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1
Pelosi, Ligia. "Whispering into knowing: teachers as creative beings." Thesis, 2017. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/34675/.
Full textAbstract:
This study (re)presents how teachers enact pedagogy in order to become
transformative agents of change in their students’ lives. The importance of
teacher agency and creative, arts-based practices in the teaching and learning
of literacy was explored during interviews with a small sample of Australian
primary school practitioners. The field texts are (re)presented in the form of a
novel that interrogates the contemporary landscape of schooling as a datadriven,
political instrument. The novel, which should be read first, looks at the
impact of creativity in classrooms and on teachers’ lives and reframes the
meaning of teacher agency.
The study sought to define, reflect on and re-evaluate how creative processes
in literacy education have flow-on effects for the broader literacy curriculum in
Australian schools. The focus on the constraints and challenges of teaching and
learning in neoliberal times frames the concept of childhood in the novel. The
accompanying exegesis contextualises the contemporary educational
landscape as an environment into which teachers are inducted into didactic,
mechanistic and metric-driven practices. The novel and the exegesis seek to
articulate the effects of the neoliberal landscape on the teaching and learning
interface by looking at the role of creativity in shaping professional practice and
children’s learning.
2
Manypeney, Amanda. "The Devil’s in the Detail: an Ethnovella Approach to Teaching in New Religious Movements." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25870/.
Full textAbstract:
This study critically and creatively appraises the pedagogical complexities of being an
outsider teacher within a New Religious Movement. There are two sections in this study:
a critical exegesis (42%) and an original fictionalised section (58%). The latter, called an
ethnovella, depicts a first-person account of Anna, a conflicted teacher, who relates her
negotiations of the educational situations that arose during her work within a closed rural
community. In both the ethnovella and exegesis, key areas of difference and ties between
the outsider teacher and students of the closed community are highlighted, and
pedagogical strategies for adapting to a strictly codified environment are investigated.
The purpose of this work is to expand scholarly knowledge in order to achieve three
major outcomes: to better inform and prepare educators faced with similar scenarios; to
provide a new Australian study which can be used comparatively and reflectively by
education researchers; and to challenge the media-driven stigma associated with sects as
dangerous “cults” rather than longstanding religious communities.
The ethnovella portion of the study methodologically adopts the Creative Analytical
Practice approach outlined by Laurel Richardson (2000) and justifies the juxtaposition of
the creative with the analytical. The exegesis also critically positions one New Religious
Movement (NRM) among the others that have received scholarly attention, and offers
critique of studies that lack direct interaction or extend existing polemic. It is this aspect
of the work that makes it a fresh and valuable contribution to the fields of sociology and
education, where knowledge about NRMs and education is dated and limited.
3
White, Rochelle. "The banning of E.A.H. Laurie at Melbourne Teachers' College, 1944." Thesis, 1997. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/32972/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the banning of a communist speaker. Lieutenant E.A.H. Laurie, at
Melbourne Teachers' College in July, 1944 and argues that the decision to ban Laurie
was unwarranted and politically motivated. The banning, which was enforced by the
Minister for Public Instruction, Thomas Tuke Hollway, appears to have been based on
Hollway's firm anti-communist views and political opportunism. A. J. Law, Principal of
the Teachers' College, was also responsible for banning Laurie. However, Law's
decision to ban Laurie was probably directed by Hollway and supported by J. Seitz,
Director of Education.
4
Peters, Judith Helen. "Complexity of schooluniversity partnerships participants' perceptions of the Innovative Links Project in South Australia." 2002. http://arrow.unisa.edu.au:8081/1959.8/25030.
Full textAbstract:
This interpretive study investigated South Australian participants' perceptions of their experiences of professional development and partnership through the Innovative Links Between Universities and Schools for Teacher Professional Development Project (Innovative Links Project). The researcher was one of the academic participants. Data were collected in the final eighteen months of the project using participant observation, the researcher's journal, interviews, document review and a written questionnaire. The data analysis revealed findings about three phases of the project: the initiation phase; the implementation phase; and the reviewing outcomes phase. The findings for the initiation phase were: 1. Many teachers in the selected schools, and teacher educators at the university, did not have the opportunity to participate in the project. 2. Most participants were motivated by personal reasons and a commitment to organisational and/or partnership goals. 3. Participants varied in the extent to which they knew about and had the opportunity to interpret project expectations at the local level. The findings for the implementation phase were: 1. There was wide variation in the extent to which participants valued professional discourse, critical reflection, action research and professional reading and writing as processes for school reform. 2. Some participants found it difficult to learn project processes quickly. 3. Most participants were not able to manage the demands of the project without extending their hours of work and workloads. 4. Some relationships developed within the project were undemocratic and inequitable in some respects. 5. Only some aspects of the contexts in which participants worked supported achievement of the project expectations, while others proved to be a hindrance. The findings about the reviewing outcomes phase were: 1. Participants learnt about improved teaching, learning and educational reform from working together, but some opportunities for reciprocal learning were missed. 2. Participants' ability to translate learning into educational improvement was impeded by contextual constraints. 3. Many participants found it difficult to determine whether improvement had occurred. 4. Most participants found that working in the partnerships enhanced their relationships and professional standing with other participants, but not with non participants. The findings illuminated four areas of complexity in the research and development partnerships that were studied. Firstly, the extent to which the implicit assumptions underpinning project expectations were congruent with the reality of the conditions impacting on participants influenced their achievement of the expectations. Secondly, the interaction of a complex array of personal, structural and cultural conditions supported or hindered participants' ability to achieve the project expectations. Thirdly, participants' experiences, and the conditions that influenced them, changed as they moved through the different phases of initiation, implementation and reviewing outcomes. Finally, the key challenges that were evident in the research and development partnerships were: developing equitable ownership within each organisation and the partnerships; managing the affective dimensions of research, development and partnership; reconceptualising and restructuring educators' work; reconciling disparate constructions of learning, teaching, research and reform; and facilitating reciprocal learning for teachers and academics. The areas of complexity illuminated by the study suggested a series of recommendations for ways that future school/university research and development partnerships might be improved.thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2002.
5
Farrow, Erin. "Somewhere Between: The Shifting Trends in the Narrative Strategies and Preoccupations of the Young Adult Realistic Fiction Genre in Australia." Thesis, 2017. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/35052/.
Full textAbstract:
‘Young adult realistic fiction’ is a classification used by contemporary publishers such as Random House, McGraw Hill Education and Scholastic, who define it as ‘stories with characters, settings, and events that could plausibly happen in true life’ (Scholastic 2014). From the first Australian young adult imprint in 1986 it has become possible to trace substantial shifts in the trends of genre. This thesis explores some of the ways that the narrative structures and preoccupations of contemporary Australian young adult realistic fiction novels have shifted, particularly in regards to the portrayal of the main protagonist’s self-awareness, the complexity of the subject matter being discussed and the unresolved nature of the novels’ endings. The significance of these shifting trends within the genre is explored by means of a creative component and an accompanying exegesis. Through my novel, Somewhere between, I aim to consider and build on the changing narrative structures and preoccupations of Australian novels of the young adult realistic fiction genre. The exegesis uses the examination of representative Australian YA novels published between 1986 and 2013 to demonstrate the shifting trends in these three main narrative structures and preoccupations. The gradual, steady, shift in the narrative structures and preoccupations of the genre away from stability and assurance gives evidence of shifting notions of childhood and adolescent subjectivity within contemporary Australian society.
6
al-Qassas, Adil. "Displace or Be Displaced Narratives of Multiple Exile in the Sudanese Communities in Australia." Thesis, 2015. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/32313/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis consists of two parts. Both parts navigate the experience of displacement, in both realist and metaphorical modes, of a number of Sudanese expatriates to Australia. The first part, a fictional account in the form of a novella, employs different points of view to explore a range of diasporic encounters undergone by diverse Sudanese migrants and refugees prior to and during resettlement in Australia. Taking the events of the author’s life as its focus, the second part delves into narratives of personal, inner displacement that have deep roots in the history of Sudan and the question of a common national identity. The exegesis also examines the dynamics of his dualistic relationship with the Sudanese communities in Australia while sharing many of the same challenges and crises. His perspective, which can be understood in different ways as being partly inside and partly outside in relation to those communities and the wider Australian community, provides a position from which to view a series of Otherings and exclusions that challenge and displace identity while also contributing to the ‘forming’ of it.
The novella, centred on a café in an inner suburb of Melbourne, portrays different responses, narrated in the protagonists own voices, to a conflict that erupts from a simple remark to which a renowned retired Sudanese football (soccer) player takes offence. Their responses, revealed to the narrator in private, allow the reader to listen to the diversity of personal histories and views that are able to exist and collide within larger national and postcolonial histories, the signs of which act in unexpected ways.
7
Gleeson, Paul. "Understandings, Attitudes and Intentions of Health and Physical Education Teachers in Relation to the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education." Thesis, 2017. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/37850/.
Full textAbstract:
Australia’s education system is undergoing major reform with the staged
introduction of the Australian Curriculum starting in 2010. One of the learning
areas designated for development in the Australian Curriculum is Health and
Physical Education (HPE). The aim of this study is to examine the
understandings, attitudes and intentions of regional HPE teachers in relation to
the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (AC:HPE). A
qualitative research method based on narrative inquiry has been used to gather
data to provide a depiction of regional secondary school HPE teachers during
the initial implementation phase of the AC:HPE. This study is significant in
that it occurs at a unique time in Australia’s education system with the
realisation of the nation’s first national curriculum. Furthermore, this study will
contribute knowledge to an area of HPE research that has received little
scholarly attention in the past, using a research methodology that is not usually
associated with the discipline.
8
Anderson, Gina, University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Humanities. "Playing their game : an exploration of academic resistance in the managerial university." 2005. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/27335.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the phenomenon of academics’ resistance to materialism in Australian universities. In common with many other public sector employees, academics have experienced significant changes in the management of their institutions over recent years. Many of these changes are associated with increasing ‘managerialism’ – the application of methods and approaches commonly associated with the private sector, to public sector organizations. While previous studies indicate that academics are broadly opposed to such changes, little Australian research has considered how they might be resisting managerialism, in their daily working lives. The study found that academics were resisting managerial practices in a variety of ways. These included public acts of protest, refusal and more ‘everyday’ forms of resistance, such as avoidance and strategic compliance. This resistance was underpinned by shared understandings, values and norms embedded within traditional academic culture, and reflected academics’ negative assessments of the consequences of managerial practices within their institutions.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
9
Woodward, Helen Lynette, University of Western Sydney, and Faculty of Education. "Portfolios : narratives for learning: assessment processes and phenomenon across multiple environments." 1999. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/27518.
Full textAbstract:
This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio.Doctor of Education
10
Woodward, Helen 1939, of Western Sydney Nepean University, and Faculty of Education. "Portfolios : narratives for learning: assessment processes and phenomenon across multiple environments." 1999. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/27609.
Full textAbstract:
This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio.Doctor of Education
11
Woodward, Helen. "Portfolios : narratives for learning: assessment processes and phenomenon across multiple environments." Thesis, 1999. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/27609.
Full textAbstract:
This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio.
12
Anderson, Gina. "Playing their game : an exploration of academic resistance in the managerial university." Thesis, 2005. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/27335.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the phenomenon of academics’ resistance to materialism in Australian universities. In common with many other public sector employees, academics have experienced significant changes in the management of their institutions over recent years. Many of these changes are associated with increasing ‘managerialism’ – the application of methods and approaches commonly associated with the private sector, to public sector organizations. While previous studies indicate that academics are broadly opposed to such changes, little Australian research has considered how they might be resisting managerialism, in their daily working lives. The study found that academics were resisting managerial practices in a variety of ways. These included public acts of protest, refusal and more ‘everyday’ forms of resistance, such as avoidance and strategic compliance. This resistance was underpinned by shared understandings, values and norms embedded within traditional academic culture, and reflected academics’ negative assessments of the consequences of managerial practices within their institutions.
13
Spittle, Sharna. "An examination of teacher confidence and motivation to teach primary school physical education." Thesis, 2015. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/32302/.
Full textAbstract:
Primary school physical education can provide important opportunities for children to be active in environments that support the development of movement and sports skills. Research has highlighted that many Australian children display low levels of physical activity and motor co-ordination (Morgan et al., 2013), making the delivery of quality physical education at a primary school level even more important. In Australia, primary physical education is regularly delivered by generalist primary school teachers, who may have limited training in the curriculum area. It appears, however, that the pre-service and in-service generalist teachers who constitute critical factors in the delivery of quality physical education have low levels of confidence and also potentially lower motivation to teach in this domain. Although research consistently confirms lower levels of confidence, the measures used often lack detail of their development and supporting psychometric evaluation. Validity and reliability is not often assessed or reported and measures tend to be narrowly focused on particular areas of physical education. Although confidence has been explored, motivation has rarely been investigated in relation to teaching primary physical education, despite a range of measures of general motivation for teaching. For this reason, validated and psychometrically evaluated instruments to assess the motivation to teach physical education warrant construction.
14
Dolan, Helen. "Reclaiming professional practice: case studies of teachers collaborating to design learning in the senior years of schooling." Thesis, 2019. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/40989/.
Full textAbstract:
Despite much policy and research that underscores the need for a greater focus on the professionalism of teachers, including the capacity of teachers to collaborate around curriculum, the historical and contemporary framework of school organisation and practice tends to require individualist approaches to planning and teaching. This study examines the practices of teachers who are collaborating to design interdisciplinary curriculum as part of the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). A collective, purposeful case study is constructed to
document collaborative planning practices in three key schools and a group of schools taking part in a professional learning STEM strategy to integrate subjects. To appreciate the demands of interdisciplinary planning the study includes the design and facilitation of workshops with Aboriginal women about Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, to seek alternative narratives to describe the emerging collaborative design cultures in the case study schools.
Policy and SACE Authority data are interrogated to demonstrate the ways in which teacher collaboration is both encouraged and made relatively invisible. The study argues that the invisibility of collaboration around interdisciplinary approaches to learning needs to be addressed in policy and practices and exemplars made visible to promote wider take-up of interdisciplinary planning practices. Teachers and school leaders in the case study sites point to the ways in which collaborative design work interrupts routine individual practices and replaces them with more collaborative solutions. The study further finds that teachers embrace opportunities to build professional practices through planning learning discourses around curriculum creation processes. The study concludes with the design of a 'Collaborative Design Framework’ to support teachers to consider more collaborative ways of planning learning and inclusion of Aboriginal planning standpoints in mainstream education contexts.
15
Tartakover, Sarah. "Cultural perspectives in school communities: an exploration and representation of cultural identity in pre-service teachers." Thesis, 2013. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25086/.
Full textAbstract:
This arts based research consists of a creative product – the film Classroom Conversations around Culture, and an accompanying exegesis – Cultural Perspectives in School Communities: An Exploration and Representation of Cultural Identity in Pre-Service Teachers.
Both the film and the exegesis explore the experiences and insights of seven pre-service teachers in their final year of a teaching degree as they undertake their practicum in primary schools in Melbourne’s western suburbs. The research uses portraiture and narrative inquiry methodology to examine a range of issues around pre-service teachers’ knowledge and understanding of cultural identity, racism, diversity and the implications of these understandings on their teaching practice.
A re-emerging theme is the manner in which white hegemonic mainstream culture tacitly and overtly excludes people based on their cultural identity and skin colour, and the marginalising effect this has on them. While pre-service teachers are well placed to redress this systemic inequity within the communities they teach by integrating cultural diversity into their teaching and learning, the reflections of the research participants raise a number of associated dilemmas and challenges.
16
Bristow, Glenys Julie. "What are the characteristics (types of knowledge) residential youth workers with high-risk young people bring to the field of residential work? “Identifying artistry in youth residential workers: fact or fiction?”." Thesis, 2018. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/38631/.
Full textAbstract:
This study investigates the characteristics of therapeutic residential care workers with high-risk young people. It takes as its focus the types of knowledge that those who are considered as exceptional residential workers bring with them to the field, and explores the notions of ‘artistry, knowing, intuition, essence and gut feelings’ in relation to the construction of the professional residential care role.
Fourteen residential youth workers with 10-plus years’ experience were interviewed to investigate notions of exceptional practice in relation to:
• their characteristics, ethics, values
• if the multiplicities of theories and artistry they demonstrated were largely due to life development and learning, experience, gut feelings, and/or intuition
• if formal education / training is the most effective way of informing conscious residential work practice.
Drawing on a bricolage of knowledge, theories and theorists across disciplines to scaffold and frame the reconstruction of ways of knowing, this multi-genre methodology creatively utilised narrative research. The metaphor of quilting was drawn upon to contextualise the rhizomatic nature of the research process through which a crystallised understanding of my critical ontological values, ethics and morals afforded emergence of the interconnected history of people’s lives within a developmental bioecological model.
Four knowledge categories emerged, resulting in a ‘percentages model’:
[i] historical/developmental life stages and impacts
[ii] educational and training and bioecological contexts of lived experience
[iii] social learning
[iv] confirming the existence and essential roles of ‘artistry’, spirituality, gut feelings and intuition.
These four stages are analysed to inform workforce promotion, recruitment/retention, training, mentoring, reduction of WorkCover and sickness costs and the possible subsequent loss of valued residential workers.
17
Allen, Delia Frances. "This town, last town, next town: the women of sideshow alley and the boxing tents: a novel and exegesis." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25868/.
Full textAbstract:
This doctoral creative thesis comprises a novel This town, last town, next town,
and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is set in Western Australia in the
1950s in sideshow alley, a unique part of Australian culture that has not
previously been represented in Australian fiction. It is a period in which the
sideshow is coming to the end of its heyday as a place of carnival and
spectacle. The three main characters are: Joan Tiernan, a dancer and married
to the owner of an entertainment show; Rose Jackson, the wife of a boxing tent
owner; and Corrie Cooper, married to an Aboriginal boxer. Joan and Rose
travel with the show but Corrie stays behind, living in a small timber shack on
the outskirts of a wheatbelt hamlet, while her husband travels with the tent
most of the year. The narrative explores the women’s hopes and personal
desires and how these are negotiated and shaped by the needs of the
community.
18
Jakobi, Matthew. "Caring for Country Inside the Illegal Clearing: A Survey of Aboriginal Teacher Educators’ Work in Australian Teacher Education Programs." Thesis, 2020. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/42162/.
Full textAbstract:
The more recent inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies in the Commonwealth of Australia’s curriculum and pedagogical frameworks has marked Australian teacher education programs as sites for achieving nation- building agendas and social justice imperatives. Whilst well-intentioned, the programmers and the programming of Australian teacher education have historically proven to be ill-equipped when teaching Aboriginal worldviews and standpoints and have sought the expertise of Aboriginal teacher educators to design, teach, and assess new compulsory studies in Aboriginal education.
Yarning with five other Aboriginal teacher educators about teaching inside the still-illegal settler colonial architecture of the Australian university, my thesis surveys the Faculty of Education spaces we currently occupy using sovereign and self-determining standpoints as compass directions. Located at the place where the foundational logics of the Australian university meets with a much older way of knowing Country, Aboriginal teacher educators encounter a range of territorial disputes concerning the legitimacy to own the body of Aboriginal knowledge written across Australian teacher education.
My thesis stories how we are applying the First Laws of Country to the programming of Australian teacher education in ways that disrupt the structural organisation of faculty whilst preparing its population/s for a new relationship that recognises the continuing and ongoing sovereignty of Aboriginal societies. Making public the violent curricular, pedagogical, and administrative trajectories resulting from the original dispossession and ongoing settler colonial occupation, the localised Aboriginal work unsettles the relationships teaching has with the everchanging settler colonial project, decolonising the one-nation landscape of Australian teacher education and indigenising returned and repatriated physical and intellectual territories.
The endpoint political work of Aboriginal teacher educators is situated on an uncertain timeline, co-existing with a faculty grammar that is determined to close the gap between Aboriginal and Australian societies. My yarning with other Aboriginal teacher educators offers little reprieve for those currently located in these faculty spaces and instead describes the forever business of teaching across settled and unsettled times and places of promised change and delayed transformation, working with and against the structural obstructions of settler colonialism.
19
Pranauskas, Grazina. "Torn : the story of a Lithuanian migrant." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/29676/.
Full textAbstract:
This doctorate consists of two parts: a novel Torn and the exegesis: Writing the migrant story: nostalgia, identity and belonging. The novel and theoretical exegesis are intended to complement each other in capturing the 20th century Lithuanian historical and political circumstances that led to Lithuanian emigration to Australia.
In my novel and exegesis, my intention has been to explore how the experiences of Lithuanian refugees and migrants differ, especially in relation to nostalgia, identity and belonging, depending on the time and circumstances of their arrival in Australia. Lithuanians came to Australia from the same place geographically, but from a different place in terms of history and politics.
20
Rouse, Elizabeth Jane. "Effective family partnerships in early childhood education and care: an investigation of the nature of interactions between educators and parents." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25861/.
Full textAbstract:
Early childhood education and care in Australia is recognised as playing an important role in determining the long term educational benefits and outcomes for children across their life span. A key determinant of a quality early childhood program is the quality of relationships that educators develop with parents and families as equal partners in the education and care of young children.
In 2010 the State of Victoria, Australia, launched a framework for educators working in early childhood settings. This framework identified family centred practice (FCP) as the approach to be implemented by educators in their work with families. FCP has been widely used in early childhood intervention programs since the latter part of the 20th century; however, this approach had not previously been adopted in mainstream early childhood education and care contexts.
21
van, Toledo Samara. "Schooling sexuality: an intergenerational investigation of the educational experiences of Australian gay men and teens." Thesis, 2021. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/42966/.
Full textAbstract:
This study (re)presents the intergenerational experiences of gay men in Australian schools, communities and families across a fifty-year period. A snowball sample of six participants, ranging in age from fifteen to sixty-five, participated in life history interviews that focussed on eliciting narratives of (re)membered school experiences connected to the social and cultural discourses of (homo)sexuality. This study contributes to the scholarship of sexuality in Australian contexts. A particular gaze is directed on how schooling, family and community norms form and storm subjectivity and identity in childhood and adolescence.
This research is framed by the national debate regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ)+ rights in Australia that erupted over the implementation of the Safe Schools Coalition program across Australian states. The ensuing moral panic incited by conservative groups, and the public scrutiny surrounding the proposed support mechanisms and inclusivity for LGBTIQ+ adolescents and their peers, inspired my resolve to undertake this research. Drawing on a sociocultural framework to look at the intersections around sexuality, in conjunction with the embodied knowledge of Othering, I saw the importance of a discursive examination of experiential encounters with institutionalised heteronormativity in Australian schools, family dynamics and community settings.
The lived experiences of same-sex-attracted informants is an under-explored area within the scholarship of sexuality in Australian schools. This study elucidated firsthand experiences of what it has meant, and means, to be gay in Australian schools communities and families over a fifty-year period. The conclusions of the study indicate that all participants, regardless of age, have encountered overt (homo)phobia, and describe how heteronormativity has limited and negatively impacted on their ability to contribute and participate in school, in their families and in community settings.
This investigation is presented in the form of a creative product and an exegesis. In each of the components there is an understanding of how deviations from binary constructions of gender and sexuality are articulated. This study adds to the plethora of work and rethinking which needs to be done in Australian schools, families and communities to support LGBTIQ+ individuals.
22
Smeda, Najat. "Creating constructivist learning environments with digital storytelling." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25833/.
Full textAbstract:
In recent years the use of new technologies in educational systems has increased worldwide, as digital cameras, personal computers, scanners, and easy-to-use software have become available to educators to harness the digital world. The impact of new technologies in educational contexts has been very positive; new technologies have given educators the opportunity to enhance their knowledge, skills, and therefore enhance the standard of education. Researchers have found that student engagement, achievement and motivation are enhanced through integration of such technologies. However, education systems still face many challenges: one of these challenges is how to enhance student engagement to provide better educational outcomes. It has become increasingly important to use innovative pedagogical models to engage learners. Digital storytelling is one of the innovative pedagogical approaches that can engage students in deep and meaningful learning.
23
Comodromos, George. "How academics respond, adapt and cope with the transformational changes in the Australian Higher Education Sector." Thesis, 2016. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/33621/.
Full textAbstract:
The objective of this thesis is to investigate the work life factors of Australian academics and see which of these lead to the adoption of transformational change. The context of the thesis is the Higher Education Sector and the research examines the metamorphic changes in this sector that have been mostly driven by neo-liberal and deregulation policies by successive governments over the past three decades. The thesis adopts and develops the constructivist grounded theory method. The primary data source was developed from face-to-face interviews with 33 (male and female) academics from Monash and Melbourne universities, conducted over a period of five months. These two universities were chosen from the Group of Eight (Go8) elite universities in Australia because they are highly resourced, quality branded and populated with high academic performance students. They represent Australian academics working at their peak performance and their personnel are considered the most highly regarded in the sector. Constructivist grounded theory, as presented by Charmaz (2010), was chosen as a methodology for this thesis because the ontological perspective that reality is created within a social construct and the epistemological perspective that the researcher and participants are both actively involved in the construction of the grounded theory, best suits the mindset of the researcher and the research question. The findings of the research resonate with the literature of institutional change, particularly that of Thelen and Mahoney (2010), and the typology of academics that was created from the research findings further contributes to knowledge in the area of change management theory. The intention of this thesis is to provide a platform to launch further research into the area of organisational change management, particularly in the Higher Education Sector.
24
Wallace, Heather D. "Authentic Learning in the Kitchen and Garden: Synthesising planning, practice and pedagogy." Thesis, 2014. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/25923/.
Full textAbstract:
This study identifies and articulates the interrelationships between six key components
essential for authentic learning to maximise the student-centred learning opportunities in
kitchen and garden-based learning projects. Interpretative case study methodology using
multiple qualitative methods for data analysis were used to direct three layers of inquiry
around kitchen and garden-based learning: the context, content and characteristics of
kitchen and the garden-based learning, the student learning, and the teachers’ work.
Review of the literature indicated significant gaps in understanding how teachers can
foster children’s interest in nature, and plan for effective authentic learning experiences in
the garden. Through analysis of the literature, together with the perspectives of the
Grades 4, 5 and 6 children, and their teachers, key components for authentic,
contextualised learning were identified. These included: a real-world context, the
opportunity for working as professionals, within a collaborative learning community,
work requiring higher-order thinking, ownership of learning and authentic integrated
assessment.
Teachers’ pedagogy and practices are often hidden but were nevertheless significant
factors affecting student outcomes. Teachers made the learning experiences more
meaningful by ensuring student reflection was embedded in learning tasks. Planning and
providing arenas or “safe platforms” for discursive reflection was an essential step in
transforming tacit understandings to explicit knowledge enabling children to connect
their personal experiences with the experiences of others. From this discourse deeper
understanding of ecoliteracy emerged with one cohort, and understandings about the
intricacies of collaborative teamwork with another. The focus group discussions about
common experiential learning experiences had wider implications for teaching; they were
a key step in making the children’s tacit understandings explicit. Examination of the staff
and students’ immersive experiences within a kitchen garden learning environment, led to
the development of a model of learning that provides educators with a comprehensive
approach to scaffold authentic learning opportunities.