title: More than talk and writing: Exploring the multimodal nature of classroom interactions

authors: Cowie, Bronwen

abstract: One goal of the Classroom InSiTE project (Cowie, Moreland, Jones, & Otrel-Cass, 2008)1 was to enhance classroom interactions as part of teacher assessment for learning. Research and development for assessment for learning has tended to focus on the role of talk and the role of written feedback. Less attention has been paid to the other modes that people use in everyday communication such as the role of gesture, drawing, visual images, and action. Students, more now than ever before, live in a multimodal world: websites, mobile technologies and even books and magazines are sites of “complex hybrids and fusions of visual and verbal meaning making resources” (Lemke, 2004, p. 42). Research evidence is accumulating as to the key role for diagrams, pictures, and other nonlinguistic representations in illuminating curriculum content, and supporting the achievement of diverse learners (Alton-Lee, 2003).
Classroom studies in science and technology education are only just beginning to explore how teachers and students use multiple modes to develop and express ideas and skills. In science education, for example, Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, and Tsatsarelius (2001) provide a detailed account of how a science teacher used gestures, drawings, science diagrams, a three-dimensional model, and images to demonstrate to students the circulation of blood. In this article we provide evidence from the InSiTE study that effective teacher–student interaction utilises multiple modes to express ideas and enhance student learning.

text: More than talk and writing: Exploring the multimodal nature of classroom interactions One goal of the Classroom InSiTE project (Cowie, Moreland, Jones, & Otrel-Cass, 2008)1 was to enhance classroom interactions as part of teacher assessment for learning. Research and development for assessment for learning has tended to focus on the role of talk and the role of written feedback. Less attention has been paid to the other modes that people use in everyday communication such as the role of gesture, drawing, visual images, and action. Students, more now than ever before, live in a multimodal world: websites, mobile technologies and even books and magazines are sites of “complex hybrids and fusions of visual and verbal meaning making resources” (Lemke, 2004, p. 42). Research evidence is accumulating as to the key role for diagrams, pictures, and other nonlinguistic representations in illuminating curriculum content, and supporting the achievement of diverse learners (Alton-Lee, 2003).
Classroom studies in science and technology education are only just beginning to explore how teachers and students use multiple modes to develop and express ideas and skills. In science education, for example, Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, and Tsatsarelius (2001) provide a detailed account of how a science teacher used gestures, drawings, science diagrams, a three-dimensional model, and images to demonstrate to students the circulation of blood. In this article we provide evidence from the InSiTE study that effective teacher–student interaction utilises multiple modes to express ideas and enhance student learning.

year: 2008

title: Improving student motivation and engagement in high school music composition through Orff Schulwerk pedagogy

authors: Baker, Damian Lee

subjects: music composition

abstract: Over the past twenty years or so music composition has developed into a significant part of the secondary school music curriculum in New Zealand and in many countries around the world. Unfortunately, research into strategies for introducing music composition at secondary school level are scarce. 
This thesis will present the results of an action research-based teacher inquiry that looked to assess the suitability of an Orff Schulwerk-based pedagogy for introducing music composition to Year 11 NCEA students in New Zealand.
The study focussed on students' in-class engagement (behavioural, cognitive, affective) as a way to assess the suitability of the approach, drawing data from observations made by the teacher/researcher and a peer observer, as well as incorporating student voice as a key influence in program development and generating findings. It also drew on an analysis of student work to inform its suitability in terms of achievement against the New Zealand Qualifications Authority's (NZQA) externally set music composition Achievement Standard 91092. 

Over two five-week units, the teacher introduced a process-centred approach to learning how to compose music. The first unit focused on learning to improvise rhythmic ideas that developed into rhythmic motifs, which incorporated compositional devises and accompaniments before moving on to incorporate the elements of structure, rhythm, timbre, dynamics and texture to the point where students working in groups developed their own percussion-based piece of music. The second unit revisited the learning from Unit One and added the elements of melody and harmony. Students then worked in groups to complete a second piece for assessment. The results indicated that an Orff Schulwerk based pedagogy can be successfully utilized as a strategy for teaching music composition to senior secondary school students.

text: Improving student motivation and engagement in high school music composition through Orff Schulwerk pedagogy Over the past twenty years or so music composition has developed into a significant part of the secondary school music curriculum in New Zealand and in many countries around the world. Unfortunately, research into strategies for introducing music composition at secondary school level are scarce. 
This thesis will present the results of an action research-based teacher inquiry that looked to assess the suitability of an Orff Schulwerk-based pedagogy for introducing music composition to Year 11 NCEA students in New Zealand.
The study focussed on students' in-class engagement (behavioural, cognitive, affective) as a way to assess the suitability of the approach, drawing data from observations made by the teacher/researcher and a peer observer, as well as incorporating student voice as a key influence in program development and generating findings. It also drew on an analysis of student work to inform its suitability in terms of achievement against the New Zealand Qualifications Authority's (NZQA) externally set music composition Achievement Standard 91092. 

Over two five-week units, the teacher introduced a process-centred approach to learning how to compose music. The first unit focused on learning to improvise rhythmic ideas that developed into rhythmic motifs, which incorporated compositional devises and accompaniments before moving on to incorporate the elements of structure, rhythm, timbre, dynamics and texture to the point where students working in groups developed their own percussion-based piece of music. The second unit revisited the learning from Unit One and added the elements of melody and harmony. Students then worked in groups to complete a second piece for assessment. The results indicated that an Orff Schulwerk based pedagogy can be successfully utilized as a strategy for teaching music composition to senior secondary school students.

year: 2014

title: Stop playing up! A critical ethnography of health, physical education and (sub)urban schooling

authors: Fitzpatrick, Katie

subjects: Health

abstract: This thesis explores the place of health and physical education in the lives of Otara youth in New Zealand. Situated in the southern suburbs of New Zealand’s largest city, Otara, South Auckland is known for its cultural diversity, as well as for poverty and crime. It is home to large numbers of indigenous Maori and migrant Pasifika (Pacific Island) youth. Based on a year-long critical ethnography of a multiethnic high school, this thesis explores how these young people engage with and respond to the school subjects of health and physical education. It also discusses broader issues in their lives, including the social geographies within which they reside, and how they understand their bodies, sexuality, health, gender and physicalities. The subjects of health and physical education are compulsory in most schools internationally – in New Zealand they are directly linked in curriculum policy documents and in school practice – but share a somewhat uneasy relationship and differing historical positions. Considered low status in schools, these subjects are also conflated with narrow body and health norms, possibly problematic for young women, and/or are wedded to the social and cultural world of sport. Curriculum policy documents established in the last ten years offer the possibility of critical and social approaches to these subjects, but examples of critical practice remain rare. Health and physical education are thus compulsory, contentious, contradictory and complex subjects within contemporary schooling. Critical ethnographies of schooling are relatively scarce compared with conventional ethnographic accounts, but critical ethnographies of health and physical education (PE) are almost unheard of. The use of such a methodology in this study enabled an indepth account of Otara youth in the subjects of health and PE at school. It also provided a platform for storied accounts of how one teacher, Dan, enacted a critical and culturally connected pedagogy of health and PE with the young people in his classes. This thesis explores the complex potential for health and PE as key sites of learning for Pasifika and Maori youth. It examines health and PE as subjects that are both politically fraught and spaces of hope.

text: Stop playing up! A critical ethnography of health, physical education and (sub)urban schooling This thesis explores the place of health and physical education in the lives of Otara youth in New Zealand. Situated in the southern suburbs of New Zealand’s largest city, Otara, South Auckland is known for its cultural diversity, as well as for poverty and crime. It is home to large numbers of indigenous Maori and migrant Pasifika (Pacific Island) youth. Based on a year-long critical ethnography of a multiethnic high school, this thesis explores how these young people engage with and respond to the school subjects of health and physical education. It also discusses broader issues in their lives, including the social geographies within which they reside, and how they understand their bodies, sexuality, health, gender and physicalities. The subjects of health and physical education are compulsory in most schools internationally – in New Zealand they are directly linked in curriculum policy documents and in school practice – but share a somewhat uneasy relationship and differing historical positions. Considered low status in schools, these subjects are also conflated with narrow body and health norms, possibly problematic for young women, and/or are wedded to the social and cultural world of sport. Curriculum policy documents established in the last ten years offer the possibility of critical and social approaches to these subjects, but examples of critical practice remain rare. Health and physical education are thus compulsory, contentious, contradictory and complex subjects within contemporary schooling. Critical ethnographies of schooling are relatively scarce compared with conventional ethnographic accounts, but critical ethnographies of health and physical education (PE) are almost unheard of. The use of such a methodology in this study enabled an indepth account of Otara youth in the subjects of health and PE at school. It also provided a platform for storied accounts of how one teacher, Dan, enacted a critical and culturally connected pedagogy of health and PE with the young people in his classes. This thesis explores the complex potential for health and PE as key sites of learning for Pasifika and Maori youth. It examines health and PE as subjects that are both politically fraught and spaces of hope.

year: 2010