Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemInstitutional influences on approaches to teaching within a flexible university : a cultural historical investigation( 2010)This study investigated the teaching approaches of two business academics located within an Australian university developing its flexible teaching and learning practices over the past twenty years. The interview subjects are highly regarded educators with formative backgrounds in on-campus or off-campus distance teaching. Each has had a long professional relationship with the researcher in her centrally situated position's as an educational developer within the institution. A review of the student learning literature pertaining to teaching and learning approaches in the higher education sector over the last thirty years, shows that "teaching approaches" can influence "student learning approaches"(Ramsden, Paul 2003) and outcomes, (Biggs, J. 2003; Lizzio, Alf, Wilson, Keithia & Simons, Roland 2002) however "institutional influences" upon teaching approaches seems to be substantially overlooked. (Kernber & Kwan 2000) The academics were invited to participate in this study agreeing to retrospectively review and discuss their teaching in three progressive phases of their working history. They were invited to consider their teaching approach using the Approach to Teaching Inventory (Trigwell, Prosser et. al. 2005) in order to reflect upon their personal positioning (Harre September 2004), institutional practice and societal rhetoric in relation to an academic life in various periods of their teaching history. Discursive analysis has been undertaken of the resulting conversations guided by Cultural Historical Analysis Theory, (Vygotsky 1978, Engestrom 1987). This investigation reveals profound institutional influences on the approaches of teachers to their work. Influences on academic life have usually been studied independent of the Higher education teaching and learning literature. This study points to an urgent need to integrate these research interests to inform understanding of material transformative activity for policy makers in higher education.
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ItemVision and reality: what are the experiences and perceptions of overseas students enrolled in a year 13 Foundation Studies course in business offered in a city university?( 2001)Internationalization has become one of the 'buzzwords' in Australian education. For most Australian educational institutions, internationalization meant an unprecedented influx of overseas students enrolling in their courses. This thesis will consider the mismatch of expectations between students from the Asia-Pacific region in a tertiary education institution in Australia. What is the mismatch of expectations? What is its extent? How does it come to exist? How does it manifest itself? These questions have been explored in focus group discussions with students from the Asia-Pacific region currently attending a Year 13 Foundation Studies course in a city university. The research found a mismatch between student and staff expectations due to miscommunication and cultural values.
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ItemNetworked learning/learning networks: a case study of constructivist pedagogies in an online post-graduate higher education setting( 2004)The study investigates teaching and learning practices in an online postgraduate higher education setting. It is concerned with how networked teaching and learning practices are organised in space and time. The first part of the study sets the scene and explores the diverse � literatures of online education, which include functionalist, socially critical and post modern accounts. The ontological variety of these accounts is discussed with the writer concluding that actor-network theory has something to contribute to understanding the complexity of socio-technical practices. This section closes with consideration of the methodological approach and ethical concerns of the study. The second part of the study is concerned with discussion of the data stories. These stories tell tales of the shaping and reshaping of learning technologies. They talk of teachers and programmers as network builders, seeking to attract, recruit, enrol and mobilise entities. The stories relate some of the compromises made when the network shudders with dissent or the unexpected and the patchwork done to hold the network together. This section also speaks of networked spaces as uncertain, intersected spaces. It closes with a discussion of how ICTs un/settle learning networks and of the ways in which entities manage their multiple memberships through numerous renegotiations. The third and final section concludes the study. It analyses the data stories and finds that actor-networks are porous and vulnerable. Suggesting that when entities maintain membership in multiple networks identities are constantly contested and redrawn. In lifting contested practices up to view, the study proposes that dis/order might be a positive feature of learning in networked environments. This final section includes some discussion of the implications for the University. And, most importantly perhaps, it makes a call for a new vocabulary, a new way to describe the flows of net(work).