Improvement of higher order thinking among Indigenous secondary school students in Western Australia
Staffing
E. Care, P. Griffin, S. Hopkins-Minett (UWA), A. Thomas
The underachievement of Indigenous students is a significant issue in Australia (Groome & Hamilton 1995; Nicholson, 1999; MCEETYA, 2000). On all indicators of performance reported nationally, including numeracy outcomes, Indigenous students lag behind non-Indigenous students. Strategic initiatives have been implemented to address this issue (McRae et al., 2000). Although many of these have been successful, the measures used have rarely included students’ learning outcomes. This project was designed to include these.
In 2008, in order to set the scene for a project to improve academic outcomes for indigenous and lower achieving students at Hale and PLC, all students in Years 8 and 9 at the two schools completed multiple problem solving and thinking assessment tasks. Also during the year, teachers engaged in Professional Development seminars designed to demonstrate how to use these achievement data to intervene at the appropriate levels with students. A robust higher order thinking test was developed which was used to place students along its developmental continuum and the test results were used by teachers and by tutors to inform their teaching of all students, including indigenous students.
This project is currently the subject of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project application, with Chief Investigators from University of Melbourne and University of Western Australia, and Partner Investigators from Hale School, Presbyterian Ladies College, Perth, and NickelWest/BHP Billiton.
Funding source:
NickelWest/BHP Billiton