Authors:Frances Quinn; Jennifer Charteris; Rachael Adlington; Nadya Rizk; Peter Fletcher; Vicente Reyes; Mitchell Parkes Abstract: As we see a ramping-up of online teacher professional learning and development (PLD) offerings, it is becoming increasingly imperative to consider the complexity and nuances of what constitutes effective online teacher PLD, and to be able to plan and evaluate it. There is a need for PLD to be ‘genuinely effective’, but while descriptions of effective teacher PLD abound, effective online teacher PLD is not as clearly articulated. We analyse characterisations of effective PLD and the extent to which they apply to online contexts. We argue that for online PLD to be genuinely effective—relevant, collaborative and future focused—attention must be paid to practice architectures that hold online PLD in place, to technological demands and to how evidence regarding PLD efficacy is generated and collected. To this end, we propose a heuristic framework for planning and evaluating online PLD. PubDate: 2019-01-12 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-00297-w
Authors:S. L. Rogers; L. Barblett; K. Robinson Abstract: The article “Parent and teacher perceptions of NAPLAN in a sample of Independent schools in Western Australia”, written by S. L. Rogers, L. Barblett and K. Robinson was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 3 April 2018 without open access. PubDate: 2019-01-09 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-00299-8
Authors:Helen Egeberg; Andrew McConney Abstract: The article “What do students believe about effective classroom management' A mixed-methods investigation in Western Australian high schools”, written by Helen Egeberg and Andrew McConney was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 1 December 2017 without open access. PubDate: 2019-01-09 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-00298-9
Authors:Damon P. Thomas; Sherridan Emery; Vaughan Prain; Jeanette Papageorgiou; Ann-Marie McKendrick Abstract: Australian students’ performance on national and international literacy assessments has declined since 2000, while teachers in contemporary classrooms contend with conditions of increased complexity and uncertainty. In July 2017, the Australian Government commissioned a panel of experts to provide advice on how to improve Australian students’ achievement and school performance. The panel concluded that Australian schools must support every student to realise their full learning potential through an increased emphasis on personalised student learning and collaborative teacher practices. This paper outlines a case study of complexities and influences in enabling and constraining a local curriculum innovation in literacy that sought to personalise learning and promote teacher collaboration in conditions of constant change and disruption. Named Literacy Toolbox, this initiative was developed by Year 7 and 8 literacy leaders at a Tasmanian secondary school to increase student agency and enhance teaching around a model of deprivatised or shared practice. The findings provide insight for education researchers and schools regarding the challenges and opportunities of attempts to enact personalised learning and co-teaching in the current context. PubDate: 2019-01-03 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0295-6
Authors:Emily Gray; Linda Knight; Mindy Blaise Pages: 585 - 601 Abstract: This paper examines a project that developed humorous, irreverent and subversive arts-based interventions into sexism in the academy. Two workshops were run with women currently working in teacher education in Australian universities. The researchers worked with the participants collaboratively and in line with feminist practices and methodologies to develop interventions that were performed at a large multidisciplinary educational research conference. The paper outlines the origins of the project, the feminist scholarship that inspired it, the methodological framework as well as a discussion about three of the interventions and demonstrates that sexism both (re)produces structural disadvantage for women in higher education as well as being characterised by a set of micro practices that shape the everyday experiences of women in the academy. Although this research is set within an Australian context, the paper acknowledges that sexism is systemic within higher education across contexts. PubDate: 2018-11-01 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0274-y Issue No:Vol. 45, No. 5 (2018)
Authors:Fiona Ell; Alyson Simpson; Diane Mayer; Larissa McLean Davies; Janet Clinton; Georgia Dawson Abstract: In the current context, where global comparative education testing plays an increasing role in education policy and teacher quality is identified as a key to economic performance, initial teacher education has become a focus of concern and reform. Questions are asked about the impact of university-based teacher preparation, and ‘alternate routes’ into teaching emerge. Currently, in Anglophone countries, there is a turn towards practice and away from preparation that is seen as overly theoretical. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model of initial teacher education impact that examines the breadth of ways in which university-based teacher education impacts on the education system, positioning initial teacher education as more than just a source of newly qualified teachers. Using a complexity thinking framework, this paper offers a nuanced way to conceptualise initial teacher education impact that acknowledges the integrated nature of the education system and the way in which all stakeholders work together to improve student learning. PubDate: 2018-12-20 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0294-7
Authors:Felicity McArdle; Susan Grieshaber; Jennifer Sumsion Abstract: Recent policy changes connect play in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings explicitly to learning, and to later school-learning outcomes, calling on early childhood (EC) educators to incorporate intentional teaching into their practice. Given these recent policy changes, the purpose of this propositional article is to raise awareness and promote discussion about the current place of play in initial early childhood teacher education programs in Australian universities and the vocational education and training (VET) sector. The article initiates dialogue by contributing a rhizomatically-informed analytical snapshot of publicly available information from course outlines and subject guides in EC initial teacher education (ITE) in 20 Australian universities and the VET sector. This rhizomatically-informed analytical snapshot showed that the word ‘play’ was absent or occurred at relatively low frequency in course and subject descriptive material. The least frequent occurrence was in materials from ITE degree-level courses. While the snapshot does not delve into the full course and subject content (and makes no claims to do so), the rhizomatic methodological approach used leads us to ask whether ‘play’ is being overlooked in the delivery of ITE and VET courses for ECE. Recent quality ratings of ECEC services in Australia support the idea that for beginning and experienced educators, the knowledge base may be less robust than assumed when it comes to combining intentional teaching with play-based learning and the achievement of child outcomes. At the very least, we propose that this warrants further investigation. PubDate: 2018-12-18 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0293-8
Authors:Julia E. Morris Abstract: The ‘responding’ strand of the Australian visual arts curriculum promotes twenty-first century learning skills through students’ analytical engagement with artworks and artists. Assessing students’ experiences and engagement is one strategy to improve teaching and learning in responding. However, there are no validated, subject-specific student engagement instruments for teachers to use. This study sought to develop a student self-report diagnostic instrument that provides information on past experiences with visual arts and factors affecting both cognitive and psychological engagement, with implications for improving teaching and learning. The instrument was piloted with 266 Year 10 to 12 students, as responding has an approximate 50% assessment weighting in the Australian visual arts course for senior school students. This paper reports on the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses conducted in the development of the instrument. It adds to the body of knowledge on developing engagement instruments, recognising that student engagement in secondary education is context-dependent. PubDate: 2018-12-18 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0296-5
Authors:Shani Prendergast; Mark Rickinson Abstract: There are increasing calls within Australia and internationally for schools to be research-engaged, for teaching to be research-rich and for researchers to engage with end-users. Such aspirations raise important questions about whether and how Australian schools are engaging in and with research. This paper reports on an empirical study, Catholic Education Melbourne’s Understanding School Engagement in Research project, which sought to better understand research engagement amongst 67 Catholic schools in Melbourne. Drawing on the findings of this project, coupled with a subsequent analysis of wider international literature, this paper shows how schools are selective about their research involvement; are discerning about what the research is on and how it is conducted; access research in indirect and informal ways; value research more than they use it; and need much more than research access. The paper concludes by synthesising these five themes into a conceptual framework for understanding and improving school research engagement, and outlining the implications for research organisations, schools and jurisdictions. PubDate: 2018-12-12 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0292-9
Authors:Amanda Keddie; Jane Wilkinson; Luke Howie; Lucas Walsh Abstract: This paper examines the approaches of cultural and religious inclusion at one small state-funded primary school situated in suburban Australia. The school community is experiencing high levels of racialised, gendered and religious conflict. Through case study data from leaders and teachers, we illustrate the potential and limitations of these approaches and consider their location within the notions of secularity and Christian privilege that characterise Australia’s public education system. The paper is situated within the context of current anxieties around social conflict and unrest especially in relation to religious racism or Islamophobia and amid calls for the introduction of a multi-faith education in Australian public schools. Against this backdrop, we highlight key tensions and difficulties confronting schools in their efforts to be inclusive towards creating a climate of social cohesion. PubDate: 2018-11-22 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0289-4
Authors:Anne Cloonan Abstract: In line with teaching standards requiring teachers to evidence research capacities, this paper explores responses to a professional learning programme designed in partnership by an educational authority and a university. Intended to enable practising teachers to develop research capacities and complete postgraduate qualifications, the professional learning programme featured collaboration, distributed leadership and participatory action research. Focusing on the experiences and responses of teachers participating in the collaborative project, data collected through teacher interviews, focus groups, researcher observations and teacher-and-student documentation were analysed. Findings indicate that a collaborative practice-based approach to professional learning and postgraduate studies developed teacher appetite for, appreciation of and emerging capacities in both empirical and conceptual research including defining a research question; reviewing literature; conducting an action research project; engaging with evidence; criticality; and reporting on findings. Enabling conditions of and limitations to the development of research-based capacities are explored. PubDate: 2018-11-20 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0290-y
Authors:Lynette Vernon; Stuart J. Watson; William Moore; Sarah Seddon Abstract: University participation rates are significantly lower in low socioeconomic status (SES) areas in Australia. Specifically, rates differ between-schools and within-schools, where inequalities in opportunities to access university pathway programs exist. The aim of this study was to test whether academic encouragement supported students’ school satisfaction and increased their desire for, expectation of and belief in the possibility of university study and whether differences were evident depending on pathway of study: the ATAR pathway versus a Year 12 access enabling pathway program called TLC110. A sample of 257 high school students (58% female) from 18 high schools, within a low-SES area of outer metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, were surveyed. Teacher encouragement was found to be positively associated with school satisfaction and, in turn, supported university desire, expectation and belief for ATAR students but not for TLC110 students. Qualitative data were collected (n = 9) to contextualise the inclusivity of TLC110 for high school students from low-SES backgrounds to support aspirations for university. PubDate: 2018-11-20 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0288-5
Authors:Peter Grainger; Robert Steffler; Margarietha J. de Villiers Scheepers; Catherine Thiele; Shelley Dole Abstract: This paper reports students’ perceptions of their learning of 21st century skills through a novel approach to delivery of the school program in Year 10. For 1 day per week, all Year 10 students at this school participate in The DeLorean Project, where they create, design and implement their own real-world projects with the assistance of teachers as facilitators. Student attitudes towards participation in the initiative were surveyed and analysed. Results indicated that students’ awareness of skills associated with the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum were explicitly developed as a result of participation in the DeLorean Project, particularly critical and creative thinking, ethical behaviour, and personal and social capability. Student voice in relation to the project gives rise to implications for further development and design of DeLorean as new approach to teaching and learning in Australian schools. PubDate: 2018-11-03 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0287-6
Authors:Martin Mills Abstract: This AARE Presidential Address examines what it means to be an educational researcher in the current Australian, and global, political climate. The presentation draws heavily on the work of Levitas (Utopia as Method 2013). The address, using her notions of Utopia as archaeology, as ontology and as architecture, suggests that in the process of promoting a more socially just agenda there is no alternative but to look for alternative ways of doing educational research and being an educational researcher. It concludes by suggesting that associations such as AARE provide opportunities to envisage what academic life could look like for educational researchers in a ‘Realistic Utopia’—one in which they are realistic and demand the impossible. PubDate: 2018-11-02 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0284-9
Authors:Margaret Jean Somerville Abstract: This lecture asks: How can education research address the big questions of our time, and what has politics got to do with it' It will trace moments and movements of researcher-(un)becoming to explore the (micro)politics of a lifetime of educational research. Politics is understood as both intimate and immense, as the intertwined politics of global conditions, and of the nation, with the intimately personal. It is about the researcher lives we all live. The approach was generated in a recent visit to Oulu, north Finland, where doctoral students asked me to present ‘tales’ of a researcher life. The lead student wanted to know how to manage a doctorate while raising three young children. As I have wandered back and forth over a lifetime of presentations, the shapes of key influences emerged. Relations with Aboriginal people and Country have been there since before the beginning, and are incorporated into my ways of being in the world. Feminist theories and their libidinal flows have been fundamental in shaping both my life and research, including their uneasy alliance with Aboriginal onto-epistemologies. Doctoral students have emerged as a strong generative force in my intellectual directions, moving me into all sorts of worlds I would never have entered otherwise. And finally, Place, the places where I have lived and worked have been the crucial grounding of my body and being, primal and prior, but also the basis of thought. In further elaborating these different influences, they culminate in the contemporary force of the Anthropocene, calling us to consider how the world is asking to be named, and how we can learn to be human differently, for the wellbeing of the planet. In developing this address into a paper, I have decided, in consultation with, and supported by the editor Nicole, to preserve its original content as far as possible. The knowledge contained in the address belongs with the oral performance and images as much as with the very few written words that were used in the powerpoint slides. A small selection of images is also included. PubDate: 2018-10-24 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0281-z
Authors:Karen McDavitt; Jacquie Tarrant; Kathy Boxall Abstract: The education rankings of Australian students continue to slide further down the international scale, yet the dominant discourse in relation to both the cause and solution to this perceived decline remains focused on funding, curriculum and teacher quality whilst failing largely to take account of the broader social contexts in which education takes place. Drawing on findings from recent research in primary schools in regional Australia, this paper raises the question of Australian school students’ human right to an education and explores the role that school social workers can play in upholding this right. Discussion draws on international research, including studies that examine the outcomes of employing suitably qualified School Social Workers who can foster links and networks between student, family, school and community. It is argued that these networks create social capital that can serve to enable students to benefit from both the education to which they are entitled, and the connections that may empower them, as they move into adult life. PubDate: 2018-09-26 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0278-7
Authors:Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen; Hongzhi Yang Abstract: This study aims to examine how pre-service teachers learn to teach in Australia context during their practicum and how this learning experience constructs their identities as teachers through activity theory framework. Data were drawn from interviews with two pre-service teachers, interviews with their supervising teachers and university mentors, lesson plans, and supervising teacher’s feedback. The findings indicate that the two pre-service teachers’ identity formation is a continuing process and an outcome of the collective activity through their interaction with their coordinating teachers, mentors and students. We argue that teachers’ identity formation is related to their agency to seek and offer support to others. The pre-service teachers could produce and reproduce their identity in the relevant community through their agentive action to interact with others. PubDate: 2018-08-18 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0276-9
Authors:Melitta Hogarth Abstract: The areas of concern (‘goals’, ‘domains’ and ‘priority areas’—whatever policymakers wish to call them) relating to Indigenous education have not changed since the first National Indigenous education policy in 1989. Deficit discourses, discursive trickery and the inability to report progress continues to demoralise and ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students remain at the lower rungs of educational outcome indicators maintaining societal and institutional constructs. In this paper, I argue that there is a need to dramatically reform the approach to Indigenous education transforming the hegemonic positioning assumed by the coloniser. Essentially, this would take a revolution: a revolutionary transformation of institutional and societal constructs; a cognitive awareness of how language and discourses are used to maintain power and a need to privilege Indigenous voices and knowledges to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights in education are achieved. PubDate: 2018-08-13 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0277-8
Authors:Yaxing Zhang; Deborah Henderson Abstract: This paper draws from a larger exploratory qualitative study that investigated the perceptions of principals and teacher leaders regarding their interactions in Chinese urban primary schools during contemporary curriculum reform. Insights from micropolitics, notably two core constructs of cooperation and conflict, were utilised to examine the interactions of participants. The research found that principals and teacher leaders employed exchange and facilitation as two strategies during cooperative processes; and they adopted enforcement and compromise in conflictive processes. Eight new sub-dimensions under the four strategies emerged from the interview accounts. Findings indicate that most principals were exercising their power ‘through’ their teacher leaders who in turn were working in alignment with their principals to achieve the desired outcomes in schools. Principals in some circumstances used power ‘over’ as a traditional approach, while power ‘with’ was not apparent in participants’ comments. The paper contends that traditional Chinese cultural attitudes towards education, as shaped through Confucianism, were also discernible in framing the nature of some of the interactions between principals and teacher leaders. PubDate: 2018-07-16 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-018-0275-x
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