Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemLaptops and literature : a constructivist approach to teaching English through multimedia( 1999)Staff in the English faculty at Central College are part of a laptop program, but are reluctant to make use of the laptops for anything except word processing. In this thesis I propose that staff need models for using laptop computers in a Secondary English classroom. Using an Action Research (Kemmis and McTaggert 1982) approach, the author researched learning styles, multimedia and subject English to develop a model for use in a novel-based classroom. The first model was developed, created and used in class. Student reactions were collected and analysed, and a second model created in response to this data. Students' reactions were collected and the models, along with student responses were presented to staff. Conclusions and recommendations drawn from this project were two-fold: that multimedia resources for student laptops are best designed and created by classroom teachers; and that the development of these resources are time intensive, so schools should support staff in the development of these resources with time and training.
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ItemEducation and the imagination: the theory and practice of children's imaginative reading in the middle post-primary years( 1988)This study examines the teaching of imaginative literature in Australian post-primary schools. Commencing in a review of the historical background and contemporary justifications for novel study in the classroom, it then seeks to describe the orthodox prescriptions for practical work. Those principles which attract widespread agreement are noted, as well as those which are either ambiguous or in dispute. With this review of the theory as a foundation, the actual practice of reading in schools is then investigated. The field research consists of a random sample of two hundred and twenty-two Year 9 students and twelve teachers from six Ballarat schools, tested by questionnaire and selective follow up interviews. The results of both are used to provide a picture of the extent to which the theoretical principles correlate to the day to day reality of classroom work. The conclusion acknowledges the largely positive impressions emerging from this limited sample, but notes the dearth of research in this area, and the pressing need for further study on a large scale.
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ItemThe public examination of English in Victoria : a study of one external influence on the secondary school English curriculum( 1980)The secondary school English curriculum was determined by groups outside schools during the period 1944-1974. External domination of teaching content and methodology was ensured by a system of Public and Matriculation Examinations which empowered agents of the universities to prescribe courses and to assess students' performance in those courses. The University of Melbourne exercised these functions through its Professorial Board and the Schools Board before relinquishing its powers to the Victorian Universities and Schools Examination Board in 1965. Statute and tradition allowed these bodies to establish themselves as a centre apart from schools, and to legitimise their authority through the institutionalised processes of prescription, examination and review of performance. The effect of these processes was to subordinate schools, teachers and pupils. There was immense inertia in the Victorian system of external prescription and examination. Courses and examination papers remained essentially unmodified for long periods. Significant development in the conception and content of English courses occurred, effectively, only at Year 12 in response to social and educational pressures which had previously led to the withdrawal of Public Intermediate and Leaving Examinations. Broadening the goals of H.S.C. English did not, however, signal diminished control over curriculum from the centre. The fact of competitive examinations at the end of secondary schooling continued to shape content and methodology in the earlier years. Competitive examinations engendered in schools, teachers and pupils a narrow conformity, the results of which can most clearly be seen in the failure of the Class A system to produce school-based curriculum initiatives of any substance. The effect of external prescription and examination of English courses was profound. Relationships between teachers and pupils were strongly mediated by the system, reducing the autonomy of both by subjugating their intentions to the instrumental demands of evaluation. So much of a student's 'life chance' depended upon examination success that teachers and taught were continually constrained to focus their attention on the tasks expected in examinations. Fragmentation, in line with the different sections of examination papers, rather than integration became, therefore, the organising principle for teaching aimed at developing those techniques believed to be essential for success in the examination game. External examinations dictated that the English classroom was a place where pupils met to prepare for their encounters with examinations rather than to explore the nature and richness of experience through literature and their own use of language for real ends. The system of Public and Matriculation Examinations established in 1944 was a potent influence on the secondary school English curriculum. The system rested upon a powerful, conservative centre whose legitimacy was so thoroughly entrenched that it was able to admit reform only on its own terms. Thus, it was possible after twenty-five years of relative stasis to negotiate evolution in the details of the school English curriculum without alteration to the essential power relationships. After thirty years, English teachers were still without autonomy. Year 12 English courses continued to exert the pressures and to exact the dependence which had constrained mother tongue studies throughout secondary schools since 1944.
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ItemImplementing the CSF-English in a whole language classroom( 1998)A new curriculum structure called the Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) was introduced to Victorian primary and secondary schools in 1995. The CSF-English comprises four strands, two of which (Contextual understanding and Linguistic structures and features), represent what could be seen as new information to Whole Language trained teachers. This thesis addresses the CSF-English in two ways. First, it deconstructs the CSF-English. Second, it will attempt to trace its implementation in a case study. In order to lay the basis for a historically located, theoretically informed deconstruction of the CSF-English, the researcher conducted a close reading of the document, informed by a reading of the literature on the history of English curriculum. The conclusion is that the CSF-English, while being theoretically inclusive, is unsynthesised, eclectic and confusing. This thesis examines how two grade 5/6 self described Whole Language primary school teachers went about implementing the CSF-English, a document to which they had limited theoretical access. This thesis focuses on the types of texts and the types of knowledge about texts which were presented in the classroom. Using ethnographic methodology both qualitative and quantitative data were collected to create a rich and detailed portrait of all occurrences of the teaching of reading and writing. The data showed that a narrow and unbalanced range of text types was presented. While fictional and personal texts occurred with high frequency, factual texts occurred very infrequently. The data also showed that literal and personalised knowledge about texts was frequently taught, whereas the overall structures of texts and the situational and socio-cultural context was rarely taught. The central conclusions reached were first that the teachers implemented only those aspects of CSF-English which concurred with their Whole Language philosophy. The Whole Language model of English did not provide a means for these teachers to implement the CSF-English as a whole. Second, those aspects of the CSF-English which drew most heavily on Critical Social Literacy were taught infrequently. Third, it was concluded that the students of these Whole Language teachers were not being fully prepared for the demands of secondary school literacy. In particular, they were not being familiarised with the types of texts that matter in the secondary school, nor were they being inducted into critical and analytical thinking about texts.