HERBISON LECTURE
The Herbison lecture is presented at the Annual Conference of NZARE by an invited Education Researcher. It is an honour to be invited to present the lecture and these lectures often feature a topic of current interest in education. The lecture honours Dame Jean Herbison in recognition of her outstanding contribution to education in New Zealand.
Herbison Lecture - Nesta Devine
Scheduled at 10.45am, Wednesday 27th November
Visit our 2024 Herbison lecture page for full information
DAME JEAN HERBISON
1923 - 2007
Dame Jean taught at Avonside Girls High School from 1952 to 1959, and in 1960 joined Christchurch Teachers' College until 1974 after which she became Associate Director of the Christchurch Polytechnic, a position she held until her retirement in 1984. She served on numerous educational committees and advisory boards being honoured by numerous organisations. She received several service medals, culminating in being made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1985
2023: Professor Alex Gunn,College of Education, University of Otago
2022: Professor John O'Neill (Massey University) (download lecture)
2021: Professor Melinda Webber (University of Auckland) (View video presentation)
2020: There was no conference due to the COVID pandemic
2019: Dr Sonja Lee MacFarlane, Canterbury University (download slide summary)
2018: Dr Rae Siilata, University of Auckland
2017: Professor Leonie Pihama, University of Waikato
2016: Dr Helen May, University of Otago (download lecture)
2015: Dr Joce Jesson, University of Auckland (download lecture)
2014: Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi (View video presentation)
2013: Professor Martin Thrupp, University of Waikato (download lecture)
2012: Professor Peter Roberts, University of Canterbury (download slide summary)
2011: Professor Wally Penetito, Victoria University of Wellington (download lecture)
2010: Professor Stuart McNaughton, The University of Auckland (download slide summary)
2009: Dr Cathy Wylie, NZ Council for Educational Research (download lecture)
2008: Professor Joy Cullen, Massey University College of Education (download lecture)
2007: Emeritus Professor Keith Ballard, University of Otago (download lecture)
2006: Dr Geraldine McDonald (download lecture)
2005: Professor Noeline Alcorn, University of Waikato
2004: Associate Professor Alison Jones, University of Auckland
2003: Associate Professor Margaret Carr, University of Waikato
2002: Professor Arohia Durie, Massey University
2001: Professor Graham Nuthall, University of Canterbury (download lecture)
2000: Professor Margaret Maaka, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Previous lectures
2023 Professor Alex Gunn
2016 Professor Helen May
Helen May
Helen May was formerly an early years teacher; later working in childcare, then teacher education. She was the co-Director of the Curriculum Development project with Margaret Carr, that developed the New Zealand national early childhood curriculum. In 1995 Helen was appointed to the first Professorial Chair in early childhood education in New Zealand, at Victoria University Wellington where she established the Institute for Early Childhood Studies and in 2005 was appointed as Professor of Education at the University of Otago and became the foundation Dean of the College of Education – 2006-2011. Helen has been involved in advocacy work and advisory roles regarding a range of policy initiatives in both New Zealand and international settings. Her research has focussed on early childhood policy, history and curriculum and spoken and published widely both within New Zealand and overseas. In the 2006-2012 PBRF round, Helen was appointed by TEC as the chair of the education panel. She is the Deputy Moderator of the current PBRF round.
Abstract
Examining the interface between early childhood research, policy and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand
This lecture is presented as a tribute to Professor Anne B. Smith (1940-2016) with whom these ideas were explored and jointly authored in a book chapter in press. Early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand has been shaped by strong partnerships between academic researchers, advocates for children and women, practitioners in the field and government agencies. The alliances are not always neatly aligned. Researchers have been proactive in shaping new policy directions for early childhood provision and pedagogy, interrogating its consequences and broadly defining ‘uniquely New Zealand’ pedagogical directions. Themes of equity, social justice and the rights of children characterise the research agendas. Several eras of early childhood policy and research are identified, from its fledgling beginnings in the 1970s when there were few doctoral scholars in ECE to the current times. Each era has been a catalyst to new research agendas and is illustrative of a particular configuration of the interwoven partnerships cited above. Also shaping each era is the political philosophy of successive governments, swinging across a mix of left-leaning and right-leaning economic agendas and party politics.
2015 Dr Joce Jesson
Bio
Dr Joce Jesson is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Critical Studies, University of Auckland, and the School of Education at AUT University. She grew up in Rotorua and Tokoroa, and taught in a range of schools both urban and rural areas. Her first university qualification was a Diploma in Home Science. This was followed by simultaneous teaching and study in areas such as a Diploma of Guidance, a Master’s degree considering bi-cultural curriculum development in Science Education. Her Ph.D. considered the changing relationship of PPTA with the state. At Auckland College of Education she became Director of Research Development, and became recognised for her research on the political economy of educators. She uses teachers' experience to consider the changing policy matters of curriculum, the teaching process, and teachers' work. She has been an editor, and reviewer for NZJES, as well as NZJTW. As an unionist she held office in PPTA, ASTE, (now TEU) and is a Fellow of the NZEI. She has been a Director of Ako Aotearoa and Mangere Mountain Education Centre, as well as Auckland Regional Holdings prior to establishment of Auckland Council. Since her retirement, she has continued mentoring colleagues through qualifications and the establishment of their own academic careers.
Abstract
Topic: Emancipation through education, the dreams of organised teachers: Remembering our history.
Abstract: This presentation retraces some of the often ignored history of Aotearoa/New Zealand education that has created various aspects of the education structures, dating back to 1860s. Of particular interest is the relationship between educational innovation and change that has come about through the active involvement of teachers as policy champions as they pursue their goal of a professional project. These long established, but evolving, processes form part of the professional identity of teachers at all levels: early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary and higher education; with implications for both current and future policy changes. Sometimes areas are marginalised, ignored or simply forgotten. This talk foregrounds those areas bringing them back in alongside, or parallel with, the mainstream areas. It also highlights developments in worker education, union education and activism in communities.
2014 Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith
Bio
Professor Smith is an internationally renowned Māori educationalist who has been at the forefront of the alternative Māori initiatives in the education field and beyond. His academic background is within the disciplines of education, social anthropology and cultural and policy studies, with recent academic work centred on developing theoretically informed transformative strategies for intervening in Māori cultural, political, social, educational and economic crises. He is involved in the development of Tribal Universities and is a retired chairperson of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi Council. In his former position as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Māori), he was responsible for developing a Māori University structure within the University of Auckland.
Abstract
Topic: Transforming research: The emerging indigenous research context in Aotearoa / New Zealand
Abstract: This paper raises a range of issues that ought to be understood by both ‘Indigenous researchers’ and ‘researchers who undertake indigenous research’. A key argument is the necessity for those engaged in indigenous research to position ‘carefully’ and clearly with respect to the limitations and capacity of their skill set that they bring to the research. Of concern is the necessity to have a critical literacy that allows the researcher to appropriately take account of the colonized context in which the research is inevitably occurring. This challenge is important if the intent is to develop transforming outcomes of the often high and disproportionate levels of social, cultural and economic underdevelopment that affects indigenous communities. In New Zealand we have seen the emergence of indigenous research Methodologies, theorizing and critique that developed out of the work of a group of Māori scholars working at the University of Auckland in the 1980’s. Since this beginning, much of this work under the generic labeling of ‘Kaupapa Māori’ has had a significant impact in Māori scholarship, Māori research and the public policy domain. More recently, ‘Kaupapa Māori’ insights have been adapted and reinterpreted by other indigenous scholars to be applied in their own cultural contexts. In this paper I draw on and share insights from the Kaupapa Māori research approaches that have evolved in New Zealand since the 1980’s. In particular, I underline the significance of ‘critical’ understandings and also revisit the key transformative ideas that are embedded in this approach.
2013 Professor Martin Thrupp
Bio
Martin Thrupp's research interests are in education policy sociology with a particular focus on how policy plays out in schools in diverse contexts. After five years secondary teaching in Levin and Porirua, he lectured at Waikato and then spent six years working in the UK where he was Reader in Education Policy at King's College London and Senior Lecturer in Education Management and Leadership at the Institute of Education, University of London. While in the UK, Thrupp was convenor of the Social Justice group of the British Educational Research Association, served on the executive of the Society for Educational Studies and undertook large-scale research projects in England and Europe. Back in New Zealand since 2006, Thrupp has mainly continued to research and write about the influence of school contexts, New Zealand education policy and the politics of educational research. His current research is into the enactment of the National Standards policy in New Zealand primary schools (the RAINS project - Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards). Thrupp is the author of Schools Making a Difference: Let's be Realistic! (1999, Open University Press), Education Management in Managerialist Times: Beyond the Textual Apologists (2003, Open University Press, with Rob Wilmott) and School Improvement: An Unofficial Approach (2005, Continuum). He also co-edited, with Ruth Irwin, Another Decade of New Zealand Education Policy: Where to Now? (2010, University of Waikato). In 2012 Thrupp received an award from the Tertiary Education Union for promoting academic freedom.
Abstract
Topic: At the eye of the storm: Researching schools and their communities enacting National Standards
Abstract: National Standards and associated developments in primary and intermediate schools have involved some of New Zealand's most controversial and contested education policies of recent years. The Research Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) project has focussed on the lived impact of these policies in six diverse schools since 2009. The research provides a rich account of the day-to-day preoccupations and practices of principals, teachers, boards, ERO reviewers, parents and children as they enact the National Standards policies. The RAINS project is coming to a close at the end of 2013 and this lecture will review the background to the research, how it was carried out, the main findings and their implications. It will also reflect on some of the particular challenges involved in undertaking the RAINS research. These have included keeping up with the demands of fieldwork across multiple sites and roles as well as carrying out a research programme amidst the continuing heat and noise of political debate.
2012 Professor Peter Roberts
Bio
Peter Roberts is Professor of Education at the University of Canterbury. Prior to taking up his current appointment in April 2008, he worked for thirteen years at the University of Auckland (1995-2008) and seven years at the University of Waikato (1988-1994). His primary areas of scholarship are philosophy of education and educational policy studies. He has taught at all levels of the university system, in both liberal arts and professional programmes, and has supervised several dozen Doctoral and Masters theses and dissertations to completion. Over the years, he has held a number of significant university leadership positions and has chaired numerous committees and working groups. He serves on the editorial panels of thirteen international journals, and reviews for many others. He is Director of the Educational Theory, Policy and Practice Research Hub at the University of Canterbury and Vice-President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA). In 2008 he was made a Fellow of PESA in recognition of his 'outstanding service to the Society and to the discipline of Philosophy of Education'. In 2010 he was a Canterbury Fellow at the University of Oxford, and in 2012 he has been a Rutherford Visiting Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Abstract
Title: "Rethinking Tertiary Education"
Abstract: What should we expect of tertiary education? The emphasis in recent government policy has been on performance, accountability, relevance, and economic advancement. Knowledge has been treated as a commodity and competition within and between tertiary education institutions has been encouraged. This lecture problematizes these dominant trends and offers an alternative way of thinking about the nature and purposes of tertiary education. I stress the importance of ontological, epistemological, ethical, and political questions in understanding teaching and research at the tertiary level. I consider the role tertiary education can play in fostering critical citizenship and comment briefly on some of the implications of my analysis for teacher education.
2011 Professor Wally Penetito
Bio
Wally Penetito is of Tainui descent (Ngati Haua, Ngati Tamatera, Ngati Raukawa).
He has a Dip.Tchng.(Primary), a BA in education and sociology from Massey University and a PhD in education from Victoria University of Wellington.
He has a varied professional career in education teaching in a number of primary schools; in the Maori Advisory Service in Whanganui-Taranaki; in the Regional Office of the Department of Education in Newmarket and later in Head Office, Wellington; and in the Head Office of the Education Review Office, Wellington.
An academic career that began as an extra-mural student at Massey, Palmerston North; a year as a Commonwealth Relations Trust Fellow at the University of London; a period teaching at the University of Waikato; and since 1998 at Victoria University of Wellington.
His research interests are in Maori education, sociology of education, indigenous pedagogy, and place-consciousness in education. He has a number of publications on these topics.
Wally is married to Sheena and live at Raumati Beach, Paraparaumu. They have a family of three with eight mokopuna.
Abstract
Topic: Where are we now in Maori education - A sense of radical hopefulness
Abstract: "Something important is happening in New Zealand today in relations between Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. Some kind of ambiguous force seems to be operating that is close at hand, yet not quite within reach" (Penetito, 2009, p. 288). There appears to be emerging "a peculiar form of hopefulness" (Lear, 2006, p. 133) one that arises out of despair, that finds a way to regenerate a traditional fighting spirit, that is able to exercise a form of courage that requires the ability to face up to contradictory realities, and at the same time to exercise good judgement. This is the backdrop for a philosophical perspective on Maori education developments over the last 30 years. Kaupapa Maori initiatives have had a major influence on Maori thinking on what possibilities lie ahead for them and their children. The message is simple - there are no inherent limits to what is possible. Maori are asking some fundamental questions about the purposes of education for Aotearoa/New Zealand. The demonstration of resilience portrayed as self-determination and a passion to restore some of the vibrant ideals of what it means to be Maori has been juxtaposed with equal vigour to the pursuit of modern mainstream ideologies and practices. Again the message is simple - Maori are seeking, especially through education, the best of all worlds.
2011 Stuart McNaughton
Bio
Stuart is Professor of Education at the University of Auckland and Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre (established 1998). The Centre has a national and international reputation for excellence in research on teaching, learning and development with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. He has research and teaching interests in developmental and educational psychology with a focus on the development of language and literacy, and processes of education, socialisation and culture.
Publications include books on reading and instruction (Being Skilled: The Socialisation of Learning to Read- Methuen 1987) and emergent literacy (Patterns of Emergent Literacy: Processes of Development and Transition - Oxford University Press, 1995); and papers and presentations on many aspects of teaching, learning and development in family and school settings. His most recent book, (Meeting of Minds – Learning Media 2002), develops theory about and extensive examples of effective literacy instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse children.
Current research is focused on properties of effective teaching of literacy and language in the context of research-based interventions with clusters of schools. Research and development interventions which have successfully raised achievement levels with schools have involved over 10,000 children and their teachers in more than 50 schools, including large urban multicultural schools and rural isolated schools. He has been Head of the School of Education at the University of Auckland, and Director of the University of Auckland at Manukau programme. He was a member of the New Zealand government appointed Literacy Task Force and was chair of the New Zealand Literacy Experts Group and sits on literacy advisory committees for the New Zealand Ministry of Education. He is an international consultant on instructional changes in educational systems and the design and implementation of research and development collaborations with schools for innovation and change. Stuart is a past President of NZARE and has served on several NZARE committees.
Abstract
Honing Hume’s guillotine: Reflections on the promise of school change
Abstract: The question I address is whether we can design better schools to achieve more equitable outcomes. There is some cause for optimism but not much. We ought to be more effective. The current explanations for why we can’t make a greater contribution are not in themselves sufficient to explain the barriers to change. I will propose a different way of looking at the explanations and a course of action that might enable us to be more effective. This will lead me to an outline of a research agenda which is captured in the following two propositions: If we want to know more about making something better we should try and change it; if we want to change it we had better get a good theory.
2009 Dr Cathy Wylie
Bio
Cathy Wylie is a Chief Researcher at NZCER. She came to NZCER in 1987. Her previous experience includes lecturing in social anthropology at Victoria and Auckland universities, contract research with a range of government departments, and evaluation of social welfare programmes and policy at the then Department of Social Welfare.
Abstract
What can we learn from the last twenty years?
Why Tomorrow's Schools could not achieve key purposes,
and how we could do things differently.
Abstract: The aims of the Tomorrow's Schools reforms 20 years ago to our current system based on self-managing schools included aims that remain important: to improve educational opportunities, to better meet Mori needs, to give local knowledge real responsibility, and to encourage flexibility and responsiveness. There were also expectations that such a system would be more efficient, provide greater accountability, and involve parents more.
This paper examines the evidence around what we have achieved with our system, paying particular attention to some key mechanisms that were to produce the aims, including accountability, school choice, boards of trustees, and the separation between government agencies and schools. It looks at changes in the system over time, and its continuing tensions. It concludes by suggesting changes that are more likely to bring about the improvement of educational opportunities.
2008 Professor Joy Cullen
Bio
Joy Cullen retired from the full-time position of Professor of Early Years Education, Massey University College of Education, Palmerston North, in 2007. She continues doctoral supervision and to publish in early years education. Earlier academic appointments were at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australian College of Advanced Education and University of Canterbury. Following doctoral studies at University of Alberta, Canada in the late 1970s she was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship at University of Canterbury, as a special award for the International Year of the Child. She was Joint editor (with John Codd) of New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 1993-1997. Recent publications include a chapter on early years literacy in Reading across international boundaries (Soler & Openshaw, 2007) and Early childhood education: Society and culture (Anning, Cullen & Fleer, 2004, 2008). Research interests include education of young children with special educational needs in inclusive educational settings, sociocultural pedagogy in early education settings, the place of content knowledge in a sociocultural curriculum, and supporting teacher research. Joy's research profile reflects the emergence of joint research interests in the newly merged Massey University College of Education where she directed, co-directed and collaborated as researcher in many large external research contracts, in and across the early childhood and primary sectors. Joy acknowledges the contribution of her doctoral students to her thinking and her understanding of qualitative methodologies.
Abstract
Topic: Outcomes of early childhood education: Do we know, can we tell, and does it matter?
Abstract: This paper examined the interface of policy, research and practice, in the context of early childhood education. This area has developed in New Zealand as a voluntary education sector, marked by a separate curriculum and diverse services. Today, government commitment to participation in quality inclusive early education settings is evident in the regulations, policies, teacher resources and teacher development programmes that have evolved since the launch of the Te Whariki curriculum in 1996. The increasing investment of public funding in early childhood education has been accompanied by claims that early childhood education makes a difference to a child's life chances. What New Zealand evidence underpins this claim? This question is examined in relation to variables such as: an ideologically-driven curriculum; increased use of qualitative methodologies; key researchers in curriculum initiatives; and the Ministry of Education as major research funding agency.
2007 Emeritus Professor Keith Ballard
Bio
Keith Ballard is Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Otago. He has a background as a primary teacher and educational psychologist. His publications include work with Lous Heshusius of York University, Toronto, on paradigm shift in education and social science research (From positivism to interpretivism and beyond, Teachers College Press, New York); classroom studies of academic and social learning; work with parents and with Te Roopu Manaaki i te Hunga Haua on disability advocacy (Disability, family, whanau and society, Dunmore Press); studies with teachers on inclusive education; and analysis of the role of ideology in issues of poverty, racism and social justice. Some of his work on inclusive practice has been used by UNESCO in teacher education programmes in developing countries. Keith has served on the Board of NZCER (1999-2003) and has worked on disability research with Director of the Donald Beasley Institute, Dr Anne Bray and her colleagues. This has included a four year (1988-1992) action study with parents and professionals that established the Family Network, an ongoing parent support and advocacy organisation. As a member of the International Research Colloquium on Inclusive Education, Keith chaired the group's research programme in 1996-1997 and edited the publication of their studies (Inclusive education: International voices on disability and justice, Falmer Press, London).
Abstract
Title: Education and imagination: Strategies for social justice.
Abstract: In his letters to those who "dare to teach", Paulo Freire says that the teaching task is meaningless unless we have a commitment to freedom and justice. In this paper I suggest that as educators and researchers we apply Freire's tools of imagination and intellectual rigour to create more just alternatives to the belief systems and social practices that shape four areas of present day life in schools and communities. These are areas in which some hold positions of power and are able to design a world primarily for their way of living. Others experience harm and loss. For teachers this suggests the need for an ongoing analysis of context as central to the cultural politics of teaching. For teacher education this means that we should greatly enhance our attention to theory, research and scholarship so that we create the intellectual rigour needed for such analysis and for understanding classroom practice as social justice practice.
2006 Dr Geraldine McDonald
Bio
Geraldine McDonald was once a homecraft teacher in secondary schools. Her Masters thesis was a study of the effect of playcentre on building a sense of community. As a J.R. McKenzie Fellow at NZCER in 1970 she made a study of early childhood centres in Maori communities. The report was Maori Mothers and Preschool Education. She then became a lecturer at Wellington College of Education before writing a doctoral thesis on the language and thought of Maori and non-Maori children. Appointed to NZCER in 1973 she set up the Early Childhood Unit through which she was able to repay some of her debt to those who had assisted her earlier. She helped Maori Family Education Centres and the New Zealand Playcentre Federation to carry out research projects. In 1977 she was appointed Assistant Director NZCER. A Fulbright award took her to Teachers College Columbia University in 1981. She was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education London University in 1990 and the University of Newcastle on Tyne International Centre in 1992. Following retirement she worked as an educational consultant, joined the Department of Teacher Education at Victoria University of Wellington, supervised doctoral theses and helped to set up and teach a Master of Education first offered by Wellington College of Education in 2000. In 2001 she was invited to Hong Kong to advise on the hearing of a human rights case brought against the Education Department.
She was elected inaugural president of NZARE in 1979, a life member in 1987, was the recipient of the NZARE McKenzie Award in 1988, and gave the Herbison lecture in 1993.
Abstract
Title: A spirited beginning: The origins of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education
Abstract: It was the Director-General of Education, W. L. Renwick, who took the initiative for the establishment of a New Zealand Association for Research in Education. Following a motion put forward by Professor Philip Lawrence at a Ministerial Conference on Educational Research held in April 1978, representatives from NZCER, the university departments of education, the teachers colleges and the Department of Education, studied the viability of such an Association, developed a constitution, publicized the idea, recruited members and published two issues of a newsletter before the end of 1979. The first conference was planned during 1979 and held in December. As a participant in the processes which resulted in NZARE I will give a personal account of the early days and reflect upon the source of the Association's spirit.
2005 Professor Noeline Alcorn
Bio
Professor Noeline Alcorn taught in New Zealand secondary schools for some years before undertaking her doctoral study at the University of California. She held lecturing and management positions at Auckland Teachers' College and was the Director of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Auckland where she was responsible for the establishment of the Principals’ Centre, before taking up her current position as Principal and Dean at the School of Education, University of Waikato in 1992. Professor Alcorn has published widely in children's literature, school principalship, action research, and education policy, especially in tertiary and teacher education. In 1999 she published a biography of C.E. Beeby. Professor Alcorn was elected to the Council of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research in 1985 and served as Chairperson from 1988 until 1993. She is a Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Administration and Leadership Society. She is the inaugural chair of the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand, has served as an auditor for the AAU and will chair the Education Panel for the PBRF round in 2006. She was awarded a Suffrage medal in 1993 and a QSO for Public Service in 2005.
Abstract
Title: Evidence and Education: the braided roles and contexts of research, policy and practice in New Zealand education.
Abstract: Calls for educational policy and practice to be evidence-based have become insistent, yet there is ongoing contestation of the purpose and value of educational research. This paper addresses the scepticism and criticism of research from practitioners, politicians and policy makers and from within the research community itself. It examines the impact of the PBRF in New Zealand and the wider call for evidence-based practice which is apparent here, in the UK and the US. It draws attention to a small number of research studies which are possible models for a principled and methodologically inclusive way forward and develops a set of principles that are a personal credo for guiding future development in teacher education and educational research.ed in NZARE I will give a personal account of the early days and reflect upon the source of the Association's spirit.
2004 Associate Professor Alison Jones
Bio
Alison Jones is an Associate Professor in the School of Education, and Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Equal Opportunities) at the University of Auckland. Her research interests are various, but most recently her international research publications have focused in three areas of the sociology of education - cross-cultural pedagogy, educational equity in tertiary institutions, and social anxieties about touching children. Her main teaching interest is in doctoral training, particularly in the professional doctorate, the EdD.
Abstract
Title: Pedagogy of the gaps: Lessons on evidence, from the beach
Abstract: Does it matter whether a 'sham fight' on a beach in 1814 was a powhiri, or whether Marsden's first sermon was simply a teaching opportunity for Ruatara, or whether the first school in New Zealand is seen as a failure or a success? Through re-reading events which preceded the first school in New Zealand, Alison Jones considers some contemporary lessons for educational researchers and practitioners. Today's evidence-based research which seeks to 'reduce the gaps' or 'shrink the tail' in educational achievement in New Zealand demands closer attention to 'what works' for groups such as Maori. Alison Jones stands ambivalently on the side of an evidence-based approach to research and educational practice as she considers intriguing lessons about evidence and its dependence on relationships between peoples.
2003 Associate Professor Margaret Carr
Bio
Margaret Carr is an Associate Professor in early childhood at the University of Waikato. She has worked with early childhood colleagues and teachers on a number of curriculum development and research projects. Her most recent book is Assessment in Early Childhood Settings: Learning Stories, published in 2001. She is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the NZCER Board.
Abstract
Title: Changing the Lens
Abstract: This lecture introduces some key research topics that have interested me over the last 20 years: learning outcomes, motivation and assessment practices. Being involved in the early 1990s in the development of Te Whāriki, the national early childhood curriculum, changed my lens on these topics. The change to a sociocultural lens has enabled me to see things that I didn't see before. This early childhood curriculum and research experience has implications for learning outcomes, motivation and assessment practices in other sectors of education in Aotearoa-New Zealand and beyond.
2001 Emeritus Professor Graham Nuthall
Bio
Graham Nuthall trained as a primary teacher and speech and language therapist at the Christchurch College of Education. He completed his MA at the University of Canterbury and his PhD in Education and Psychology at the University of Illinois. He was appointed Professor of Education at the University of Canterbury in 1972 and has been a Visiting Scholar at the universities of Queensland, Illinois, Stanford and London.
Professor Nuthall started doing research on classroom teaching and learning when he began using a tape recorder in local school classrooms as part of his MA thesis research in 1959. Since then he has been involved in a series of research projects on how students learn from their classroom experiences and how teachers shape those experiences. His work is notable for the detail with which it traces the experiences of individual students, showing exactly how learning and forgetting occur and how differences in gender and cultural background shape learning and thinking processes. He is acknowledged as one of the leading researchers on classroom teaching and learning and has been invited to give addresses to research conferences and institutes around the world. The results of this research have been published in books and leading international research journals.
