Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemLined scaffolding : mediating the learning of early writing(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemThe influences of learning and change on primary physical education teachers(University of Melbourne, 2008)With the familiar call for reform in physical education (PE), more needs to be known about factors that promote or inhibit change. Increasing the ability of primary PE teachers to learn and adapt to change is one way of improving the current situation of PE. Teachers' capacity to change, and learn is influenced by their personal experiences, school organisations, professional development experiences and communities of practice. Using a collective case study methodology, this thesis explores the experiences of four primary PE teachers in order to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that have influenced their values, beliefs and practices. The experiences of each teacher are compared and discussed with the other participants in the study, using a process of identifying general themes from the literature and the data. The experiences of each teacher are used to generate discussion about their influences on the teachers' ability to learn and adapt to change. The concept of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) is used to reflect on how to create more effective learning opportunities for primary PE teachers. There were two key findings to this thesis: firstly, teachers' personal experiences in PE and sport, together with organizational factors, have a significant influence over the teachers' values and practices and their ability to adapt to change; secondly, teachers who work in thriving communities of practice have greater opportunities to learn and cope with change.
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ItemFactors that constrain and enable a teacher's ability to encourage the use of thinking skills in the science classroom(University of Melbourne, 2006)Thinking Skills are strategies that assist people to understand the learning process and that provide techniques for assessing ones understanding and solving problems. Research has established that it is beneficial for students if they are taught how to use, and encouraged to use, Thinking Skills throughout their education. However, little research is available on the thoughts of teachers involved in using Thinking Skills in their classes. Mount Waverley Secondary College (MWSC), a large government school in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, commenced an infusion based program that involves the teaching of a variety of Thinking Skills as part of the normal curriculum. All teachers have been involved in an extensive PD program (up to 10 hours) on the use of Thinking Skills in the classroom. Two years into this program, it became clear that there were a number of factors that facilitate or constrain a teacher's ability to encourage the use of Thinking Skills in their classes. However, there was no research available on these factors. It therefore become desirable to conduct a research project that identifies these factors and provides some information for other schools that maybe in the process of implementing such a program. This project researched the factors that constrain and enable a teacher's ability to encourage the use of Thinking Skills in their science classes. The research involved interviewing year 7 and 8 science teachers at MWSC about their thoughts on the Thinking Skills program and the various factors that affect their ability to encourage students to use Thinking Skills in their science classes. The results indicated that there are a wide range of factors that affect a teacher's ability to encourage the use of Thinking Skills in their classes. The most common constraining factor was limited time for the planning and preparation of Thinking Skills lessons. Throughout the research it became apparent that many of the factors were applicable to the implementation of any educational change. Therefore, the research will not only allow other schools to learn from the experiences at MWSC in the development of their own Thinking Skills programs, but it will assist leaders of educational change to implement new programs in ways that best support the teachers.
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ItemWhat do 'at risk' boys say about their schooling experiences ? : creating agency for boys' views and feelings about school( 2008)The following discussion outlines the theory and operational methods that inform a general ethnographical study, designed to understand the views and perceptions of three 'at risk' boys relegated to a specialised Victorian state school. The methodology hopes to empower the male students taking part in the study by giving emphasis to the didactic importance of their views, opinions and experiences expressed during a series of interviews in which they participate. It is hoped that the boys will be able to identify areas of education that need improvement, and define real life problems within their own learning experiences, so genuine male learning dilemmas and insights are generated and debated in the research. However, Connell (1989, 1995) characterises boys as `inheritors of an all conquering hegemonic masculinity' and this classic feminist perspective seems to be preventing the evolution of a boys' paradigm in education by diverting attention away from boys' educational issues by asking `which girls' and 'which boys' are specifically disadvantaged. This generic ethnographical study attempts a pro-male research project which holds boy's views, opinions and experiences paramount in the research logic processes, and makes use of key foci descriptors conceptualised in recent government research and programmes to discover how young males experience and dialogue about their schooling lives.
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ItemLink between teacher-student relationship, student emotional wellbeing, coping styles, classroom engagement and peer relationships( 2007)This research explored the link between teacher-student relationship, student emotional wellbeing, coping styles, peer relationship and classroom engagement of year 8 students. The participants were Catholic school students and the focus was limited to English class and teacher. The data sources were a Student-Survey (SS) and the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS) (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993). The first component of the research was scale development, to validate the hypothetical categorization of items in the scales; the second was the testing of the hypotheses. Teacher-student relationship was highly correlated with classroom engagement and coping style-solving the problem. The correlation between other variables was positive but not significant.
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ItemParent professional partnerships in IEP development : a case study of a MAPS process( 2007)The practices, language and behaviours which professionals adopt when they meet with parents prior to Individual Education Program (IEP) planning may have a significant effect on the attitudes and capabilities families bring to the educational setting. During this case study the adult family members of a child with additional needs were observed as they addressed the developmental and programming needs of their child by participating in the McGill Action Planning System (MAPS) and a subsequent Program Support Group (PSG) meeting. Themes indicating attitudes or perceptions that empowered the family towards continued participation in collaborative teams for IEP development emerged in the observational data and were defined through the methods of informant diaries and semi-structured interviews. Less dominant quantitative methods were used to verify that the participant's ongoing attitudes towards parent professional collaboration corroborated with the final themes of flexibility, unification, satisfaction and function.
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ItemA comparative study of the cognitive and executive function profiles of children with autism spectrum disorders and children with developmental language disorders( 2008)The cognitive and executive functioning profiles of 4- to 7-year old children with Autistic Disorder/Asperger Syndrome (AD/AS), Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) were compared. Ratings of children's communication and repetitive behaviour were also collected using parent questionnaires. Children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had greater deficits in executive functioning and more deviant social interaction than children with DLD. Compared to children with PDD-NOS, children with AD/AS had weaker structural language abilities, higher levels of repetitive behaviour, and displayed difficulty shifting response set when faced with a new executive function task. Children with DLD were superior to those with PDD-NOS in executive functioning and social interaction skills, but the groups closely resembled each other in terms of repetitive behaviour, and structural language skills. The subtle group differences only emerged when consideration was given to intra-individual cognitive profiles, and to the comparison of executive function performance to the normative mean. This study informs both the practice of, and research into, differential diagnosis by revealing those features associated with the presence of an ASD, and those which discriminate between subgroups of children with an ASD.
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