Learners.: Around Pedagogies, Sydney: Primary English Teaching Association of
Learners.: Around Pedagogies, Sydney: Primary English Teaching Association of
Learners.: Around Pedagogies, Sydney: Primary English Teaching Association of
Tomlinson, C., (1998). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All
Learners.
Forlin, C. & Lock, G. (2004). Embracing diversity: Using technologies in remote
school communities [videorecording]. Perth: Edith Cowan University.
Bragg, S., & Fielding, M. (2005). Its an equal thing Its about achieving together: Student
voices and the possibility of a radical collegiality. In H. Street & J. Temperley (Eds.),
Improving schools through collaborative enquiry (pp. 105-135). London: Continuum. [Read
Evaluation 750
*How would you evaluate the project?
By engaging students, teachers and different staffs from different
departments
Ask about their opinions and conduct practitioner enquiry
*What kinds of data you need to collect and analyze?
Students as data sources:
-Students' past performance (half-yearly, yearly, HSC trial results, etc)
Students' role
-Students' in-class performance (past performance)
-Samples of students' work Department's role
Context 400
Millicent Lee Poulos Foundation
Coordinator from Language department for ESOL students
School backgrounds (nature and content of the school)
Current needs so its necessary to carry out a pitch
Reading recovery program
Our school, the Presbyterian Ladies College is a K-12 Catholic,
independent school which is located in Croydon in inner west of New
South Wales. PLC is a ladies college which was founded in 1888,
currently there are 1172 female students enrolled at the school.
There are about 37% of language backgrounds other than English
students at PLC, as well as 1% of Indigenous students of the total
population. At our college, we do have a very high ICSEA, 1172,
which is significantly higher than the state average. 78% of our
students families come from top quarter of the state, 22% from the
middle quarters and only 1% come from the bottom quarter. We are
proud of our outstanding school facilities, our net recurrent income
for per student is $28000 in 2013. We also have specialized
scholarship programs for students from year 5 to year 12.
At PLC, our students attempt to achieve high achievements in both
NAPLAN and HSC examinations. Students reading and numeracy
achievements in NAPLAN testing are quite significant from 20112013, which has been improved by 50 and 44 units relatively.
Meanwhile, our students achieve more the higher bands than similar
schools and Australian schools, and get less the lower bands
compare to similar schools and Australia schools in NAPLAN results.
Not only the NAPLAN results, 85% of PLC students gaining offers
from universities and the reminders would go to TAFE or other
higher institutions, where half of the HSC students gain ATAR results
of 90 or higher.
However, the current priority area which needs to be focused on is
to meet literacy needs of ESOL students at PLC. Though our ESOL
students could sustain basic interpersonal communication skills,
they often lack the sophistication needed to fulfill the academic
requirements. One of the evidences is that according to our
colleges 2013 HSC performance of English Advanced, Standard
English and ESL results, where compare to the state average
percentage of achieving band 6, 0% of ESL students had achieved
band 6 compared to stage average as 3%.
Based on the notions of the National Professional Standards for
teachers, teachers should know their students and how they learn,
as well as developing effective strategies for addressing students
needs (NSW institute of teachers, 2011). Therefore, to meet
literacy needs of ESOL students has become one of the priorities at
PLC this year. As the coordinator of English language department, I
would like to pitch for funding for a research and development grant
from Millicent Lee Poulos Foundation. The entire project is aiming for
providing an on-going reading recovery program for ESOL students
and monitoring students English literacy developments throughout
the term. I would introduce our designed project of reading recovery
program for ESOL students by mapping onto National Professional
Standards for teachers, discuss the anticipated benefits of the entire
program underpinned with relevant research-based evidences, as
well as evaluating the detailed methods of the project from both
students as data resources and students as active respondents
perspectives, discussing strengths and potential limitations of
conducting the research in the following sections.
Evaluation 500
I would evaluate the project by engaging students, teachers and different
staffs across curriculums in the research, where students are the target data
sources involved in this program. Mayes (2014) has outlined many aims of
students' voice, for example, it could foster a radical collegiality between students and
teachers rather than collaborations. Instead of asking questions by teachers during
research process, when students are involved in the participatory action research, they
often work together with teachers, share or negotiate different opinions and interests,
and produce some new understandings. (Bragg & Fielding, 2005)
Therefore, in this research project, students are firstly involved as data sources, we
will review students' past performance, for example the half-yearly, yearly and HSC
exam results of ESL to determine each ESOL student's individual needs. Students'
role of being data sources will be evaluated through their on-going in-class
performance compared to their past performance in ESL class. Meanwhile, our school
departments from different curriculum are also responsible for examine students'
overall improvement and performances after the initiation of the reading recovery
program research.
On the other hand, we need students to be active respondents and co-researchers in
this project, as each individual's reflections towards the developments of the project
could make contributions towards the new approaches of the research. For example,
teachers' role at this stage will need to hear what students say about the project, this
can be conducted with interview method, proposed questions could be asked as"do
you think you have improvement during the reading recovery program? Do you like
or dislike this program, why and why not? How would you rate the efficiency of this
program? etc. " Another approach is that, teachers and staffs who are supervising the
reading recovery program should also be interview, such questions could be" what
have you noticed during the program? What obvious in-class performance have been
made on students so far?".
The research will be conducted in both longitudinal and sectional approaches.
Success of the program could be monitored in progress, students who are
involved in the reading recovery program will have a log book to record their
reading reflections through the whole term. The logbook is designed with
typical questions which are related to the articles that students will read. After
each reading recovery period, students will need to complete the questions on
the logbook, and teachers will collect students' work, check the answers on
the log book and record the accuracy continuously. In this way, teachers will
have better understandings of each individual's needs and the actual
improvements of implementing the project. By comparing students' past
performances data sources of ESL subject with the recent results and records
of log book accuracy and, we will able to know whether the project has certain
effectiveness on our target ESOL students or not.
For this research, there are several strengths and limitations. First of all, as
students are participating and getting involved in the research, it's not only
because of the policy discourses but students will actually be more engaged
with learning. They will have senses of being the centers of learning progress,
and therefore teachers could also gain new understandings about what
students are experiencing at school (Talbot, 2014). In addition, according to
the 5E's model by Bybee, et al., (2006), teachers need to evaluate and make
decisions about how the learning is going and what are the future approaches.
The reading recovery program requires teachers to notice any improvements
or problems occurred in progress so that teachers can always make
reflections on the program.
However, one of the limitations of this research is that, we would monitor and
evaluate our research success by interview students and teachers and
comparing students' previous performances with recent performances.
Although students are involved as active respondents in the research project,
the questions we have proposed to ask students during the interview may
underpinned with our own practical, personal and professional interests
(Morrison, 2002). Unless we make some sharp questions to consult our ESOL
students, otherwise the research project will not be build upon a valid basis.
Moreover, by considering the reliability as the consistency of the progress and
transparency to see the research if is meaningful, it might be difficult to
determine students' overall improvements and developments with the
accuracy of answers to the questions on logbook only. When students are
evaluated through their results of answering questions, it might stress ESOL
students and teachers, so that the evidences of literacy improvements, which
are collected from their answers, might lose its validity and reliability of stating
their real performances. Therefore, it is never the less to ensure the
monitoring process of the research project would not have extra stress and
huge unreliable influences on students.
Pitch Draft
Allington, R. L. (2008). What really matters in response to intervention: Researchbased designs. Boston: Pearson.
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2014, January 1).
Presbyterian Ladies College, Croydon, NSW. Retrieved September 6, 2014, from
http://www.myschool.edu.au/SchoolProfile/Index/75169/PresbyterianLadiesCollege/4
3987/2013
Bennett, P. (2011, March 10). Early Reading Instruction: Why has Reading Recovery
Survived? Retrieved September 14, 2014, from
http://educhatter.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/early-reading-instruction-why-hasreading-recovery-survived/
Bragg, S., & Fielding, M. (2005). Its an equal thing Its about achieving together: Student
voices and the possibility of a radical collegiality. In H. Street & J. Temperley (Eds.),
Improving schools through collaborative enquiry (pp. 105-135). London: Continuum. [Read