ABSTRACT
Over the past decade the areas of educational theory, literacy and leadership have focused upon the issue of responding to rapid and significant change. The concept of “multiliteracies,” first coined in 1996, arose from the concerns of a group of literacy educators about developing appropriate pedagogical responses for teaching literacy in a world undergoing significant economic, social and technological change. Soon after 1996, the literature on educational leadership began addressing the issue of assisting teachers to respond to the educational demands that resulted from such rapid change. This chapter reports on the successful implementation of a profes - sional development program that focused on multiliteracies and produced pedagogical change at individual, year and school levels. The program, implemented at primary and secondary level, embodied beliefs and principles from the literature on multiliteracies and educational leadership. It engaged teachers in an action-learning model of professional development based on the principles of action research that has a history of supporting teachers to implement change successfully in literacy education in Australia (see Comber & Hill, 2000; Comber, 2005; Comber & Kamler, 2005; Kamler & Comber, 2008). As it has been implemented throughout Queensland in various educational sectors and systems at individual, regional and whole-school levels, it is now possible to draw conclusions on how implementation of professional development around a multiliterate pedagogy can produce successful long-term outcomes and contribute to school renewal. The Multiliteracies Professional Development Program was based on a definition of multiliteracies that includes a focus on pedagogy. Therefore the chapter will commence with a review of the relationship between multiliteracies and pedagogy and the development of the term “multiliteracies” since its origin in 1996. Following this, the chapter will describe how the structure of the program evolved and the theoretical constructs that informed it. The program had three main foci:
1. Defining multiliteracies and identifying the participants’ current understandings and practices around it;
2. Developing strategies for analyzing and changing participants’ individual classroom pedagogies;
3. Responding to and managing change as an individual and in the broader school context.
