Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemCurated learning: a pedagogical approach to maximise learning environments for students’ deep learning( 2019)Globally, billions of dollars have been allocated in developing highly adaptable, technology-infused, and connected learning spaces, called Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs), capable of accommodating a variety of pedagogical practices intended to equip students with skills and competencies critical for thriving in this rapidly changing world. However, research indicate that teachers are unable to fully maximise the potential of these ILEs. In contrast, many museums appear to have considerable success at intentionally manipulating learning environments and adapting pedagogy to suit intended learning outcomes. Understanding these museum practices may prove valuable in helping school teachers use ILEs better. Two case studies were conducted to draw out strategies of museums in capitalising features of the learning environment to promote students’ deep learning. Twenty-eight individuals from nine purposely selected institutions across Australia and New Zealand participated in this research. Thematic analysis of data from 42 observations and 25 interviews resulted in a proposition of a pedagogical approach, Curated learning, that leverages the interdependence between pedagogy and the built environment. Curated learning has the potential to help teachers use features and elements within their learning environment in ways that support students in developing deep learning competencies that, ultimately, will help them succeed in their academic, professional, and civic lives. This research is embedded within an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project, called Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC), that investigates how school teachers across Australia and New Zealand can utilise ILEs to improve pedagogy that leads to students’ deep learning. Specifically, this research contributes to a growing body of international research on the effective use of ILEs and pedagogy. Furthermore, equipping teachers with the capacity to maximise ILEs will magnify the value of the financial investment and help them prepare students to thrive in this highly competitive and rapidly changing world.
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ItemThe pedagogy of engagement: classroom management vs. facilitating learning( 2019)This thesis explored the way upper primary teachers think about student engagement and how they operationalise the concept within their classrooms. Student engagement has been frequently linked to academic success, and improving the engagement of students continues to be a priority for policy makers and practitioners alike. Despite an abundance of research, it remains questionable whether researcher conceptions of student engagement adequately represent the way teachers experience the concept. Teachers' perspectives on student engagement and their engagement-related practices were investigated over two studies using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. In Study One, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 teachers to explore their beliefs about student engagement in learning. Teachers described six qualitatively different forms of engagement and disengagement, as well as a complex process for facilitating student engagement within lessons. A typology of engagement and a pedagogical framework for engaging students were proposed based on the findings. Study Two sought to test the validity of the typology as a representation of teachers' descriptions of student engagement and its usefulness in coding teachers' engagement-related interactions within observed lessons. Four teachers were interviewed and four lessons observations for each teacher were conducted. In addition, 72 students within those classrooms were surveyed to explore their perceptions of aspects of the learning environment, including their understanding of teacher expectations for student engagement. Qualitative analysis of interview and observation data revealed that teachers varied in their expectations for student engagement within lessons, their views on the role of peers in student engagement, and in the frequency with which they intervened within lessons to facilitate different forms of student engagement. Quantitative analysis of survey data suggest that students in different classrooms perceive different expectations for how they will engage in learning experiences. A model is proposed for thinking about the pedagogy of student engagement, providing an alternative vantage point from which to explore the concept, one that is grounded in the real-life experiences of teachers facing the ongoing challenge of engaging students in classroom learning experiences.
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ItemCracking open pedagogy: learning 'in' intense environments( 2019)What if a purpose of pedagogy was to create environments where intense experiences of learning can occur? This research is an inquiry into how affect-intense pedagogies work and the work that they do. It focuses on pedagogic affect as produced in the situated, sociomaterial practices of three more-than-human environments that create the conditions for intense learning to occur—an outdoor sculpture event in the Hauraki Gulf (Aotearoa New Zealand), a Zombie Apocalypse Survival Course at a human pathology museum (Sydney, Australia), and a fight squad at a Taekwondo club (Melbourne, Australia). What transpires is a multi-site ethnographic case study of pedagogic affect in which I engage with empirical material through a combination of conventional and experimental approaches, whereby arts-based practices act to enliven research(er) thinking-doing. In this space between convention and invention, a Deleuzian inspired rhizo-cartography unfolds. Pedagogic practices are ‘found’ to occupy in-between spaces or ‘cracks’ that produce affect-intensive learning encounters. These practices and encounters are recast as constituting a minor pedagogy which is, in turn, imbricated in a Spinozist ethics of affirmation as taken up by Deleuze and Braidotti. Pedagogy that enacts an affirmative ethics is conceptualised as being inextricably connected to practices that increase the affective capacity of learner-bodies. In this inquiry, pedagogies that cultivate the capacity to affect and be affected involve stepping into a crack, where tinkering, experimenting, (un)knowing and caring take place through an approach that blends critique and creativity. I propose that creating the conditions for minor pedagogies to flourish in everyday learning encounters can generate affirmative change in all kinds of ordinary, localised contexts – schools, community sites and elsewhere – that create the conditions to learn intensely.
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ItemCultural diversity and drama education within an Australian context( 2019)Across Australia and internationally, the number of young people from diverse cultural backgrounds entering schools has increased. This has led to a greater complexity in pedagogy, curriculum and student populations (Banks, 2011). This thesis entitled Cultural diversity and drama education within an Australian context is a qualitative research project that methodologically involved a reflective practitioner study (Schön, 1983). The researcher developed and taught an educational unit of work entitled Cultural diversity and drama. The unit of work comprised eight lessons and was taught to a junior secondary drama class at a coeducational independent school. Central to this study were the experiences of the culturally diverse drama students engaging in the drama curriculum. Through the reflective practitioner’s own culturally diverse perspective, this study was also an examination of the drama teacher. As part of the reflective practitioner research, a combination of data was collected that included observation of drama classes, reflective practitioner journal, student journals, field notes, written documents and interviews with drama staff and students. The key findings of this study revealed that the drama students identified and discussed their own ethnic identities. It was found that trust facilitated the advancement of the unit of work between the reflective practitioner, drama students and drama teacher. The study revealed that embodied learning about cultural diversity enabled the drama students to generate their own contemporary meanings of themselves, others and of Australia. In this study it was found that stories about refugees can effectively engage drama students to understand and enact people from diverse cultural backgrounds.