title: How to survive a plague of flesh-eating rats: An introductory guide to studying remediated ‎gameplay imaginations of medieval folklore and beliefs in A Plague Tale: Innocence

authors: Schott, Gareth R.

abstract: Popular digital games such as Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2017), Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019), and Red: Dead Redemption (2010) possess merit for their faithful and authentic interactive representations of elements of the past that furnish games with pedagogical value. Both digital game studies and historical game studies have contributed research furthering understanding of the pedagogical value and applications of historical games for students’ learning of history in school education, particularly secondary schools and universities (Kee, 2014, McCall, 2013, &amp; Schrier, 2014). Despite the growing interest in the new forms of knowledge contained within games, and gameplay, the educational application of historical digital games can be limited to supplementary visual aids that do not fully account for the range and forms of historical investigation associated with the game development process. We forward a multi-modal perspective on the varied ways in which historical knowledge is present in both game design and the gameplay experience. Our approach is demonstrated with one of several under-investigated (yet valuable) modes of historical exploration, namely ‘Imaginative History.’ This is achieved using images from several sequences of recorded game footage in the Medieval historical fantasy game A Plague Tale: Innocence as a case example alongside supporting historical literature. This Medieval game is suitable for addressing this conference’s theme of crises or disasters as it is set in a re-imagination of the Black Death plague roughly within the south-western region of fourteenth century France, but one that personifies the real Black Death with a plague of supernatural flesh-eating rats and places players into the role of two fictional orphan children. This presentation seeks to demonstrate historical games’ value for teaching and learning by discussing A Plague Tale: Innocence’s fantastical adaptation of the plague as a model for exploring the role of re-mediation, and subversion, of past pre-modern folklore imaginations and beliefs. Fantasy or folkloric treatment of historical events or periods can provide insight into the experiential dimensions of a period in history re-told as an interactive folktale.

text: How to survive a plague of flesh-eating rats: An introductory guide to studying remediated ‎gameplay imaginations of medieval folklore and beliefs in A Plague Tale: Innocence Popular digital games such as Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2017), Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019), and Red: Dead Redemption (2010) possess merit for their faithful and authentic interactive representations of elements of the past that furnish games with pedagogical value. Both digital game studies and historical game studies have contributed research furthering understanding of the pedagogical value and applications of historical games for students’ learning of history in school education, particularly secondary schools and universities (Kee, 2014, McCall, 2013, &amp; Schrier, 2014). Despite the growing interest in the new forms of knowledge contained within games, and gameplay, the educational application of historical digital games can be limited to supplementary visual aids that do not fully account for the range and forms of historical investigation associated with the game development process. We forward a multi-modal perspective on the varied ways in which historical knowledge is present in both game design and the gameplay experience. Our approach is demonstrated with one of several under-investigated (yet valuable) modes of historical exploration, namely ‘Imaginative History.’ This is achieved using images from several sequences of recorded game footage in the Medieval historical fantasy game A Plague Tale: Innocence as a case example alongside supporting historical literature. This Medieval game is suitable for addressing this conference’s theme of crises or disasters as it is set in a re-imagination of the Black Death plague roughly within the south-western region of fourteenth century France, but one that personifies the real Black Death with a plague of supernatural flesh-eating rats and places players into the role of two fictional orphan children. This presentation seeks to demonstrate historical games’ value for teaching and learning by discussing A Plague Tale: Innocence’s fantastical adaptation of the plague as a model for exploring the role of re-mediation, and subversion, of past pre-modern folklore imaginations and beliefs. Fantasy or folkloric treatment of historical events or periods can provide insight into the experiential dimensions of a period in history re-told as an interactive folktale.

year: 2021

title: Politics or pedagogy? The development of middle schools in New Zealand

authors: Hinchco, Brian J.

abstract: The development of eight New Zealand middle schools during the 1990s was both a continuation of a long held educational tradition and a move in a new innovative direction. The extent to which this development however, was pedagogically driven or politically motivated deserves investigation. 
New Zealand's educational community, since the very beginning of a national education system in 1877, has been predisposed to meeting the needs of emerging adolescents in stand-alone institutions. The development of such educational institutions as; central schools, junior high schools, intermediate schools and latterly middle schools, tend to the conclusion that students in their middle years require a school structure that best caters for their specific needs as emerging adolescents. 
The reform years of the 1990s also provided a political environment conducive to educational change. The policies derived from the introduction of Tomorrows Schools and the concepts of parental choice and school competition provided apolitical environment open to educational innovation. Research evidence gathered from those principals who remain as leaders of the first middle schools made particular mention of the entrepreneurial opportunities provided in the 1990s. 
This was also a decade where policy importation, particularly from the American educational community, was both encouraged and made easier by developments in communication and international travel. The junior high school reform movement and the development of American middle schools supported by such associations as the National Middle Schools Association (NMSA) provided a conduit for research articles, practices and experiences to permeate the New Zealand intermediate school environment. 
This political environment was further supported by the growth in research literature on adolescence, and in particular the development of a concept of "the emerging adolescent." Research from the biological, psychological and sociological disciplines each supported the concept of specific educational programmes delivered in age-specific institutions that could best cater for the needs of this specific age-group. In particular sociological research findings suggested the development of age-appropriate school structures would have beneficial effect on student achievement. 
The development then of a uniquely New Zealand middle school structure, created in a political and pedagogical climate conducive to meeting the needs of the emerging adolescent, led to prolonged debate concerning the ideal structure for such an institution. In particular the debate concerned whether the middle school should evolve from its intermediate school heritage or should be part of a Form 1 to 7 school structure. This debate, and the related interest in middle schools compared with junior high schools, was undertaken by a number of New Zealand educationists and researchers. The research of a single middle school case study, that of Sunset Junior High School, in this thesis enabled a full investigation of the various tensions that existed concerning middle school development. This case study could be considered to be a microcosm of the national community. 
The implications of this study therefore suggest that as with the development of most educational structures the reality is one of cost effectiveness. The declining demographics of New Zealand's school-aged population and the current school network discussions (previously called Educational Development Initiatives (EDI)) suggest that the cost effective reality for New Zealand will be the development of separate Form 1 to 4 and Form 5 to 8 schools on one school site. How the management of these two schools on a single site will be created will, of itself, be in the nature of a trial and a further evolution of the middle school philosophy.

text: Politics or pedagogy? The development of middle schools in New Zealand The development of eight New Zealand middle schools during the 1990s was both a continuation of a long held educational tradition and a move in a new innovative direction. The extent to which this development however, was pedagogically driven or politically motivated deserves investigation. 
New Zealand's educational community, since the very beginning of a national education system in 1877, has been predisposed to meeting the needs of emerging adolescents in stand-alone institutions. The development of such educational institutions as; central schools, junior high schools, intermediate schools and latterly middle schools, tend to the conclusion that students in their middle years require a school structure that best caters for their specific needs as emerging adolescents. 
The reform years of the 1990s also provided a political environment conducive to educational change. The policies derived from the introduction of Tomorrows Schools and the concepts of parental choice and school competition provided apolitical environment open to educational innovation. Research evidence gathered from those principals who remain as leaders of the first middle schools made particular mention of the entrepreneurial opportunities provided in the 1990s. 
This was also a decade where policy importation, particularly from the American educational community, was both encouraged and made easier by developments in communication and international travel. The junior high school reform movement and the development of American middle schools supported by such associations as the National Middle Schools Association (NMSA) provided a conduit for research articles, practices and experiences to permeate the New Zealand intermediate school environment. 
This political environment was further supported by the growth in research literature on adolescence, and in particular the development of a concept of "the emerging adolescent." Research from the biological, psychological and sociological disciplines each supported the concept of specific educational programmes delivered in age-specific institutions that could best cater for the needs of this specific age-group. In particular sociological research findings suggested the development of age-appropriate school structures would have beneficial effect on student achievement. 
The development then of a uniquely New Zealand middle school structure, created in a political and pedagogical climate conducive to meeting the needs of the emerging adolescent, led to prolonged debate concerning the ideal structure for such an institution. In particular the debate concerned whether the middle school should evolve from its intermediate school heritage or should be part of a Form 1 to 7 school structure. This debate, and the related interest in middle schools compared with junior high schools, was undertaken by a number of New Zealand educationists and researchers. The research of a single middle school case study, that of Sunset Junior High School, in this thesis enabled a full investigation of the various tensions that existed concerning middle school development. This case study could be considered to be a microcosm of the national community. 
The implications of this study therefore suggest that as with the development of most educational structures the reality is one of cost effectiveness. The declining demographics of New Zealand's school-aged population and the current school network discussions (previously called Educational Development Initiatives (EDI)) suggest that the cost effective reality for New Zealand will be the development of separate Form 1 to 4 and Form 5 to 8 schools on one school site. How the management of these two schools on a single site will be created will, of itself, be in the nature of a trial and a further evolution of the middle school philosophy.

year: 2004

title: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency

authors: Shandley, Rosina Mary

subjects: Māori-medium

abstract: From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

text: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

year: 2022