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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ItemExperiential learning programs in Australian secondary schools( 2010)Experiential programs in special environments are common in Australian education, notably in independent secondary schools. Without overt reference to research, they claim the special features of their program lead to personal development. The study sought to discover the underlying theoretical elements common to experiential learning programs, and by extension, sought to identify the elements of the experiential learning that might be incorporated into mainstream learning. Adopting a constructivist interpretive framework drawn from the work of Dewey, Vygotsky, and Bruner, the study examined six Australian independent school experiential learning programs offered to Year 9 students at dedicated, discrete settings ranging from wilderness to the inner city. The methodology employed in the research design was qualitative, drawing on Argyris and Schon’s notion of theory of action as an overarching framework in the documentation of six case-study programs. A preliminary probe into a single experiential program and an Australia-wide survey of school-based experiential learning provided a base of reference for the main study, which focused on 41 teaching practitioners as the primary informants on the programs. Data sources consisted of public documentation on programs, ethnographic interviews, questionnaire responses and researcher observations. Charmazian grounded theory method and Argyris and Schon’s ladder of interference were used as the primary tools for data analysis. The study found challenging setting, constructed social interaction, tolerance of risk, and reflection to be the essential design components that enable personal learning, and these thus form the model of experiential learning that emerges from analysis of the data. Together with the learner and cognitive dissonance, the spatiotemporal setting of the experience is identified as the defining characteristic and third component of experiential learning transactions. Specific properties of each learning setting interact with learners in ways that afford specific learning opportunities. Individual student status and collective social structures in remote experiential settings that rupture contact with the home community are profoundly altered through the experience. Risk emerges as an indispensible property of novel learning experiences. Reflection, both facilitated and unfacilitated, is the mechanism by which experiential learning is stored in episodic memory and informs the process of knowledge creation. The theoretical model of experiential learning derived from the programs studied describes the essential differences between experiential and mainstream learning. This model offers a basic design template for the development of experiential learning programs in other settings to meet the particular learning needs of Year 9 students in mainstream schools. Finally, these programs provided evidence of close parallels with traditional initiation rites, suggesting that they serve an important socialisation function for adolescents.
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ItemPrimary teachers and the Information and Communications Technology domain: figuring worlds, identities, knowledge and practices( 2010)This study investigates the development of teacher professional practice in the context of government education policy in Victoria (Australia) that aims, through the education of its youth, to shape a successful economy that capitalises on information and communications technology (ICT). Specifically, the study examines how selected primary teachers from an ICT network conceptualise, articulate and develop a body of knowledge to teach and implement the Information and Communications Technology domain of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Victorian Government, 2005) curriculum framework. Through a constructivist grounded theory approach, the study investigates the practices of six female teachers in three government primary schools as they implement changes to curriculum in response to government reforms and local expectations. The three primary schools are within close proximity of each other in a residential growth corridor on the fringes of metropolitan Melbourne, and serve a diverse and multicultural community. Innovation with ICT is seen as necessary for addressing the challenges that arise from the social and economic context of the research sites, and is integral to improvement plans in each of these schools. The participating teachers are regarded as leaders with ICT within their schools and their efforts are deemed intrinsic to their school’s plan. Rich descriptive data of these six teachers and how they construct their worlds is utilised to develop a theory of how teachers learn to teach with ICT, with a view to understanding how they continue to learn in the context of these changes. Change efforts often focus on the importance of knowledge building to empower professionals for new directions, however while a critical component, knowledge is not the only factor in increasing capability. The study highlights that learning to teach the ICT domain is more complex than developing content knowledge, pedagogical repertoire and skills in the use of ICT. It involves networked learning where values, beliefs, vision, practice and identities are made and remade. In making changes, teachers consider new ideas in light of the old, and through the lens of their core values and beliefs, they figure a technologically rich world of vast imaginings that they can embody. They author identities to assert themselves in relation to imposed positioning and prior conceptualisations. Through changed activity related to ICT, they redefine their conception of teaching and inhabit it with their activity and energy.