Literacy Leadership Research Project

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

Pre-teaching period:

During the pre-teaching period students will be required to complete required reading that will be provided via LMS and consider their research proposal.

340 hours

At least 37.5 points in the Master of Literacy course

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.

The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

Participants in the subject will work with their school to identify a major issue related to literacy facing their school or their local network, and then investigate the issue in the professional and academic literature, plan a strategy or intervention, implement it, and evaluate the outcomes. Participants will draw on the knowledge acquired in the other subjects to explore the literacy issue they are working on, including drawing on the work in the leadership subject to work with other members of the school or network in implementing their strategy or intervention. Each participant will be assigned to a group of course participants who are investigating a similar topic for support and sharing of resources and experiences. Each of these groups will be led by an academic who will be the supervisor of the projects being undertaken within the group.

On completion of this subject students will be able to:

• Define a researchable problem of practice in their school context;
• Undertake a literature review to investigate an educational issue;
• Develop a research design through which an educational issue can be investigated;
• Use research processes with due regard to ethical procedures
• Demonstrate a capacity to engage in reflective, critical discussion of the area of particular interest.

A project proposal (1000 words), due halfway through first semester (10%);

A research report (9000 words), due in the end-of-year examination period (90%).

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

This subject will develop the kills to enable students to:

• Be skilled communicators who can effectively articulate and justify relationships between theory, research and teaching
• Be flexible and able to adapt to change through knowing how to iresearch a problem of practice;
• Understand the significance of developing their practice on the basis of research evidence;
• Work in teams with skills in cooperation, communication and negotiation to engage in reflective and critical discussion of research in education;
• Be independent of mind, responsible, resilient, self-regulating.