Student engagement

This is one teacher’s story of how connecting her science teaching to the cultural background of her Māori students increased their motivation and enthusiasm. By linking a topic on forest ecology with the students’ existing interest in the school’s new tuata (carved ceremonial post), she was able to develop a collaborative inquiry-based project with her students that had them asking “Is it science today?”

This article explores what a group of Years 11 and 13 students think about history, how they talk about it and what they are interested in studying. It suggests that being aware of student interests and considering how the key competencies relate to history as a subject could open the way for professional conversations about different ways to approach teaching history in high school.

This is an account of Red Beach Primary School's experience in using the power of student voice to record development of the students as lifelong learners and to guide decision making.

It’s a great pleasure for me to launch The Hidden Lives of Learners, a book which distils and clearly expresses the fruits of Professor Graham Nuthall’s outstanding academic career.

Over half a century Graham Nuthall pioneered research into how students learn, how teachers teach, and what happens between a student and a teacher.

Graham realised how little we knew about what characterises good teaching and good learning. He looked at learning from students’ perspectives. He believed that education should be student-focused, personalised and student driven.

Students participated in a cross-discipline drama and visual-art research project based on a story of a young Cook Island girl making the transition from island life to living in Auckland. This article explores how drama can provide a rich sensory, emotional, and physical context that stimulates visual-art making.

What does the term "student voice" mean to you? Does it mean listening to students' opinions? Involving students in decisions about their learning? Giving students equal say in decisions about school management and governance? This commentary analyses and critiques the ways we tend to think about young peoples' responsibilities, roles and rights to participate.

This study explored whether using process drama to teach social studies would engage Year 10 Pasifika boys at a secondary school in Auckland. The author describes how, while in role, students used their existing knowledge and experiences to explore and develop new knowledge, and how process drama addressed the goals of The New Zealand Curriculum through an integrated inquiry approach. The results show that the students' low expectations of themselves were raised when they participated in role.

What supports students to develop their conceptual understanding? Taking part in focus groups helped the Years 9 and 10 Māori and Pasifika students in this study to focus on understanding the concepts underpinning social studies units, rather than the content. Discussions between students in the focus groups resulted in the students clarifying their understandings and gave formative information to the teacher to help plan next steps.

Assessment in schools is often concerned with generating student-achievement information in specific learning areas. However, we can use assessment techniques to collect a wider range of information that might reveal important prerequisites for learning or educational outcomes that are important in their own right.