Inside Education 431, Patrick Burke on Literacy Education and More (22-9-24)

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

On this week's programme I am delighted to be joined by Dr. Patrick Burke from Dublin City University's School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Differences between the primary school he attended and the school where he began his teaching career.
• How he became interested in the teaching of literacy.
• Being awarded a fellowship to study at Frostburg State University in 2013-2014.
• Working in the Children’s Literature Centre at Frostburg
• State-wide bans on children’s books in the United States.
• Choosing literature for children (Quirkiness, visuals of picture books, morals (not moralising) and thoughts on the importance of writing quality in children’s literature.
• Science of reading about how you research reading and the components and guidance that come from that. Why the science of reading can inform some, not all, of our decisions about teaching reading.
• The influence of the science of reading on initial teacher education. The importance of basing decision on research evidence (where it is available).
• How teachers develop their professional knowledge: the difference between mandated webinars and those chosen by teachers; allowing for diversity and pluralism in the professional development in-service teachers engage in; social media and professional development; individual versus collaborative approaches to professional development.
• Ways to accredit continuous professional development for teachers.
• Curriculum integration is influenced by factors such as the subject you’re integrating, whether you start with the subject or with a question. The pre-cursor question concerns what we want children to learn and whether some form of integration will benefit that. Depending on the answer to that question, curriculum integration may or may not be a good thing. Publications: https://ncca.ie/media/6370/conceptualising-curriculum-integration.pdf (Report) and the annexes summarising studies are here: https://ncca.ie/media/6368/annex-1-conceptualising-curriculum-integration.pdf and https://ncca.ie/media/6369/annex-2-weaving-the-literature-on-integration-pedagogy-and-assessment.pdf.
• Find out more about the negotiated curriculum in this article and about Beane’s work in the NCCA report.
• Balancing a disciplinary approach with a curriculum approach.
• Patrick’s doctoral dissertation about disciplinary writing. The overall message of the dissertation is “Literacy integration is important but not easily achieved…if you want to do it well.”
• He mentions the work of Sam Wineburg and the credibility of online content.
• The importance of partnerships between schools, teachers and teacher educators in conducting and implementing education research. This raises questions around where research is done and who it’s done for and how teachers are involved in it
• The importance of conducting and sharing small-scale action research done by teachers in their classrooms.
• Student teachers need to be introduced to diverse forms of educational research in their undergraduate education.
• A (rare) randomised controlled trial conducted in primary education in Ireland on the topic of Minecraft and spatial awareness.
• Being a DCU Co-Principal Investigator (with Dr Eithne Kennedy) for the exploratory Erasmus+ funded Artificial Intelligence in Literacy (AILIT) project.
• Scholarly engagement with social media and traditional media.
• Gert Biesta’s purposes of education: Qualification, socialisation, subjectification.
• Learning about kindness in teacher-student relationships from Dr. William Bingman
• Nell Duke is his go-to expert on literacy education.
• His profile page in DCU: https://www.dcu.ie/languageliteracyandearlychildhoodeducation/people/dr-patrick-burke.