16TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON READING
The essential question: what happens to student achievement when teachers’ knowledge and understanding of writing and their capacity to teach writing improves?
STEWART, Joan Australia
When developing an expression of interest to participate in an Australian Government Quality Teacher Program, one Australian elementary school undertook a self evaluation and a key finding was that the standards and the testing data reflected decreasing trends in literacy achievement, particularly in years 3-6 writing. Two strategies identified to achieve improvement were firstly, to develop a whole school plan for the teaching of writing and secondly, to implement a collaborative coaching model to build teachers’ practice in writing. A planning team was put in place and a series of ‘learning circles’ for teacher professional development was created and facilitated by Joan Stewart, University of Ballarat. This session will describe the journey over the year 2008, covering the writing workshops, the data collected at the beginning of the year and then again at the closing of the final learning circle in October 2008, as well as a review of the first National Testing results for years three and five at this school. Finally, I will return to the original essential question to discuss teachers’ skill in teaching writing and observations of teachers’ increased capacity to provide inclusive environments for active and engaged learners.
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6/29/09 3:19 AM