Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemRemaking the university curriculum: what counts as knowledge in new forms of online learning( 2017)The purposes of a university education and the knowledge it should seek to impart are today very much in question. Teaching within universities is becoming increasingly focused on generic instrumental and vocational agendas, and there are strong drives to improve teaching and make greater use of online technologies in response to a widening student body. The significance and implications of these trends for different aspects of university work have been widely debated, but there has been little attention to the changing dynamics of curriculum making and the assumptions at work in how subjects are being put together. Within this context, this thesis investigates the question ‘what counts as knowledge in new forms of online learning’. It focuses on the differences and similarities evident in the purposes, assumptions and constraints recognised by those working in different kinds of knowledge fields; and on the coherence of the conceptions of knowledge at work within the framing and development of new online initiatives and subjects. The thesis approaches these questions through a qualitative study of online initiatives developed at two Australian universities. The research draws on traditions of curriculum inquiry and policy sociology to focus on how those responsible for the development of the new online initiatives and subjects grapple with questions of knowledge and its teaching in their aims and practices. It considers the institutional policy framings informing the new online initiatives and undertakes case studies of the curriculum development of particular subjects, drawing on interviews with policy leaders and lecturers, and analyses of policy documentation and curriculum materials. For the policy leaders, the thesis shows that while their rhetoric is concerned with students’ own knowledge constructions, their approach positions curriculum content as settled and predefined. For the lecturers, it highlights significant differences in how those located in disciplinary and professional fields conceptualised knowledge and approached their curriculum development, but also that these orientations were undermined to an extent in the process of working with the new platforms. It shows the lecturers’ practices here led to more ‘instructivist’ rather than ‘constructivist’ teaching, and a greater emphasis on knowledge as a defined body of content to be taught. The thesis uncovers three problems arising in current university developments. One is the neglect of the differences between disciplines and professional knowledge fields, and the ways in which the different purposes and orientations of these fields shape curriculum development. A second is the neglect of the conditions required to encourage constructivist teaching practices online, including in relation to questions of substance. And a third is the neglect of the complex relations between curriculum and pedagogical form in building what counts as knowledge. The thesis explores the effects of these policy blindspots on lecturers’ practices of curriculum making and on the forms of education made possible as a result. In doing so, it opens up some new ways for researchers and institutional leaders to engage with questions of knowledge and curriculum within higher education.
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ItemThe structuring of knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching in higher education( 2011)This study investigates and compares teaching within both disciplinary and interdisciplinary subjects at the higher education level. Interdisciplinary subjects are increasingly being offered within university curricula in response to a range of stakeholders both internal and external to the university system (Holmwood, 2010). Seen to expose students to complex problems that cross disciplinary boundaries, they are also considered beneficial as it is believed they provide students with a range of skills necessary to succeed in society and in the workplace (Frodeman et al., 2010). Interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity are often presented as disparate (Moore, 2010) and so the introduction of interdisciplinary subjects is seen as an alternative to discipline–based subjects. However, there has been little research investigating the nature of knowledge that is taught in interdisciplinary subjects and whether this form of teaching differs from that in discipline–based subjects. This study explores the differences between teaching in these two contexts by investigating whether and how academics within a university structured around the disciplines change their teaching for the interdisciplinary context and in particular how they perceive knowledge in these two teaching environments. This research employs a qualitative case study approach, drawing on interviews with six experienced academics from The University of Melbourne, Australia, a university that has recently undergone major curriculum reform. The academics come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds allowing for diversity in the data. At the time the interviews were conducted, interdisciplinary subjects had been part of the university curriculum for one year. This study, therefore, presents a snapshot of interdisciplinary teaching for these academics after this first year. The theoretical framework for the research draws on Shulman’s (1986; 1987) idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Bernstein’s theoretical ideas of the pedagogic device and knowledge structures (Bernstein, 2000) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton, 2000, 2007, 2009). This study reveals that there is a shift in academics’ teaching practice for the interdisciplinary context. Teaching in interdisciplinary subjects is shown to be influenced by a number of complex factors that are determined by the academics’ background, the setting in which interdisciplinary subjects occur and the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge itself. The most significant contribution this thesis makes to an understanding of interdisciplinary teaching is its discussion of the role of knowledge, knowledge structures and the knower in determining what is taught. Interdisciplinary studies that focus on a particular problem or context, such as climate change, place a stronger emphasis on developing a particular type of knower and ways of knowing while at the same time reducing the value placed on students developing an understanding of particular content knowledge. This is attributed to the manner in which the disciplines that make up an interdisciplinary subject contribute their knowledge. The study also shows that in translating knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching that some of the subtleties of disciplinary knowledge are lost and so the same topic taught in an interdisciplinary subject will not have the same depth as when taught in a discipline–based subject. These findings have a number of implications for universities incorporating interdisciplinary subjects in their curricula. While the content and skills that students are taught in interdisciplinary subjects can be seen as beneficial they are different to those in discipline–based subjects. It is argued here that in order to maintain the depth of knowledge that comes with discipline based teaching and the breadth that is associated with interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary and disciplinary subjects need to be included within university curriculum for complimentary rather than opposing reasons.