Faculty of Education - Theses

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    Reflective practice in the early childhood practicum
    Jones, Rosemary ( 1999)
    There is much evidence in the current literature to indicate a movement towards a restructuring of teacher education, which emphasises reflection (Campbell-Evans & Maloney, 1996). University courses in teacher education are moving away from the technical model of teacher evaluation towards a reflective approach to teaching and learning which focuses on assisting pre-service teachers to develop reflective practices (Fairbanks & Meritt, 1998). The early childhood practicum is increasingly seen as an opportunity for students to engage in critical reflection with journal writing, frequently used as a tool for reflection. This project studied the practicum journals of nine final year Melbourne University Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies students. Analysis and interpretation of the reflective journals focused on two aspects. The first aspect related to the issues, which the students reflected about. The second aspect related to the cognitive processes the students engaged in when reflecting. The investigation found that students reflected in complex ways on complex issues throughout the practicum. The process of reflection, however, did not empower students to reflect in their own way about their own concerns. The study found that for this group of early childhood students, it was the location of power in student - supervisor relations that functioned to empower students to reflect in their own way about their own concerns or to disempower students by silencing them.
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    Getting IT together: the integration of IT into a humanities subject in a pre-service teaching degree
    Fisher, Alison ( 2001)
    This research examines the extent to which an academic uses the support of an Educational IT Consultant to assist with the integration of some simple information technologies (IT) into an existing humanities (English Method) subject of a pre-service teacher education degree in an Australian university. The thesis briefly examines the debate for integration of IT across the curriculum against stand-alone IT courses and establishes, from the literature, that integration generally seems to be the preferred method for ensuring that newly graduated teachers use IT in the classroom. The thesis then attempts to ascertain the environmental elements that would be conducive to the integration of IT across the pre-service curriculum, and examines whether this environment was present in the Faculty where the case study took place. The research took the form of a qualitative ethnographic case study using multiple methods of data collection. Detailed descriptions of the characteristics and role of the Educational IT Consultant, along with a description of the subject and academic are also included should anyone wish to repeat the study. The findings suggest that adoption of IT is hastened into humanities areas of the pre-service curriculum with the assistance of an Educational IT Consultant approach to staff development.