Rosemary (Rose) Hipkins

• PhD, Deakin University, Melbourne.

Rose has been involved in a number of projects related to the development of a ‘capabilities’ approach to curriculum design:

• The overall approach is summarised here.
• Published in 2014, the book Key Competencies for the Future draws clear lines of connection between the in-principle idea of key competencies and the future-focused nature of the changes in students’ learning experiences they are intended to foster.
• The trajectory of our curriculum design thinking, moving from the initial concept of “key competencies” in the New Zealand Curriculum, to the weaving of capabilities, is summarised here.
• An initial set of five “science capabilities for citizenship” formed the prototype for this ongoing programme of work.
• The science education team at NZCER has drawn on students’ responses to questions in the National Monitoring Studies of Student Achievement (NMSSA) to create guidance and advice for teachers concerning the nature of progress in developing students’ science capabilities and to provide some insights into how and why they responded to challenges they encountered when completing NMSSA science assessment tasks.   
• NZCER has created sets of planning decks to support practical curriculum design thinking in schools. The initial set, which models the weaving approach, can be found here.
• Current work includes the development of a set of posters that illustrate how the same type of capability might play out in different subject-specific challenges in mathematics, English and science. This work is due for completion in early 2020.

In 2018 Rose led a review of future-focused assessment literature to prepare the report Trends in assessment for the Ministry of Education.  Her concern with maintaining the fidelity of the curriculum in high-stakes assessments is reflected in the book NCEA in Context, co-authored with two colleagues from Victoria University of Wellington. The three authors have also published an article exploring the effect of high-stakes assessment on the representation of epistemic knowledge in the enacted curriculum. Rose continued this exploration of the senior secondary curriculum by co-publishing an article that compares the Israeli and New Zealand approaches to curriculum and assessment.

Other recently completed projects include: an exploration of curriculum integration; and a study of senior secondary students’ subject choices in relation of the future of work.

Rose serves on the editorial boards of several journals and particularly enjoys helping teacher-researchers shape their experiences and insights for formal publication. She has also supported a number of TLIF (Teacher Led Innovation Fund) projects over the years of this fund’s existence.

In 2019 Rose was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to science education.