Showing items 1 - 9 of 9

A flourishing brain in the 21st century : a scoping review of the impact of developing good habits for mind, brain, well-being, and learning

- Ekman, Rolf, Fletcher, Anna, Giota, Joanna, Eriksson, Axel, Thomas, Bertil, Bååthe, Frederik

  • Authors: Ekman, Rolf , Fletcher, Anna , Giota, Joanna , Eriksson, Axel , Thomas, Bertil , Bååthe, Frederik
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Journal article , Review
  • Relation: Mind, Brain, and Education Vol. 16, no. 1 (2022), p. 13-23
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  • Description: Emerging scientific knowledge such as the role of epigenetics and neuroplasticity—the brain's capability to constantly rewire with every action, experience, and thought—is fundamentally changing our understanding of the potential impact we can have on our brain. Our brain is formed by our habits in interaction with our body, the environment, influenced by our lifestyle, successes, failures, and traumas. Neuroplasticity proves that every student's brain is a work in progress, and it is never too late to take better care of one's cognitive fitness. This review presents a repertoire of good habits (GHs). Combined, we suggest that these GHs provide conditions for optimal brain health, by acting as a “Mental Vaccine” which enhances the brain's resilience to brain health-degrading challenges. We argue that schools have a crucial role to play in empowering students to increase their own stress resilience, well-being, and learning by developing their own GHs profile. © 2021 The Authors. Mind, Brain, and Education published by International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

An invited outsider or an enriched insider? Challenging contextual knowledge as a critical friend researcher

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2019
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Educational Researchers and the Regional University Agents of Regional-Global Transformations Chapter 5 p. 75-92
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  • Description: Researchers conducting studies in communities have long taken an interest in exploring the different merits of positioning themselves as “insiders”, “outsiders”, or “in-betweeners” in relation to their participants. Yet research exploring the role of the researcher as a “critical friend”—a supportive yet challenging facilitator in self-evaluation processes—has not been fully examined. This chapter speaks to the FUGuE element of transformation—which in the present context, I define as a process where structures and forms undergo conversion. The chapter provides my account as a FUGuE researcher of exploring the methodological implications of my research with a small group of teachers at a primary school located in the Latrobe Valley in Central Gippsland. The emergent relationship now informs my teaching and research practices. The discussion draws on a recently commenced longitudinal study exploring teachers’ use of strategies and processes aimed at improving literacy practices—a phenomenon known as capacity building—through collaboration in a professional learning team, within a context of school improvement. Due to a prior connection with the school, I was invited to become a critical friend and active participant as the school initiated a new Professional Learning Team (PLT) in literacy. Informed by recorded conversations from the PLT meetings, my aim was to conceptualize the role and transformative implications of researching as an invited critical friend within a professional community. This chapter contributes to the methodological discourse of educational research by offering a contextualized analysis of the tensions among the notions of trust, credibility, and positionality as a critical friend researcher.

Assessment as a student-driven, reciprocal learning process : A recalibrated, social cognitive perspective

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2016
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: AARE Conference 2016
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  • Description: Contemporary learning in Australia necessitates that students develop the capability to play an active role in their own learning. Yet, the student’s role as an active agent in the learning process has not been fully examined. Drawing on the notion of assessment as generations informed by conflicting theoretical viewpoints, this paper explores how social cognitive theory presents a conceptually transformational and practical way forward in respect to understanding assessment as a learning process. The paper pursues two goals. First, it outlines the transformation of assessment practice over three generations of pedagogical theory. Second, it argues that social cognitive theory presents a broadened understanding of assessment as a student-centred learning process. It is suggested that this may be the emergence of a new generation of assessment, in which understandings of formative assessment is enhanced through the integration of intrapersonal, behavioural and contextual influences. Interview data from a cross-sectional, one-setting study into Assessment as Learning (AaL) are used to suggest how AaL transforms the role of students, from being participants in a social practice directed by teachers, into agents of learning in a reciprocal learning process.

Assessment to develop students’ strategies and competence as learners

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Evidence-based learning and teaching : A look into Australian classrooms Chapter 11 p. 123-137
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  • Description: Assessment has been called “the bridge between teaching and learning” (Wiliam, 2011, p. 50), which reflects this chapter’s exploration of how students’ use of learning strategies can be developed when they engage in Assessment as Learning (AaL). The chapter’s discussion of AaL as an evidence-based teaching and learning approach derives from a larger mixed-methods study (Fletcher, 2015), in which teachers and students from Years 2, 4 and 6 worked together on an AaL writing project. The term AaL refers to assessment that is designed to enable students to reflect on and monitor their own progress to inform their future learning goals.

Australia’s National Assessment Programme rubrics : an impetus for self-assessment?

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2021
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Educational Research Vol. 63, no. 1 (2021), p. 43-64
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  • Description: Background: On an annual basis, students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on their literacy and numeracy skills via the National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), with the student performance data used for purposes including national accountability. Purpose: Against this backdrop of large-scale national assessment, this practitioner-research case study explored the possibilities of using existing NAPLAN writing assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment purposes. Specifically, the aim was to galvanise and encourage a culture of self-assessment within one school, using the notion of intelligent accountability. Sample: Participants included seven teachers and 126 students in Years 2, 4 and 6 (students aged approximately 7, 9 and 11 years), at an independent school in Northern Territory, Australia. Design and methods: The data presented here derive from a larger study which aimed to explore ways in which assessment can be used to scaffold students’ ability to self-regulate their learning, as part of a classroom writing project. Data sources included planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers, and email correspondence with teachers. The data were analysed for emerging themes and interpreted within a framework of social cognitive theory. Findings: The analysis identified that students used the self-assessment process to set specific learning goals for developing a number of aspects of their writing. In terms of intelligent accountability, three elements of difference were distinguished: time, confidence and experience. Conclusions: The findings from this study highlight the crucial role of self-assessment within classroom practice. The researcher-practitioner self-assessment framework developed suggests the potential for utilising large-scale assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment activity. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Classroom assessment as a reciprocal practice to develop students’ agency : A social cognitive perspective

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Assessment Matters Vol. 12, no. (2018), p. 34-57
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  • Description: The links among theory, teaching practice, and evidence of student learning have increasingly gained traction in the public discourse in much of the Western world, as educational policy makers seek to bring together accountability demands with the push for improvements in student learning. This article draws on the notion of teaching and assessment as generations informed by diverse theoretical viewpoints. The article pursues three goals. First, it identifies distinct elements of social cognitive theory and the concept of triadic reciprocality in relation to the concepts of student agency and reciprocity between teachers and students’ in-classroom assessment as a learning process. Secondly, the article outlines the transformation of assessment practice over three generations of pedagogical theory. Thirdly, it argues that social cognitive theory offers a recalibrated understanding of assessment as a student-centred learning process.

Exceeding expectations : scaffolding agentic engagement through assessment as learning

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2016
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Educational Research Vol. 58, no. 4 (2016), p. 400-419
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  • Description: Background: The active involvement of learners as critical, reflective and capable agents in the learning process is a core aim in contemporary education policy in Australia, and is regarded as a significant factor for academic success. However, within the relevant literature, the issue of positioning students as agents in the learning process has not been fully examined and needs further exploration. Purpose: This study aims to explore ways in which aspects of self-regulated learning theory may be integrated with the concept of agentic engagement into classroom practice. Specifically, the study seeks to scaffold students’ self-assessment capabilities and self-efficacy by using a formative assessment-as-learning process. The research examines how scaffolded planning, as part of the forethought phase in the Assessment as Learning (AaL) process, influences self-regulation and student agency in the learning process. Sample: 126 students from school years two, four and six (student age groups 7, 9 and 11 years), and 7 teachers at an independent (co-educational, non-religious) primary school in the Northern Territory, Australia, participated in the study. Design and methods: Conducted as a one-setting, cross-sectional practitioner research study, the data sources included students’ planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers and email correspondence with teachers. The data were analysed for emerging themes and interpreted from a framework of social cognitive theory. Findings: In this study, students were given the opportunity and support to exercise agentic engagement. Findings suggested that, in particular, students who were identified by their teachers as low-achieving and/or with poor motivation, were perceived by the teachers as exceededing expectations by demonstrating relatively greater motivation, persistence, effort and pride in their work than would be the case usually. Conclusions: The findings from this formative AaL study suggest that AaL has the potential to help scaffold primary students’ development of assessment capabilities. © 2016 NFER.

Help seeking : Agentic learners initiating feedback

- Fletcher, Anna

  • Authors: Fletcher, Anna
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Educational Review Vol. 70, no. 4 (2018), p. 389-408
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  • Description: Effective feedback is an essential tool for making learning explicit and an essential feature of classroom practice that promotes learner autonomy. Yet, it remains a pressing challenge for teachers to scaffold the active involvement of students as critical, reflective and autonomous learners who use feedback constructively. This paper seeks to present a recalibrated perspective of feedback by exploring the concept as a student-initiated learning action, manifested within classroom practice as help seeking for learning. Teachers and students from years 2, 4 and 6 at an Australian primary school worked together on a writing project, which was structured as a three-phase learning process. The value of this approach was revealed by data gathered through students’ planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers along with email correspondence with the teachers. A framework of social cognitive theory guided the analysis. It is suggested that the three-phase Assessment as Learning (AaL) process has the potential to support teachers in scaffolding students to seek help at a time when they are receptive to feedback. Furthermore, this AaL approach appears to have enhanced the teachers’ practice, particularly in respect to providing support for students during the forethought stage of the learning process. Practical techniques for scaffolding students’ adaptive help seeking and autonomy as learners are presented in the paper.

Reimagining and transforming identity as rural researchers and educators : A (con)textual fugue

- Plowright, Susan, Glowrey, Cheryl, Green, Monica, Fletcher, Anna, Harrison, Dianne, Plunkett, Margaret, Emmett, Susan, Johnson, Nicola

  • Authors: Plowright, Susan , Glowrey, Cheryl , Green, Monica , Fletcher, Anna , Harrison, Dianne , Plunkett, Margaret , Emmett, Susan , Johnson, Nicola
  • Date: 2016
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: Association for Research in Education (AARE)
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  • Description: This paper presents the educational and research journey of a group of rural academics as a (con)textual fugue. We understand a fugue as a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase is introduced by one part and is successively taken up by other interweaving parts. Through weaving the multiple motivations and methodological underpinnings of the authors‟ individual research and education aspirations, a collective composition emerges. Our „fugue‟ represents the sum of the parts but it also challenges individualised conceptions of research and researcher identity. By conceptualising an assemblage of relational research presences and intentions for „disruptive transformations‟ in the rural context to which we are all deeply committed, we present another way of imagining or "seeing" research. Our „place‟ is Gippsland, Victoria, a distinctive and extensive area encompassing regional, rural and remote communities; diverse natural environments and localities; and correspondingly complex social, cultural and economic underpinnings. The establishment of Federation University in this setting, where the authors are situated, has precipitated what Mezirow might describe as a sudden, dramatic, reorienting insight and a reframing of habitual interpretations. Through coming together, we create a fresh impetus to pursue a collective but polyphonic purpose, impact and researcher identity.
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