This project aimed to examine opportunities and dilemmas associated with future focussed issues in New Zealand education, building on a body of work that NZCER has already undertaken in areas relevant to the “future focus” principle in the New Zealand Curriculum. While the future focussed issues are still largely a conceptual “blind spot” for many people in schools, pockets of innovative thinking and development are occurring on the margins of the formal education sector, and in the spaces where education intersects with other sectors.  In this research project, we aimed to explore these pockets of thinking and innovation in order to bring new insights to audiences within the education sector.

Our initial aims were to explore:

• Peoples’ understandings of the future focussed issues in Aotearoa, with particular emphasis on relationships and tensions across the four areas, and their implications as both design principles and suggested learning contexts for NZ school curricula.
• How knowledge networks form around the future focussed issues (together or separately) in both formal and non-formal education, with particular emphasis on how new knowledge (including ontological) is generated in these networks, and in connection with learning beyond school (i.e. with business, communities, youth groups, web-based social networks, etc).

Organising for Emergence

The first written output from the future focussed issues project is a case study of a youth-led sustainability network (ReGeneration) which brought together young adults and secondary-school-aged youth with an interest and involvement in sustainability and environmental issues within their schools, workplaces and communities.

Taking a future focus - what does it mean?

The second written output is a working paper which examines different ways of thinking about what it means to take a "future focus" in education. It introduces the notion of “wicked problems”—challenges characteristic of the 21st century that intertwine future-focused issues—and what these may mean for society and education. Finally, it outlines what we have learned in our studies of education in relation to the FFIs.

This longitudinal NZCER project has tracked the development of a group of learners from when they were in early childhood education, through school and into adulthood. Over the years, its findings have been well used in policy and practice. 

The final phase of the project returned to the cohort when they were 26. Two reports from this phase are now available (see below), with a third report coming in late 2019.

Latest reports: Competent Learners @ 26

The Competent Learners study has followed a cohort of young New Zealanders from their final months in early childhood education to age 26. Twin reports give valuable insights into the roles of learning, work, health and relationships in their lives. Most were in paid work. Sixty percent were in relationships, and 21% of the women had a child. Friendships were important, and many of their closest friends were from school. Informal activities were more common than formal activities. “We found some differences related to education levels and income in how young people spend their time and what matters to them, but more differences related to gender” said Dr Cathy Wylie, the study leader.

Reports and papers

Listed below are the reports and papers from this study. The project has been funded by the Ministry of Education, and through Te Pae Tawhiti, NZCER’s Government Grant.

Reports from age 5 to age 20 are also released by the Ministry of Education: Competent Children, Competent Learners.

Assessment Resources for Classroom Teachers and Students (ARCTS) is NZCER's current contract to the New Zealand Ministry of Education to provide assessment support for New Zealand teachers through supporting information and research-based resources for formative assessment in the classroom.

Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs)

The Assessment Resources Banks (ARB) website, www.arbs.nzcer.org.nz,  has over 2,800 formative assessment resources in mathematics, science, and English for use with New Zealand students working at levels 1-5 of the New Zealand Curriculum. Over 1,400 of these assessment resources can be completed online and results viewed via the teacher's account. 

As rich formative assessment tasks, they give students the opportunity to express their ideas and understandings.

The ARBs also support teachers to make decisions about possible next learning steps, and further develop their own understanding through the teacher notes on each resource or the many assessment and curriculum articles:

Research and articles

https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/research-and-articles 

Conceptual maps

https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/conceptual-maps

Working with OTJs and the Learning progression Frameworks

OTJs, Learning Progression Frameworks, and the ARBs | Assessment Resource Banks (nzcer.org.nz)

and  

What's new?

https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/blog

Funded by the Ministry of Education