No description available.

No description available.

This study investigates English language learners’ interaction with paper text and web text reading. Four main research questions shape the study: 1) What evidence exists to suggest that ESL learners use different strategies when reading printed text as opposed to reading web text? 2) What metacognitive strategies do ESL students use and report when reading and learning from printed and web-based texts? 3) What issues do ESL learners identify in relation to their use of the Internet? and 4) What are the implications for ESL pedagogy? While research has increasingly been focused on second language reading, it has primarily been centered on how the learner interacts and decodes printed text. However, little research has been conducted on how the English language learner processes web text, navigates the Internet, or evaluates and comprehends what he/she is reading through the use of digital literacy skills and metacognitive strategies. The intention of this study was to gain insight into the online reading strategies of English language learners in order to explore if there was a need for the Teaching of English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL) profession to teach digital literacy in the language classroom. A subjectivist approach was used to examine the metacognitive online reading strategies of intermediate and upper intermediate ESL students. The present writer acted in the role of both workshop facilitator and researcher during the eight-week study between September and November 2011. Data were drawn from the researcher’s observation notes, interviews with the student participants, group discussions, and student participants’ journals. As a result, data generation included both public views (expressed orally through interviews) and private and reflective views (expressed through journal writing). Thus, the data contained both real time and ex post facto viewpoints. The central voices heard were the researcher and the student participants. The research methodology for the study was interpretive and qualitative. Data triangulation was achieved through a series of interviews and text analysis. The findings of this thesis suggest that while students may appear digitally literate enough to randomly surf the Net, they lack sufficient skills to effectively research and evaluate information online. In addition, the study shows that language learners engage in characteristically different reading practices and strategies when reading print and web text. The research also indicates that there is a need for digital literacy skills to be taught in conjunction with the teaching of the target language in the TESOL settings studied. Recommended pedagogical practices include suggestions to teach digital literacies in conjunction with print-based literacy practices; to provide both TESOL teachers-in-training and seasoned TESOL educators the means to develop digital literacy skills through formal instruction or through professional development workshops; to emphasize the need for lifelong learning of digital skills to keep current with the constant changes and development of digital technology; to reshape TESOL curricula to accommodate digital literacy and language teaching practices to meet the needs of the language classroom in the 21st century; to create literacy lesson sequences that will help the language learner develop, strengthen, and apply critical reading strategies; and to promote the wider adoption of more interactive teaching.

In 1943 the Ministry of Education took the decision to sponsor the production of an experimental programme of nonfiction films specifically to be used as ‘instructional’ teaching aids in the secondary classroom. The intervention was a development of pre-war efforts on the part of a number of organisations from the teaching and cultural sectors to realise the value of ‘educational’ film, in response to recognition of the medium’s social and cultural influence. This historical example demonstrates that government recognition of film as an educational resource has been achieved in the past. However, in 2012, the British Film Institute (BFI) launched a new education plan, at the centre of which was the aim to advocate the value of film education to Government (British Film Institute, 2012c). This aim had been the focus of film education initiatives in the previous decade without resolution, for example in the national strategy Film: 21st Century Literacy (UK Film Council, 2009). My research analyses the Ministry of Education’s production experiment in order to discover whether the findings can inform current film education strategies and offer an insight into why the struggle for government recognition of film education still remains. This research combines film theory, archival research and education histories in order to contextualise the films within the particular historical moment of their production. I apply a pragmatic approach to the postmodern and poststructural theories of for example, Nichols (1991), Plantinga (1997), Renov (1993) and Winston (1995) in my textual analysis of the 16 films, sourced from the British Film Institute National Archive. The analysis of form and style informs my discussion of concepts of realism, ‘objectivity’ and ‘truth’ in relation to the films and the social and political ideologies conveyed through the texts. I also analyse contemporary documentation sourced from The National Archives in order to identify the objectives, the pedagogical rationale and the ideological project motivating the Ministry’s experiment as a whole and evaluate its outcomes. I argue that the methodology of the Ministry of Education experiment was flawed so that no definitive conclusions were drawn regarding the educational ‘value’ of film. Furthermore, the ‘experiment’ was turned to political purpose so that the ideological project informing and conveyed through the filmic discourse actually worked to impose the social stratification inherent within the post-war tripartite education system. I also argue that, due in part to technological advances which have removed the need for state sponsorship of educational film production, government recognition is now unnecessary, and carries the risk of ideological and political incentives overcoming the pedagogical objectives of ‘21st century literacy’. I make the recommendation that film education initiatives should exist outside of political agendas and instead build links with teacher training institutions in order to ensure the driving force behind its practical application is pedagogical rather than political.

Given the difficulty in learning teaching that aims for the ambitious student learning goals prescribed in current standards documents, supports are needed in order to develop and sustain teachersâ enactment of ambitious instruction. Teacher workgroups are a common strategy for instructional improvement, but how teachers engage in activities during workgroup time shapes the learning opportunities that can develop. In this comparative case study, I take a situative view of learning to examine the learning opportunities afforded in workgroup meetings with middle-school math teachers and pedagogically expert facilitators. Using interaction analysis, I analyze how tools are used by facilitators during workgroup meetings. Both the nature of the tool and facilitatorsâ orientations towards those tools shaped the learning opportunities available to teachers. This work provides an example of the not-sufficient nature of tool use and emphasizes that how tools are used mediates the extent to which the tools can support teachersâ learning.

Prior research on teacher learning in the context of large-scale instructional reform suggests that it is important to attend to both school and district factors and teacher-level factors when trying to understand variation in the impact of professional development efforts on the quality of teachersâ instruction. This dissertation study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) How do district-organized pull-out professional development, one-on-one instructional coaching, school-based teacher collaborative time, and school leadersâ instructional expectations impact the quality of teachersâ instruction over time? (2) How do teachersâ current instructional expertise (the depth of their mathematical knowledge for teaching, their visions of high-quality instruction, and their views of their struggling studentsâ mathematical capabilities) mediate the influence of instructional supports and principalsâ expectations on their development of ambitious practice? Using data from the Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Settings of Teaching (MIST) project, this study involved a qualitative, comparative analysis of eleven teachers: eight whose instructional quality improved or declined over time in the context of district-wide reform efforts, and three teachers whose instruction remained procedurally oriented. Drawing on interview and survey data from these teachers and their colleagues, I examined potentially critical between-school and between-teacher differences in teachersâ instructional expertise, the types and quality of district- or school-based supports for their learning, and the instructional expectations of their school leaders. I found that those who improved worked regularly with an instructional coach with substantial expertise in inquiry-oriented math instruction. I also found that three of the four teachers who improved had developed an ambitious vision of instruction and had come to view their own diverse students as capable of engaging in rigorous mathematical activity; this in turn appeared to lead to their identification with their districtâs reform efforts. These findings suggest that effecting lasting instructional improvement at scale might involve supporting teachers to (a) develop a sophisticated vision of instruction and (b) come to see their own students as capable of engaging in rigorous mathematics, then (c) navigate the ongoing challenges involved in enacting ambitious instruction with diverse students.

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing