Search

It is well established that literacy as a social practice is fundamental to supporting and facilitating student learning across the years of schooling, and research has shown the importance of all teachers understanding the literacies of their learning areas and being able to mobilise effective literacy practices to support student learning outcomes. During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic teachers across the globe were forced to (re)negotiate the reading, writing and speaking demands of learning and teaching in uncharted, digitally mediated environments. In this paper, we report on findings from a research project undertaken at a large secondary school in Victoria, Australia which investigated the ways in which teachers' priorities during online learning impacted on their approaches to and enactment of disciplinary literacy. We identify two priorities that emerge from interviews with teachers during and after the COVID lockdown: (1) to support the development of student disciplinary and content knowledge and (2) to engage in pedagogies that consider cyber-safety and student-wellbeing. We explore these priorities in the context of teachers' literacy knowledge and practices and students' literacy engagement and learning, and consider the implications of this analysis for issues of equity and quality in fully online digital contexts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to education and highlighted the importance of effective leadership during times of crisis. This paper considers the impact of the pandemic on school leaders in Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand. A secondary analysis of data from five interpretivist, qualitative studies was conducted. The aim of the study was to investigate the similarities and differences between the leaders' experiences across school settings, states/provinces, and countries. Our findings place renewed importance on understanding the role of schools within the community and the vital role school leaders play in helping schools respond to volatile and dynamic circumstances. The findings show how leaders' roles and responsibilities adapted to respond quickly and effectively to the urgency of the crisis, regardless of the context. Furthermore, common practices such as attending to wellbeing and providing clear and timely communication were revealed. The analysis also revealed some interesting nuances in the leaders' responses because of the duration of the crisis, the particular needs of the community, and government requirements. Papers like this provide insights into what leaders do and how schools and systems might prepare and support leaders to lead during times of crisis.

Effective professional learning is acknowledged as a key lever to improve teacher practice. However, many studies report significant variation in the effectiveness of the types of programs on offer. Recently, there has been a move from the traditional single event, passive approach to more collaborative and ongoing forms of professional learning. Interestingly, researchers have paid little attention to understanding the experience of professional learning from the teachers' viewpoint. This research sought to develop this understanding by following the attitudes and behaviours of a group of secondary teachers as they participated in an ongoing professional learning program. This professional learning program tracked teachers as they participated in workshops and then applied the learning to their classrooms. Our results suggest five interacting characteristics that contributed to improvements in teaching practice. These findings underpin the development of a process model of professional learning, that we call the Iterative Model of Professional Learning (IMPL).

AbstractThere is a growing body of literature which highlights the relationship between classroom talk and learning. However, despite the growing acceptance of the link between talk and student learning, talk remains an undervalued pedagogical practice by many teachers. This is particularly evident in secondary school classrooms. This paper presents the findings of a research project examining the talk patterns of seven secondary school teachers from a range of learning areas. A video recording of each teacher’s lesson was the source of data. The teacher talk behaviours and student responses were coded highlighting 11 teacher talk behaviours and seven student response types. The results showed that over half of the teacher talk behaviours involved either instructing or asking closed questions. We also found the highest proportion of students’ responses involved explaining or labelling in response to teachers’ talk. Our data indicates that there was variation in the teacher talk behaviours that appeared to directly impact students’ responses. While the teachers talk patterns were predominantly instructing, the talk behaviour of the students was mainly labelling (one word or short responses) or yes/no responses. There was evidence of students explaining when the teachers engaged in higher proportions of open questions. Our data suggests that this was a key teacher talk behaviour to facilitate this talk behaviour in the students. The findings from this research have implications for understanding the challenges faced by secondary school teachers as they support students in a mainstream classroom setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on research regarding the leadership experience of women middle leaders in secondary schools. Previous research has focused on women in senior leadership in schools. Internationally, the teaching profession tends to be dominated by women, and yet in most countries, women do not occupy a commensurate proportion of senior leadership roles. Therefore, given middle leadership is a steppingstone to senior leadership, we need to further identify and understand the barriers and enablers for women navigating this layer of leadership. This qualitative study answers the following questions: Are there barriers for women to access middle leadership? If so, what? What enables women to access middle leadership? The data for this study was collected through 65 interviews with leaders undertaken in 33 non-government Australian secondary schools. A thematic analysis of the transcripts of interviews, revealed several barriers and enablers for women accessing middle leadership. The identified barriers included family and caring responsibilities, informal networking that excluded women and assumptions made by others. Enablers included structural and strategic actions by senior leaders to promote women, mentoring and relevant leadership programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments to determine the distribution of [H.sub.2]O and C[O.sub.2] between synthetic peraluminous granitic melt and natural Fe-Mg cordierite have been conducted at 5 kbar and 900 [degrees] C under fluid-saturated conditions. Up to seven charges, saturated with a range of [H.sub.2]O-C[O.sub.2] fluid compositions, were run simultaneously. The [H.sub.2]O and C[O.sub.2] contents of the cordierites and the [H.sub.2]0 contents of the melts were determined using secondary ion mass spectrometry. As the C[O.sub.2] content of the fluid increases, the [H.sub.2]0 content of both the cordierite and the melt decrease in a similar manner to fluid-undersaturated experiments in the [H.sub.2]O only system. The cordierite [H.sub.2]O contents in the experiments range from 0.5 to 1.7 wt% [H.sub.2]0. The distribution coefficients (Dw = wt% [H.sub.2] [O.sup.(melt)]/wt% [H.sub.2] [O.sup.(cordierite)]) are in the range 3.5-5.9 and agree with the model of Harley and Carrington for 5 kbar and 900 [degrees] C. The C[O.sub.2] content of the cordierite increases from 0 to 1 wt% C[O.sub.2] in the most C[O.sub.2]-rich experiment as the cordierite and melt [H.sub.2]O contents decrease. Our [H.sub.2]O-C[O.sub.2] cordierite data allow us to model and predict the maximum C[O.sub.2] content in cordierite to be 0.16 [+ or -] 0.01 molecules per formula unit (i.e. 1.16 wt% C[O.sub.2]) at 5 kbar and 900 [degrees] C. This value, and the channel C[O.sub.2] contents of cordierite in equilibrium with [H.sub.2]O-C[O.sub.2] fluids at high XC[O.sub.2], are significantly lower than predicted using previous models. On the basis of these experiments cordierites that are saturated in [H.sub.2]0 + C[O.sub.2] and have channel XC[O.sub.2] > 0.25 require aC[O.sub.2] of over 0.75.