Abstract:
In 1993 and 1994 a team of South Australian university researchers won grants to research and produce teacher development materials (videos and accompanying booklets) that explored connections between literacy, poverty and disadvantage. The research projects were carried out in Government and non-Government schools serving poor and diverse communities.
Rather than producing material that provided "answers", the teachers and researchers involved in the project wanted to portray the kind of reflective enquiry, and in particular the tentativeness, which characterised practice in classrooms where teachers were grappling with equity based literacy and asessment practices.
This presentation will describe the process of producing the literacy assessment material in particular. It will illuminate the ways in which the literature, teachers', children's and parents' experiences, the researchers' knowledge and understanding, and teachers' ongoing enquiries informed one another as the project progressed. It will demonstrate how teachers' struggles to understand the nexus between literacy and disadvantage and to explore more equitable literacy pedagogies and assessment practices shaped the project and were reflected in the materials.
Rather than producing material that provided "answers", the teachers and researchers involved in the project wanted to portray the kind of reflective enquiry, and in particular the tentativeness, which characterised practice in classrooms where teachers were grappling with equity based literacy and asessment practices.
This presentation will describe the process of producing the literacy assessment material in particular. It will illuminate the ways in which the literature, teachers', children's and parents' experiences, the researchers' knowledge and understanding, and teachers' ongoing enquiries informed one another as the project progressed. It will demonstrate how teachers' struggles to understand the nexus between literacy and disadvantage and to explore more equitable literacy pedagogies and assessment practices shaped the project and were reflected in the materials.