Almost exactly a year ago in this newsletter I reported that Hagley had been awarded funding from the Ministry of Education to support a two year research project involving teachers from four Christchurch schools, including Hagley, as well as teachers from UC’s Transitions programme.

The project’s focus is based on the knowledge that while there are aspects of academic literacy which are common across disciplines, but there are also aspects which are specific to different disciplines. The project’s goal, therefore, is to help teachers understand more about the “ways of knowing and doing” in their learning area or discipline so that they might better prepare students for the academic reading and writing demands which they will encounter when they enter university. So for the last year, 20 teachers across the five organisations, including 4 Hagley teachers, have been led to inquire into and learn more about the academic demands of their discipline, and to begin to look at how they can use that knowledge to develop different approaches to improving students’ academic literacy skills. Teachers are trialling these approaches with their classes and have all chosen a small group of students to monitor in particular. It is hoped that teachers will see improved results in their students’ work and this will, in turn , lead to higher achievement for the students.

At this halfway stage in the project it is clear that, in the words of the project’s MOE monitor, “this is a very complex and innovative inquiry- cross discipline and across organisations”. It is also clear, though, that teachers are gaining in understanding about the “ways of knowing and doing” in their discipline. Over time the plan is to share these understandings more widely across the five organisations.

Marie Stribling

Project Leader