1.0 was to blame uncommitted parents
and likely book loses.
(a) challenge to their schema—meet parents and give out funded books (ex-
ternal input-2)
(b) testing revealed discrepant data (many parents attended meeting & only
4.5% book loss)
(c) resistance was to test everything
(d) consultant urges testing assumption about student attendance (external
input-3)
(e) discrepant data seen (students have good attendance records)
(f) consultant provided alternative teaching method (external input-4)
(g) revised schema (move to evidence based testing schema).
3. Kingsland school: Their schema 1.0 was low-expectation hence need to delay
full-on reading.
(a) challenged to their schema—why delay reading? (external input-2)

(b) consultant provides alternative literacy program
(c) resistance against need to test achievement
(d) testing is urged, revealing discrepant data (external input-3)
(e) revised schema (‘we did not know how to teach them’).
4. Paterson school: There schema 1.0 was to blame student background hence
need to ‘go slowly’, not push students.
(a) challenge to their schema—why not push harder? (external input-2)

(b) consultant provides alternative literacy program
(c) resistance was to avoid wholesale change (‘they want us to change every-
thing’)
(d) school modifies existing program but does not change the schema basis
for it
(e) no improvement, no discrepant data, old schema is actually reinforced in
teachers minds
(f) no revised schema, withdraw from program.
So each of these four schools underwent a slightly different process. Only in the
last case was there no positive improvement and no consequent change in teacher
schemas, in fact in this last case the poor initial schema was reinforced. Let’s again
summarize the processes in basic form to highlight the differences:
Viscount: challenge–discrepant data–resistance–alternative interpretation—revised
schema.
Pleasant Rd: challenge–discrepant data–resistance–alternative data—revised schema.
Kingsland: challenge–alternative method–resistance–discrepant data—revised schema.
Viscount: challenge–alternative method–resistance–rejection of alternative method—
no revised schema.
Discussion of “Challenging and Changing Teach-

ers’ Schemas”
This section is an extended review of the online Q&A discussion about the Tim-
perley & Robinson article, Achieving School Improvement Through Challenging and
Changing Teachers’ Schema. This was a powerful article. Almost immediately it
primes a student teacher to the openess and honesty required for improving teaching
practice, and the difficulty of changes one’s practices even in the face of evidence
for a need to change.
Vicky kick-started this discussion:
“I have finally read the Timperley reading and it has made me a bit
sad thinking of the schools out there that have these schemas where the
blame of the children’s abilities is external! It really made me think we
as teachers should be so aware of questioning ourselves and looking at
our own effectiveness of teaching. We ARE responsible, yikes that is a
bit scary!
“It makes the principle #1 from MOE—Know your learners, so im-
portant, we may think we know our students, but we shouldn’t presume
anything, we actually need to find out about them and their families.
“Actually it makes me excited, we can make a difference in these little
people’s lives! I hope I will remember all this. . . anyway, just a thought,
love to hear from anyone else out there. . . ”
Oldriska replied,
“Thanks for your inspiring comments! It is a scary thought. It

frightened me too when reading the article, and it made me question the
judgements that we all make on a day to day basis without getting to
know people. I think whether we like to admit it or not, we probably all
have them to differing degrees, but it is like you say being able to reflect
on ourselves and challenge our assumptions. I enjoyed seeing in the
article how in most cases data and evaluation of students combined with
intervention and offering teachers different ways of doing things helped
change the teacher’s schemas. I have a real dislike of data and statistics
and people being labelled according to findings but my assumptions were
challenged through this article and I can see the huge value of student’s
being assessed so that teachers can truely see where their student’s are at.
The artcile shows that it is so important for teachers is to keep learning
and self reflecting and challenging their assumptions throughout their
careers. The outcomes were very positive in most cases and I was so
excited I looked up the website of Viscount School, one of the schools in
the Timperley article, and found their site to be uplifitng and inspiring.
www.viscount.school.nz/report.htm”
Then Susan J., inserted this provocative thought,
“I would like to think that because this research was published 9

years ago, that these sorts of schemas would be extinct. Isn’t it great
to think that we won’t repeat the mistakes of the past and how lucky
the children of the future will be to have us as their teachers! Knowing
the child and understanding where they are coming from seems to be
an underlying subject within this whole paper whether it’s connected
to pakeha, maori, special needs children or any other ethnicity. One
thing I do think is important to remember is that it’s not only these
minority groups that we need to understand—pakeha children can be
compromised too (low socio-economic/broken homes etc). Don’t judge
a book by it’s cover is my motto.”
I great sentiment! And yes, wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society where certain
schemas and instinctual (or acquired) prejudices had become extinct. Isabelle was
first to follow up with,
“Susan, I would also love to think positively about this and assume
that such schemas are extinct but, realistically, as Oli has mentioned ear-
lier, almost everyone has a tendency to unconsciously judge people (to a
certain extent) without real data to support those thoughts so, I believe
that this problem will inevitably always be somewhat present in class-

rooms unless each teacher purposefully makes sure it doesn’t. . . which is
definitely something to strive for.”
Blair chimed in with his usaul overly-wordy 2 cents worth,
“I loved the lessons from this article! Take home points for me were:
“(a) Everyone has schemas, whether we admit it or not! e.g., I tend
to have an overly optimistic schema—I think all students at secondary
school can learn quantum mechanics basics in 6 to 8 months. That’s
probably a bad schema since it is unrealistic? (I think it is realistic
but depends on given me the students and not sharing them with other
teachers for those months haha!)
“(b) our schemas can be changed.
(c) a good way to alter our schemas and ensure they continually adapt
for the better is to assess ourselves, test our assumptions: write down
our beliefs about each student and devise a way of testing them.
“(d) students have schemas about us teachers as well! So we can work to
try and alter these for the better as well. . . ask students to do the same
sort of assessment of their beliefs.
“(e) everyone benefits when people try to understand each other more
sympathetically. The cliche ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ is so apt
here as one of you mentioned earlier. Obviously some ’book covers’ are
revealing, but what a huge disservice one does by not leafing through
all the pages! The thing is, human beings are not just analogous to
ordinary book, we are books with infinitely many pages. So while the
’cover’ and many pages may be battered and ugly, what about those
gems of pages within all of us that other people hardly ever see. I like to
think of a teacher’s role, in part, as exploring the ‘book’ of each human
and uncovering those wickedly cool pages.
“[(f) Viscount School are very cool for publicly sharing their story. :-) ]”
Shelley then added some realism to the discussion,
“I have to agree with you Blair, however this is a basic human be-
haviour. Our snap judgement of others helps protects us from danger
and guides our interactions every day.
“I was employed as a teacher aide for a boy who I knew to have mild
autism, and who wore hearing aides to help with an auditory processing
disorder. It wasn’t until I saw this little boy whizz through maths prob-
lems and his beautiful writing that I realised that I had made assump-
tions about his cognitive abilities based on the things I knew about him.
I did this without even thinking. In a class of 30 students a teacher will
make some ‘snap judgements’ about a child based on first impressions
of behaviour/manner as well as physical characteristics. Is it possible as
humans to not do this? Or is it a question of not relying on those snap
judgements and using EBT?
“Also parents and students have schemas around teachers based often
on physical characteristics and whatever the carpark chitchat has to say.
Perhaps this is why parents don’t always get involved”
to which Blair replied,
“. . . for the question you raised about whether to rely upon snap judg-
ments or use EBT, I still think the lessons from Gladwell’s book [Blink!
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, (Gladwell, 2005)] amplify the
case that we should never rely upon snap judgments. Now I’ve caught up
with you and understand what EBT stands for I’m even more convinced
something like it should be used instead of making judgment calls about
students.
“To answer the question directly: Is it possible [for] humans to not
do this? (ie., rely upon first impressions), the answer is clear:
The answer is, sadly, ‘No’—we all instinctively form first impressions and
make snap judgments, this is unavoidable and biological in origin, as you
pointed out—I agree—our evolved brains need to respond to crises and
danger, from the days when we were hunter-gatherers.
“But we are now talking about a classroom context where that in-
stinct is not needed (except for very rare circumstances, like earthquakes,
that have nothing to do with teaching!) so if the question is changed
slightly to, ‘do we need to use first impressions?’ then the answer is a
happy positive ‘No’. (IMHO).
“To relate this to the take-home message from T&R (for me), the
lesson is that we all have a higher nature that sits on top of our instinct
(reptilian brain structures actually, I think!), which is our capacity for
exactly the reasoning and abstract thinking that we are currently en-
gaged with, and this should, in the teaching context, be something we
can (and should) train ourselves to use to always override the instinctive
snap judgments we make about people.”
Folowing this theme and elaborating, Jinxi (Jonathon Hubert) wrote the following.
“Please attach IMHO to all statements.

“Snap judgments are great as long as they’re correct.
“Reflex reactions bypass the need to engage the higher functions of
the brain. This saves one having to think about things like, ’how are my
legs doing? Is my knee in the right place to keep me upright?’ By which
time you may be on the floor thinking about why your bottom is sore.
“A snap judgment is just that, a ’snap’. Unlike a reflex arc that is
’hard wired’ into our neurological system ’snap judgments’ are based on
previous knowledge, experience and abstract thought ( hopefully) as in
Piagets’ combinatorial logic. This should mean that we can manage new
situations and information without having to examine every little detail
every time in a limited time environment such as in class rooms or in
survival scenarios.
“The problem with relying on ’snap judgments’ too much is that we
get lazy. We can rely on them too heavily because it is convenient to do
so (less thinking). The other problem is that the human brain is always
taking short cuts to save on processing time. This is particularly true
with vision. We tend to see only what we expect to see. I’m sure we
can all relate to this when we are looking for ones’ keys when we’re late.
They may be on the table right in front of you but you don’t recognize
them because they are slightly obscured by a bit of paper and do not
conform to how you expect them to look. Your ’snap judgment’ will be
wrong and now you have dismissed the table in your search as ’no keys
there’ consequently making the search a hopeless task. This is what my
wife terms, ’ Bloke looking’. She will come in and say, ’What’re you
doing? Here they are, right in front of you!’
“It often takes a different perspective to help you see the errors in
your judgements. I think this relates to the whole point of the Timperley
paper.
“ ‘Snap judgements’ have to be based on correct assumptions. Some
people consciously give out all sorts of signals to help us make correct as-
sumptions about them and hopefully facilitating appropriate responses,
others are totally unaware of the signals they give. This relates very
closely to cultural and social expectations. If you have no reference to
these signals you shouldn’t be making snap judgments. If you have no
background knowledge you shouldn’t be making any judgments. If you
have no experience you shouldn’t make predictions. To do so could get
you or someone else into a lot of trouble.
“If you do have good background knowledge, information, data and
experience then predictions or expectations can justifiably be made. This
is then a very distinct advantage in ones’ life. If you can avoid difficul-
ties before they happen by predicting them then success in life/tasks

will much more likely. I think this is the relevance of the ‘Competent
Learners’ paper.”
Still on the same topic but changing tack slightly towards the problem of failing to
do our best for students, an anonymous collegaue wrote,
“What I understand of history is that we still continue to make the

same mistakes and come across the same problems (in principle at least).
Even in my own short existence I find myself falling into the same sort
of traps I promised I wouldn’t. The fact I know this helps me to avoid
them most of the time but it only takes a little distraction and oops I’m
late again!!!
“This is part of being Human.
“I accept easily that I have failings and try to minimize them but I
also know I have strengths, which I try to enhance. It’s difficult and often
tiring to constantly review ones self and be introspective all the time so
that we are able judge if we have the correct schema. One thing that
intrigues me is that if it’s so difficult to do this for the person we know
most about ( ourselves) then how are we expected to be able understand
the backgrounds and schema for every person we will ever teach and get
it right. We will at times get it wrong and fail the needs of a child. This
is a sad thought but bad things happen everywhere and to all people at
some point.
“If we can’t accept our failings and be at peace with them and who we
are how can we move towards the positive aspects that we excel at? I am
concerned that if you constantly ask a person, ‘Are you sure you’re doing
that right?’ or worse, ‘Do you think you are doing that wrong?’ for long
enough that they will become so obsessed with that thought that they
undermine their own natural abilities. Analysis paralysis or analytical
critical! We are told not to focus a child’s mind on the mistakes they
make but on their achievements. Should this not be true for all people?
If we are doing something right shouldn’t we just continue doing it?
“One of the most important life lessons I’ve learnt is that the first
thing one should do is learn to fall well. We will all fall at some point.
The better you fall the less damage you will sustain and the quicker you
will be on your feet giving it another go. This means that the fear of
falling is gone. It may be an inconvenience to fall but not terminal. Next
time you my just stay on your feet”
In response Blair wrote,

“In relation to teaching, I guess the important thing is to not ”give

up” on a particular child even if you may have failed to help them before.
“There is also some food for thought provide by Anon concerning
the need to be not overly critical. There’s a balance of course. I liked
Erik Erikson’s ideas about the various antinomies we all have to struggle
with. So when one is going through the industry vs inferiority stage it
can be a killer to be put down and have your efforts denigrated. But I
suspect this is not just a six year old struggle. I think we all struggle
with this throughout our lives whenever we are entering new territory or
new domains of inquiry.
“Also, it’s worth thinking of a scientist. They have a self-correcting
thing called experiment plus peer review! It corrects bad theories or
hypotheses. So even if they completely miss a crucial piece of evidence,
their theory or model can usually be reworked and erroneous assumptions
can be identified. You have to be fairly philosophical about a ‘failed’
experiment, and even consider it as a positive thing, since it will either
help refine a model or lead one to a better theory. Really good scientists
love to find annoying and weird results. Is this not also what Evidence
Based Teaching is all about? Sure, it’s easier to be lazy and not want not
get involved in a lot of teaching assessment, but a little bit of hypothesis
testing can, I think, go a long way. It’s just a matter of being open to
the process.”
Back on the subject of needing to know our students, Leah gave a nice story,
“Ahh, the importance of knowing a child. These discussions bring

back a lot of memories and allow me to (finally) tie it into my academic
world. Prior to studying this year, I worked with children at a summer
camp over the span of 10 years. In this time, kids change! We acknowl-
edged that, and convinced new staff to find things out about each child
for themselves—not rely on previous staff to tell them what a child was
like. I know that in staffrooms in schools across the world the following
takes place—‘Oh, you have him, this year—well, good luck with that.’
What sort of impression does that new teacher take away?
“When people (like us) are ready to find out for themselves, the en-
vironment becomes one of appreciation, acceptance and (for some kids)
relief. I have experienced it—in a sports camp of all places, where win-
ning is everything, right? No! Kids will follow your lead and with
enough good leaders, they learn to make up their minds for themselves
too. But—it’s difficult to change or influence everyone because some
people find it hard to un-learn the things that have become habit—and
its important to realise that even children can have a habit of reacting
in a certain way if this is how other role models in their life react.
“I realise this is not related directly to the reading, but is moderately
related to the famous Blue Eye/Brown Eye study (Jane Elliott) that
brought to light many unconscious prejudices we all carry. A very lay
description is on wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane Elliott and there
are many other more scholarly websites with more info.”
Then Edward raised the spectre of seniority in schools:
“The Timperley and Robinson reading did inspire me but also made
me wonder if I’m a junior teacher and aware of better/more effective
methods yet the senior teachers are happy with their methods how do
I change the culture of teaching in a dept/school? Surely the senior
teachers have trained and have research to support their potentially fail-
ing methods?
“Does every staff member at the ministry have a magic wand they
can wave at failing areas?”
This is not discussed much in the course readings, module notes and textbook!
However, it is probably one of the more difficult obstacles we face as new student
teachers, full of bright eyed hope and optimism, looking to add value to the current
education system.
That sadly is where we leave this topic as at February 15 2010. Hopefully some
more insights and practical guides for overcoming the barrier to schema challenge
and so forth, will emerge in due course.
9. Extension: Quick Summary of
Key Research Papers
This section might be helpful as a memory aid. It attempts to boil the EPSY-301
course readings (not including McInerney++) down to a single sentence or two.
This is not possible without doing an injustice to each paper, so please bear in mind
that the intent is only to provide a quick-fire review.
[EDITOR: TODO...]
108
Reflection Journal
Reflections on Each Week of EPSY301

I have learnt at least the following new items of knowledge,
1. Most so-called ‘theories’ of educational psychology are not really social-scientific

theories but rather distillations of wisdom about effective teaching, learning,
and human development. Almost all of the major ideas in this field have some
validity, maybe not for all people all of the time but certainly they stand up
as useful little models and thought-stimulants for any prospective educator.
2. Modern constructivist education philosophy has a lot in common with my per-
sonal philosophies about the roles and relationships associated with teaching
and learning.
3. There seems to be a lot of valuable research on teaching and learning meth-
ods,with conclusiosn and recommendations that have still not reached the
average everyday classrooms.
4. Studying online allows one to be very flexible with one’s time, but requires as
much discipline, or maybe more, as studying on-site.
How have my ideas about teaching and learning changed? Honestly not
a lot in this first week. I have a slightly deeper appreciation of the difficulties that
teachers face, whether from studetns, from their colleagues, from the pressures of
parents and from the rules and regulations of the educational system and structure. I
enjoyed istneing to D.J. Campbell’s podcasts, especially the episodes on Feistinger’s
cognitive dissonance ideas and Sweller’s cognitive load theory.
Reflections after the second week. During the second week I read the chapter
by Woolfolk which I enjoyed, particularly the section discussing some of the fallacies
109
Extension: Quick Summary of Key Research Papers 110
of common-sense (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007, p.10–12). In particular I would have

guessed that common sense would be correct in sugggesting that teachers should
help out the lower performing students first and most often. The research by Sandra
Graham (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007, cited on p.11) suggests on the contrary that
this is more likely to lead to the student (and thier peers) concluding that the studetn
has low ability rather than simply lacking effort, and it is better to offer help when
students ask for help rather than before they ask for help. I also liked the example
of Lily Wong’s research (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007, also cited on p.11) that showed
people can be mislead into thinking something is “obvious” merely by being shown
“research results”.
I liked the quote (I forget the source, probably in Boerkaerts, 2002) that went:
“punishment teaches children what not to do, it does not teach them what to do!”.
That’s a nice point against use of punishment. Better to concentrate on rewarding
and reinforcing good behaviour.
Also in the 2nd week I read more about Sweller’s Cognitive Loading ideas. This
actually seems like a reasonable set of ideas that could be granted the status of
‘theory’ ! The new information from cognitive loading theory that I found very
interesting was the various reversal effects:
• Worked examples: For beginners studying worked examples is more effica-

cious than trying to solve problems.
• Expertise reversal effect:The expertise reversal effect occurs when a stu-
dent has learnt enough from worked examples, at this point it becomes more
efficacious to do problem solving.
• Split-source effect: For geometry and physics when two or more items are
required for effective learning the working memory is best utilized by combin-
ing the two items into a single diagram or pattern (words plus pictures should
go together). The consequent load on working memory in not doing this is
termed the split-source effect, and results in lowerered learning efficacy.
• Redundant information effect: Combining two modes (words plus pic-
tures) that contain essentially the same information is not a good idea since
it increases deands on working memory with no added benefit to simply pre-
senting the information in split-source format. This could also be termed the
powerpoint effect, if an audience tries to read a slide and listen to the same in-
formation spoken by the presenter at the same time, then this lessons retention
and learning.
• Modality effect: The brain uses multiple processors, so-to-speak, the mian
two are visual and auditory. It is more effective to present split-source infor-
mation in a combined pattern using both modalities, since then the demands
on each processor are lessened, thus instead of merging words with a diagram
you could instead use audio (verbal or recorded sound) alongside the visual
diagram (hnce audio-visual presentation). Provided it is truly split-source and
not redundant!
• Imagination versus Study effect: An expert often learns more effectively

when trying to imagine concepts or procedures, but usually only when the
material has already been suffiently well-learned (otherwise it is too much of
a burden on working memory to both imagine and grasp the new ideas). So
beginners often find it best to study concepts and processes first. This is a
form of the expertise reversal effect.
Reflections after the third week. The sorry state of New Zealand schools hit
me when reading the material for this week. It seems a lot of good progress has
been made since I was at school, but there are still massive injustices in the ways
non-European culture is provided for (cf. Bevan-Brown, 2006), and general teachers
expectations and schemas are found to be often inappropriate and down-right false
(cf. Timperley & Robinson, 2002).
Reflection on Assignmetn 1—Personal Eduucation Autobiography. Who

better to quote here than Hannah, who aced teh assignmetn and wrote a very nice
reflection:
“My main feedback was about being able to go a bit more in depth
with the links to the theories I referenced, and in hindsight I would
say that my main problem with respect to that was that I had about
a million ’lightbulb’ moments about my development and education in
those first two weeks and really felt like I was psychoanalysing myself
(which was disconcerting at times), and because I have a pretty good
memory of everything that happened at school, I was reluctant to leave
anything out! So I guess I could have picked less examples and analysed
some in more depth.
“But in the end, linking all of that stuff to my own experience has
proved invaluable. My reflection on this assignment is that it taught
me a lot about myself and my motivation for learning, which has been
purely achievement oriented to date. Writing this assignment allowed me
to reconstruct my own ideas of learning and I came out of it hoping that
my results would show me something about my understanding rather
than a good grade. For the first time in my life I read the comments
and leafed through my assignment before I even thought about looking

for where the grade was written, haha! I am happy with my result, too,
which shows I’m on the right track to understanding, but I am most
happy with the change in my attitude. I hope that changing my own
schema will help me to transfer the value of understanding over ‘grades’
to my future students, because prior to doing this course my focus for
learners would have been much different.”
Samples of colleagues’ excellent essays were posted on the wiki: http://geonworld.-

homelinux.net/twiki/. . . AssignmentSamples.
Grand Unified Model of Educational Psychology

OK, it’s not a theory, just like all the other ‘theories’ of human educational devel-
opment are not theories. But here are some meta-principles. I will refer to ideas as
philosophies rather than theories.
1. All philosophies and ideas about human educational psychology and devel-
opment (both teaching and learning philosophies) with empirical backing are
potentially valid.
2. When two or more philosophies hold logically contradictory premises (or con-
clusions based on multiple premises) then one or both are invalid (but only in
those aspect or premises that lead to the contradictions).
3. Disagreements about relative importance of certain ideas are not logical con-
tradictions.
4. Human psychology is too complex to admit a single unified model that can
capture all the realities and implications of human development (this principle
basically says that humans are in some sense infinite in potential and no finite
model can hope to explain all of human behaviour).
5. The units or levels involved in human psychology: biological organs, indi-

viduals, families, groups, institutions, society, and human spirituality, are all
important and related, and any valid model can be used to explain certain
observed features of these levels and their relationships and implications for
teaching and learning—provided the model does not conflict with evidence.
6. Such valid models can be viewed as tuned to particular units and levels and
may incorporate change over time.
7. It is possible to usefully utilize any given model or set of models that are
collectively consistent, and adjust parameters of the model to suit a given
educational situation.
The final principle is a network view of human learning+teaching psychology. It is

like a smorgasboard. One can use various models and adjust their parameters to
suit a given real world educational situation or context. Provided the consistency
axioms hold then there is no need to favour one model over another, only the efficacy
and practical value of the model need be considered. In other words, this ‘GUM’ of
educational psychology is like Bruce Lee’s no style philosophy of martial art.
It is not a theory because it cannot really be tested, however it can be put into
practise. It can be evaluated for practical efficacy and can be studied and refined by
using consistency as a guiding principle. It is open, because anyone can potentially
add a new teaching/learning model to the GUM-EP. An educator can pick-and-
choose amoung many models and adjust the importances of various principles to
best suit their needs and the needs of their students and society.
Motivating Students (and teachers)

TIP: Keep a copy of Boerkaert’s booklet handy at all teching times!
It is ideal if students are motivated to learn and teachers are motivated to learn and
teach. But how? The key ideas from the booklet Motivation to Learn (Boekaerts,
2002), http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/. . . /prac10e.pdf are useful to keep
in mind.
Key questions:
• What moves students to learn and the quantity and quality of the effort they
invest?
• What choices students make?
• What makes them persist in the face of hardship?
• How student motivation is affected by teacher practices and peer behaviour?
• How motivation develops?
• How the school environment affects it?

Classes of motivation:
• Achievement motivation
• Intrinsic motivation
• Goal orientation
Nine key principles of motivation for learning;
1. Motivational beliefs act as favourable contexts for learning—so use

each student’s beliefs about motivation.
2. Students are not motivated to learn in the face of failure—so help

them to experience some success.
3. Students who value the learning activity are less dependent on en-
couragement, incentives and reward—so help students find value and/or
personal meaning and worth in a subject.
4. Students who are mastery-oriented learn more than students who

are ego-oriented—so down-play ego-orientaiton (you are not interested in
correct answers) and praise effort and industry.
5. Students expect value for effort (research evidence is clear: domain-

specific self-efficacy beliefs influence effort investment, and not the other way
round)—so provide assignments that require students to predict the effort
needed to do a task. After finishing the task, students could be asked to
reflect on the invested effort. Was it sufficient or superfluous, and why?
6. Students need encouragement and feedback on how to develop mo-

tivational strategies—so get studetns to think abut their goals, what’d be
fun, and reflect on them, set some goals and acct on them.
7. Students need encouragement and feedback on how to develop will-

power—ask your students to compare and contrast the amount and type of
effort invested in various tasks, this will help them gain insight into their own
willpower.
8. Students are more committed to learning if the objectives are com-

patible with their own goals—be flexible about goals, don’t impose your
own unnecessarily (‘I say you must always work alone’), negotiate and inter-
rogate each student’s goals.
9. Adapt these principles to the local context of your classroom—so

observe students and discover how the previous eight motivational principles
work in your classroom.
How to spot Mastery and Achievement oriented students.
• Mastery oriented students:

– take extra effort in class, even when no marks are at stake
– seek challenging work for the sake of it
– ask for additional work
– ask more than the usual number of questions
– make applications of school knowledge to the real world.
• Achievement oriented students:
– ask about teacher expectations related to assignments
– ask questions about how assignments are structured, such as how marks
are awarded
– will work beyond normal expectations too achieve higher marks (but will
not ask for extra work)
– question the distribution of exam and assignment marks.
Dealing with Poorly Performing Students
Here I assume the student is well-behaved, in general, but is struggling acquiring

knowledge and skills required by the curriculum.
First thing is to not worry too much about the curriculum, but instead focus upon
advancing the student’s understanding and motivation.
Dealing with Badly Behaved Students
Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory seems like a good method for steering badly
behaved students towards better behaviour. Identify why they are behaving poorly,
and if possible identify what they are thinking that leads to their present general
behaviour. Then identify conflicts between their behaviour and thier beliefs. They
will naturally tend to want to resolve this conflict. The teacher then could try to
help steer the change in the student towards more positive behaviours and/or beliefs.
Anxiety and the Pressure of Goal Orientation
This is a topic I would love to know more about. My first impression is that the
general approach is to,
• Not over-emphasise the curriculum. Teach to the student, not to the curricu-
lum. How?
• Use classroom activities that take the students’ minds off the need to achieve
good exams grades, for example, mke it obvious that for you the importance is
on learning processes, having fun, and studious effort (i.e., intrinsic motivation
factors).
• Playdown or not even bring attention to students with good grades in tests.
Instead highlight and reward student effort and progress.
Improving Schools and Improving Teachers

The work done by the NZ Ministry for Education and research by Timperley and
Robinson (Timperley & Robinson, 2002) is really impressive. The idea of challenging
teachers’ schemas (individually and collectively for each school) seemed to really pay
off big time for the sample of low performing NZ schools. Great work.
Teachers think children are not well prepared for school, but when challenged to
investigate the reality they found the children had a surprisingly good set of funda-
mental skills. But often this was accepted only after the teachers and school were
forced to intepret the data without bias or prejudice. This lead to acceptance of
change in schema (beliefs about the students and how to appropriately teach them).
The lesson: never assume you know your students well—always test your
assumptions and be prepared to adapt if they are flawed.
The Seven Principles for Content Language Learn-

ing
The following principles can be applied right across the curriculum. The idea is to jot
down notes under each principle that provide solutions to the associated questions.
This will be an ongoing effort.
For more guidelines and examples see, http://www.tki.org.nz/r/esol/esolonline/-

primary mainstream/classroom/. . . principles/,
Reflect on the questions under each principle. What do they mean for you in your
teaching situation?
The seven principles are listed below, along with the associated questions.
Principle 1: Know your learners—their language background, their language profi-

ciency, their experiential background.
What do you know about your students’ language skills? What do you know
about their prior knowledge? How will you find out this information? How
will it affect your planning?
NOTES: We need to, first of all, open some kind of communication channel
with the students to find out this information. Graphical methods could be
used. Automated translators (there are plenty of internet sites that provide
such free services, more or less accurately enough to be intelligible) might
be used, whereby questions can be supplied to the student in their native
language.
NOTE: We can do some background reading ourselves, and we can (hopefully)
talk to the students’ parents or guardians. As well as attempting to learn
whatever we can from the ELL student we can also compare notes with other
teachers.
Principle 2: Identify the learning outcomes including the language demands of the
teaching and learning.
What language do the students need to complete the task? Do the students
know what the content and language learning outcomes are?
NOTE: When possible code the intended outcomes in the form of non-verbal,
non-written objectives, such as pictorial format.
NOTES: If the outcomes can be communicated ‘through the language barrier’
and echoed back (like a game of secret whispers) and the echo is more or less
the same as the communicated goal, then we can safely say we have effectively
communicated the learning and language demand objectives. (This is similar
to the principle used in error correction codes used in computing.)
Principle 3: Maintain and make explicit the same learning outcomes for all the
learners.
How can I make the lesson comprehensible to all students? How can I plan the
learning tasks so that all the students are actively involved? Do my students
understand the learning outcomes?
NOTES: For one solution see the 2nd note under the previous principle (2).
NOTE: active involvement can be facilitated by group work, or by computer-
aided instruction.
NOTE: Find a way to relate the learning objectives to the culture of the
student.
Principle 4: Begin with context embedded tasks which make the abstract concrete.
How can I put these concepts into a concrete context?
NOTE: If an abstract concept has no real world value then it need not be
taught! So every worthy abstract concept can be presented in a concrete
example, we just need to think a bit to find an appropriate example. I’m sure
we could all think of great ways to teach highly abstract qualities like virtues
(honesty, justice and so forth, for example by using play acting scenarios).
What about an extreme example: how would one make the abstract idea of
a quantum field concrete enough for teaching EAL students? Well, first of
all, is that on the curriculum? Well in 10 years time it just might be a topic
in secondary schools (average human intelligence is always rising). So let’s
tackle this case! An easy, and obvious solution is to use graphic, that is, visual
teaching methods. A space-time field is an ethereal concept but it can be
depicted by a picture of a closed universe with labels or values for the field at
every single point, which can be drawn with some artistic ability using contour
lines or ‘fluid flow’ vectors and so forth.
NOTE: See also the 3rd note for principle 3.
Principle 5: Provide multiple opportunities for authentic language use with a focus
on students using academic language.
Is the language focus on key language? Do I make sure the students have many
opportunities to notice and use new language?
NOTE: setting up interactive group activities will help provide such opportu-
nities for EAL students.
NOTE: this is something we simply need to put some effort into remembering
to monitor. If the teacher has a computer available then a reminder system
could be easily automated. The students could even be co-opted (with suitable
rewards) to try to catch the teacher out if they forget this sort of task.
Principle 6: Ensure a balance between receptive and productive language.

Are the students using both productive (speaking, writing) and receptive (lis-
tening, reading) language in this lesson?
NOTE: another potential application for a semi-automated reminder system

(see the 2nd note for 5).
Principle 7: Include opportunities for monitoring and self-evaluation.
Am I using ‘think alouds’ to show students my strategy use? What opportuni-
ties are there for reflection and self-evaluation?
NOTE: another semi-automated reminder system case (see the 2nd note for
5).
Forum 4 Reflections (EAL Learning)

This was another online forum that had many interesting thoughts and stories. Some
of them are quoted below. At first these entries were just ordered my date (as they
appeared on the DiscussionBoard).
Lisa Foggin wrote this reply to the question, “Have you been in an unfamiliar situ-
ation where you did not speak the language?”,
“I recently delivered a project in a Maori Boys High School. I split the

boys into small groups to discuss aspects of the project. When working
in these groups they spoke amongst themselves in Maori. I found it
difficult to interact with the group as I do not speak Maori. I felt isolated
and frustrated as I did not know whether the boys were discussing the
questions they had been set or were merely talking amongst themselves.
I felt disorientated and that I had lost control of the group as I was unable
to share learning through their language. This experience has provided
an insight into the difficulties EAL learners face on a daily basis”
So that shows how the tables can be turned on a teacher in a classroom. Then
Tarena had this interesting comment in response to Lisa’s story,
“I can remember travelling through different parts of Europe and

experiencing those same feelings. I felt frustrated in Paris because the
body language seemed as though they generally hated tourists, but I
enjoyed Rome because I could kind of make sense of conversation through
there elaborate body movements. I wonder what sort of body language
EAL students experience when they come to our country?”
A good question. It is not easy for us to know the answer, but putting ourselves into
the same situation by traveling in other coutnries (Italy is a good one) can provide us
with the empathy required to help EAL studetns. Anna Simonsen’s remark brought
home the terror that is often involved in being immersed in a foreign environment,
“. . . in Russia I couldn’t make sense of anything. I remember thinking

that if I got separated from my husband and got lost, I would have such
a difficult and scary time getting around.”
Hannah wrote about the insights gained from reading the EAL vocabulary list. The
image of teachers as radio receivers being ‘tuned in’ to their students is a helpful
one—one cannot pick up any signal unless one is tuned to the correct frequency of
the transmitter.
“Reading the list of terms on the website actually gave me a lot more
insight into teaching EAL learners than I thought it would. This task
helped me to understand the complexities of second language acquisi-
tion in terms of the number of different factors which may affect an EAL
learners confidence and ability. It made me understand that the impli-
cations for teachers teaching these students are that teachers must be
very tuned in to their students in order to determine if there are any
‘blocks’ which will prevent learning–such as culture shock, affective fil-
ters or excessive anxiety—and do their best to minimize the causes of
these blocks, whilst being patient and letting them speak in their own
time.”
This sentiment was echoed by many colleagues. It is helpful to know about and be
aware of the silent period and the time lags involved in acquiring BICS and CALP.
Reading stories from ESL colleagues is very insightful Consider this one from Loesje,
“Having been at school in Holland, I finished college speaking four

languages ‘fluently’. We learned a language according to the old fash-
ioned way of dictation and memorisation. We would learn in English for
example: “What are you going to do tomorrow?”. I could say that sen-
tence without hesitation, and I could have replied in proper English too.
But then, coming to New Zealand, it seemed that ‘whaddayapto’ meant
the same thing! To make a long story short, although being competent
in English, I didn’t understand a word being said and could not hold
a conversation with my peers. There is a difference between learning a
language and learning a language!
“Learning in a group where various students express an idea in many
different ways seems to me a very important aspect of learning a lan-
guage.
“For the reason I described above, amongst others, I value the im-
portance (and fun) of learning a new language through dictogloss. I
also think that this technique could be applied to other subjects than a
second language.
“As a technology and arts teacher I am especially inspired by Airey,
who came up with the variety of doing dictogloss with pictures. As
I will have to teach my learners to draw as a means of communicat-
ing/language, I see an opportunity here to teach them that language in
a stimulating and comprehensive way. You can also turn the technique
around and let them describe a picture with words. I see many positive
outcomes coming from this and will definitely investigate the subject
further. Thanks for that Airey!”
Confusions and humour can even result when we are immersed in an English speak-
ing culture that is different, such as the USA as noted by Tarena.
“. . . even though they speak English, it is still quite a different lan-

guage. I almost got sent off in a soccer game because I said, ‘damn it!’,
which is a swear word there but not here. There were heaps of occassions
where my slightly different language was the source for many laughs, and
at times it got me in hot water.”
An online mini-thread ensured about the modrern form of teenage communication

or “txting”—some student teachers are worried they might not be hip enough with
this to realte comfortably to their future students, perhaps that is a fair concern?
So as well as culture shock we may also have to deal with generational gap shock.
Relating a story about how a teacher dealt respectfully with one childs hesitancy to
even speak their own name when answering rool call, Anna Simonsen rwrote,
“Context: Day 2 of school for a class of new entrants. This young

Asian boy didn’t want to be at school. He desperately clung to his Dad
and seemed to be begging to be allowed to go home. The teacher and
his father had a conversation about a strategy to encourage the boy to
stay at school and join the rest of the class on the mat. The teacher read
the roll. She reminded the class that she wanted them to respond with
either ”good morning Mrs X” or ”hello” when she called their name. All
the kids followed suit, in that new entrant sing-song voice. This boy was
part way through the list. The teacher called his name, the boy didn’t
respond. She waited a couple of seconds. Then just before the class
started turning around to look at the boy she said ”Nice to see you X. X
will answer the roll when he’s ready”. It was said in a lovely way and she
quickly moved on. The kids moved on to and didn’t question it. I can’t
give a follow up report on this because parents aren’t normally part of
the class at this time.”
One of the tasks to reflect upon was the exercise of Module 2-2—to examine how
the various factors affecting learning for EAL learners would impact on one of the
described students (Burmese boy, Korean girls, Chinese boy, Samoan girl)—and
Charlotte wrote a nice reflection on her case study of the ‘shy Korean girl’.
“I selected the case study of the shy 16 year old Korean student to
understand how different factors impact on the individual student. As a
teacher I need to understand as much as I can about my EAL students.
There are positive and negative factors that influence students when
learning English.
“In this case the student had more positive factors than negative
ones. It seemed that her cognitive processes would be well developed
and shell have more linguistic knowledge to apply to the tasks. Her
native oral language and literacy in her first language would probably
be strong also. If she did go to university in the future, the opportunity
to freely interact with first language English students and her tutors may
be hindered if she is still shy. She would miss opportunities to test her
comprehension and conversational skills. Her shyness may not hinder an
increasing understanding of academic English.
“I need to find out if she has any physical learning disabilities such
as hearing, and exactly how well she did during her formative years at
school. Doing this exercise gave me experience in determining existing
abilities, hindrances and future opportunities students have in learning
English.”
The issue of teacher assumptions and judgment and schema arose in this forum, and
was also extensively discussed in the DiscussionBoard Q&Q thread about Bevan-
Brown’s article, “Beyond policy and good intentions”. Leah posted this comment,
“Making assumptions can be OK, as long as we are aware we are

making them. And, of course, being able to listen, reflect and change
your mind is a sign of someone who is accepting (and I think smart). I
hope that I’m going to be challenged in class occasionally—that I will
get the opportunity to say to a student, ‘You know what, you’re right,
let’s rethink this.’ I know if a few of my teachers had said this, they
would have been much more highly respected.. . . Any thoughts?”
References 123
Thoughts and Reflections on National Standards

In the discussion of the Timperley & Robinson artcle, Anna S brought up the topic
of National Standards:
“I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through these comments, great

to get some discussion going. I am wondering how the new national
standards that have been introduced will help out with these kinds of
situations. I don’t know much about them but it is my understanding
that it means there will be information about every child in the key areas
as to how they’re doing. I’m wondering how the information will be used
by teachers and whether it might challenge any schemas?”
This is probably a topic worth a lot more discussion. Nic Able responded first with
this comment,
“Very good question, and one with so many differing answers I’m
sure! I think the potential downfall of national standards is the same
response that we saw with the T& R reading, whereby some (we hope not
‘too’ many, but reality sometimes smacks us upside the head!) schools
may wish to ‘perceive what they want to perceive’ and explain the data
away with their schemas.
“While the outcome of the three schools in this study was great, it
wouldn’t have been so without the contractor’s intervention on ensuring
the right questions were raised, and offering various options for improve-
ment. So, unless these options are available for every school that needs
help with looking internally following such data as the national standard
results, then this data may prove useless. That’s where we obviously
come in (insert superhero ‘ta da da ta da daaaaaa’ here!) where, although
new, we need to have the confidence to influence change where required,
alongside ensuring those involved (other teachers/parents/community)
understand the reasoning why and actually agree with it. As there’s no
way to change anyone’s schema if they don’t see the reasoning why.”
References
Bevan-Brown, J. (2006). Beyond policy and good intentions. Journal of Inclusice
Education, 10 (2), 221–234.
References 124
Biddulph, F., Biddulph, J., & Biddulph, C. (2003). Chapter 8: Conclusions. In The
complexity of community and family influences on children’s achievement in
New Zealand: Best evidence synthesis (pp. 174–182). Wellington: NZ Ministry
of Education.
Boekaerts, M. (2002). Motivation to learn (Vol. Educational Practice Series No. 10).
Brussels/Geneva: International Academy of Education/International Bureau
of Education.
Cullen, J. (2001). An introduction to understanding learning. In V. Carpenter,
H. Dixon, E. Rata, & C. Rawlinson (Eds.), Theory in practice for educators
(pp. 47–69). Melbourne: Dunmore Press.
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. Little, Brown
and Company.
Kearney, A., & Kane, R. (2006). Inclusive education policy in New Zealand: reality
or ruse? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10 (2), 201–219.
McInerney, D. M., & McInerney, V. (2006). Educational psychology: Constructing
learning (4th ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.
Timperley, H., & Robinson, V. (2002). Achieving school improvement through
challenging and changing teachers’ schema. eving school improvement throug
Journal of Educational Change, 2, 281–300.
Woolfolk, A., & Margetts, K. (2007). Teachers, teaching and educational psychology.
In Educational psychology (pp. 2–16). Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson Education
Australia.
Wylie, C., & Hodgen, E. (2007). Competent learners @ 16: Competency levels and
development over time: a report for the Ministry of Education (No. RMR-835).
Wellington: NZCER.

Epsy301 Collective Notes - The Learner in Context

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Epsy301 Collective Notes - The Learner in Context

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Collective EPSY301 Course Notes

Online Collaboration Team

February 25, 2010

1 Module 1—Teaching in Aotearoa-New Zealand 6

2 Module 2—Human Development 23

3 Module 3—NZ views of Human Development 31

Module 3-2: Ecological Models of Human Development . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4 Module 4—Learning and Motivation 36

5 Module 5—History of ECE & Schooling in NZ 56

6 Module 6—Diverse Students 60

7 Module 7—EAL Students 75

Module 7-3: Principles of Language and Content Learning . . . . . . . . . 87

8 Module 8—Evidence-based Teaching 95

9 Extension: Quick Summary of Key Research Papers 108

Reflection Journal 109

Module 1-1: Teacher Qualities, Teaching Images

The instructions are to;

1. Think about what is important in teaching and learning.

2. Focusing on the roles of teacher and student, think of an image or metaphor

(a) summarize what you believe about teaching and learning

The Superfluid Metaphor

The non-metaphor part: Since this is a metaphor understandable only to those

The Tree Metaphor

This is simpler to imagine. The image is shown in Figure 1.1

• Tree ↔ the world.

• Branches of the tree ↔ teachers.

• Leaves and shoots of the tree ↔ students.

• Fruit and seeds ↔ mature students and school leavers.

• New tree ↔ new world!

“The image I have tried to convey in my metaphor is that of the

“My interpretation of this image is to try and show the nucleus of

Module 1-2: Competent Students and Learners

“Competent Children, Competent Learners , Wylie and Hogden,

• Competencies likely to be higher than a national representation.

∗ Cognitive competencies can predict attitudinal competencies

– Need to provide support for children from disadvantaged homes

Links Between the Report and the NZ Working Model for

• The study only includes investigation of one inter-generational factor, maternal

• The PPCT model is interested in multiple psycho-physical levels, from the

Extended Discussion of the Wylie & Hodgen Report

“According to the Wylie and Hodgen reading, maternal qualification

“Just from personal experience, I was married to a man who was

“It’s a very complicated concept. In my mother’s era—it wasn’t

Module 1-3: Teacher Knowledge and Reflections

Module 2-1: Historical Ideas about Human Devel-

• Early child psychologists

– G. Stanley Hall—foundations of psychology.

• The Grand Three

– Psychoanalysis—Freud and Erikson

My pithy summary of all this history and philosophizing is in the section of my

Freud’s psychosexual models. Freud’s work is often charicatured as overly

Modern behaviorist research. Chapter 6 of McInerny++ gives a nice overview

Erikson’s psychosocial models. Erikson extended and softened Freud’s some-

At each stage there is a potential for positive and negative experi-

I think of behaviourism as a minimalist version of learning theory. The big take-away

Other Early Theorists of Note

• Jerome Bruner—enactive, iconic and symbolic stages. Sequential instruc-

intuitive). Spiral curriculum (building up layers, towards higher abstraction).

• Ausubel—reception learning. Idea that learning is more effective when ex-

• Gestalt psychologists—the ‘ah ha!’ experience. Insightful learning (exciting

Module 2-2: Developmental psychology—ecological

• To what extent are these commonly shared understandings?

Other Theories of Note

• Metacognition—thinking about thinking. Encourage students to think about