Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemVCE course development days, 1991 : an appraisal( 1992)This minor thesis traces the evolution and rationale of the development and implementation of the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) from its inception in 1987 to its first full year of operation in 1992. It outlines the design and operation of the professional development program undertaken to assist the implementation of the certificate. Its focus is an appraisal of the major element of the professional development program - the 1991 course development days. Three perspectives are offered in this account of the effectiveness of the 1991 course development days - a district evaluation, individual presenter's responses and a regional survey. The appraisal concludes with an overview and a set of recommendations for continuing professional development for VCE teachers beyond 1992.
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ItemSchools of the Future and curriculum development and implementation : an investigation( 1995)Restructure of the Ministry of Education has ensured that schools are no longer centrally administered but are self-managing within the Schools of the Future program under the Directorate of School Education. As a result, changes have occurred in many areas including administration, financial management, staffing structure and teacher support in areas such as curriculum. This study investigates three schools that are members of the Schools of the Future Pilot Program and seeks to find the effect that the changes from the Program, have had on Curriculum Development and Implementation. The study reviews the literature available on the topic, in particular the notion of self-managing schools in Victoria. Therefore it reviews information on the Schools of the Future Program. It also seeks to understand the effect of changes in curriculum policy and the provision of professional development. The study also seeks to explore the effect of leadership style on the implementation of curriculum within a school. Qualitative research methods were employed when data was collected from the three participating schools. The schools were selected for the following reasons: (i) they are members of the Schools of the Future Pilot Program(or Intake 1); (ii) they are situated in a similar socio-economic area; (iii) the author had ready access to those schools. By applying grounded theory technique to the data a model was developed - The Curriculum Triangle. This model is a suggested representation of what is occurring in the selected schools and could be used further to analyse data from schools, and thus generate the possible areas requiring professional development and curriculum leadership.
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ItemWhat is a quality rubric? : curriculum design, state frameworks and local assessment of secondary science( 2009)In explicating Science the science teacher is likely to say, 'I have reached Chapter 9!' Bureaucracy has its own logic and State curriculum writers have pushed for results that looked rational: results that could codify, sort and explain to their masters. The schools and universities have responded. The rubric has recently entered the teacher lexicon as a quasi professional tool for instructional planning and student assessment in the public domain as a response to central accountability requirements in relation to mandated curricula and standards of student and teacher performance. The rubric is characteristically a grid which defines any piece of instruction, a list of anticipated educational attainments, stated as criteria, against levels or standards of attainment, stated as descriptors. The rubric has become a public statement, a quasi contract written by groups of teachers in a school that identifies what can be expected in terms of teaching behaviours and student learning, in the name of a school or the state. But how would the quality of a rubric be discussed or assessed in relation to science education? The study explores the use of rubrics to support situated cognition and social constructivist science teaching. This thesis does not investigate the question of educational 'quality' per se. It does not set out to prescribe or stipulate ideals. Nor does it recommend how teachers ought to use rubrics to measure or assess such ideals. Rather it is an ethnogenic study of the judgements made about the qualities of the rubrics designed and used by science teachers and a particular group of students in an inner urban secondary school. The students in this study are enrolled in the Select Entry Accelerated Learning program at Hill View Secondary College which seeks to engage them in higher levels of educational involvement and attainment.
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ItemFactors influencing the development of curriculum initiatives in Victorian secondary schools( 1989)This thesis is based on a study of teachers at Preston East Technical School. The purpose of the interviews was to illicit information about teachers' perceptions of themselves as compared with their given role in the state system. This is then analyzed against what is offered as the ideal role of a teacher. It is suggested that if it is the teacher's role to improve educational opportunity, then teachers should be concerned with the outcome of exiting students. This would involve detailed monitoring of programmes, possible delivery of additional programmes and industrial campaigns not only for necessary educational resources but also for job creation for youth. This thesis demonstrates that teachers are too involved in the psychic reward of their job and this, combined with the undermining of their conditions, is preventing further curriculum development. Processes, such as the participatory model used by the Ministry of Education which involve teachers in anything other than viewing student outcome, are time-consuming and divert attention from the issue of equity. What is recommended as an ideal learning situation is the formation of a partnership between student and teacher, where both work as if part of a research team, who will call upon the wider community for clarification of values and information.
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ItemCan the incorporation of a structured pre-primary curriculum improve primary scholastic performance?( 1996)Primary and secondary educational reforms seeking quality and accountability are placing top-down pressure on early childhood education to become more defined and assessable in preparation for future learning. State and Federal government policies advocate set curriculum with definable results. Such trends are also observed overseas. The aim is for early childhood education to be more relevant to the rest of the child's learning and to the demands of the time. A large body of professionals within early childhood education view this as an intrusive, restrictive and regressive approach which is inconsistent with what years of research have taught us about early childhood education. They maintain that early childhood education is a stage in its own right and does not need to be altered to match another. Their main view is that each child learns individually to full potential via firsthand experiences through play under the guidance of a qualified educarer. Frameworks, and curricular continuity are seen as restrictions of such freedom. Generally accepting this premise, the study seeks to investigate the viability of concepts that will provide quality, continuity and smooth transition from pre-prep education to primary school while remaining true to a free early childhood educational philosophy. Theories of prominent educators, psychologists and sociologists, current overseas research and practise, as well as guidelines contained in developmentally appropriate publications, were used as foundations and substantiations for the concept of a structured learning component through which social skills, cognitive skills and internalised learning are developed. This is seen to enable the incorporation of continuity of learning into early schooling and beyond. Play remains the medium of the child's learning experiences. The research established that a structured learning component can be valuable provided it is carried out by experienced professionals. A survey of community opinion indicated that such a component can be beneficial to future learning. Literature across the ideological continuum as surveyed, and most authors advocated the need for some structure in the early childhood curriculum.
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ItemLiteracy, thinking and engagement in a middle years classroom community of philosophical inquiry: a reflection on practice( 2006)I present the introduction and concluding chapter in the first person in an ontological acknowledgement of self as one who practised my profession and reformed my practice, and who has reflected on my practice as a teacher, as a researcher, and as teacher-researcher. I wrote the other chapters in the formal language of the third person to assist me in developing some degree of objectivity about my practice; it served as a constant reminder to me that I was writing about something that could be considered, to some degree, as other than myself. I was investigating a teacher's practice, my past practice, and as such I strove for a non-egocentric assessment, yet acknowledge that it was my practice at a unique time in my career, a period through which my practice has now grown. This reflection on- practice was not easy, either intellectually or emotionally, and I needed to constantly remind myself that I could be simultaneously a merciless critic, and an empathic one. I moved from the role of teacher to researcher and into teacher-researcher as the moment required and used the third person to present my experience from these perspectives as seemed most appropriate and for presenting the narrative elements of the lived moment. I concluded by uniting those three perspectives into the one, whole self and so wrote the conclusion in the first person.
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ItemDeclining enrolments and school reorganisation: an enunciation of the policy and planning options for Victorian post-primary schools( 1988)The state school system in Victoria experienced a significant decline in student enrolments during the 1980s. This was due to a combination of a sustained fall in fertility and the rise in popularity of non-government schooling. It was only partly offset in post-primary schools by the increase in retention. These factors, together with geographic location and school type, were the principle determinants of enrolment movements in individual schools. The politics of enrolment contraction are those of scarcity and conflict. Local schools compete with each other for the diminishing pool of students, the increase in schooling costs per student creates conflict between schools and the Government over resource utilisation, restrictions are placed on school curricula and teachers find their working conditions, professional opportunities, classroom teaching and morale all adversely affected. Secondary schools with declining enrolments need to consider some form of reorganisation. While the policies of the government on curriculum, school structures and reorganisation itself do set certain parameters, school communities are presented with a range of curriculum and structural options. The introduction of new curricula, which have structural implications, into Years 7-10 (Ministerial Paper No.6/Frameworks) and in Years 11 and 12 (the V.C.E.) provide both an incentive and an opportunity to reorganise as a positive response to decline. The positive and negative aspects of the planning options available to schools need to be weighed up in terms of Government policies, curriculum principles, the experience of other education systems and the pilot program of reorganisation in Melbourne's South Central Region. The process of school reorganisation will work more effectively where it has been decentralised to local planning committees which actively involve all of those affected by proposed changes. Given that the process is redistributive in nature, successful reorganisation is dependent upon the political acknowledgement and accommodation of conflicting interests.
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ItemThe impact of year twelve restructuring in Victoria on teaching and learning in three urban schools( 1995)In this study Year Twelve teachers were surveyed to determine whether they believed the educational needs of their Year Twelve students were better served by the earlier public policy of multiple Year Twelve courses, or by the current policy of a common course and certificate for all Year Twelve students in Victoria. The study was based on the experience of eighteen teachers in three schools which had developed strong alternative Year Twelve courses in the 1980s. An attempt is not made in this thesis to construct public policy, but rather to offer a critique of policy formation which appears to have been largely separated from socially responsive policy development at the school level. The Year Twelve teachers surveyed in this study believed that the final form of the Victorian Certificate of Education, settled under the influence of social functionalism, individualism and expertism, has failed to enhance motivation, commitment or competence in either themselves or their students.
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ItemJewish visual literacy: a practical approach( 1995)The intention of this study is to show that Jewish Studies can and should be taught with a major visual component. The research and investigative nature of this study deals with the qualitative aspects of Jewish education and visual literacy and the presentation of a case for a visual component as an integral part of Jewish Studies. Jewish Studies teachers are interviewed and visual education is discussed in light of the problems revealed in a survey. The assumption is that there are important teaching concepts of a visual nature that can be of benefit to the teaching of Jewish Studies and that these are not being addressed by the present curriculum. There are several approaches which are examined which have a visual basis for learning. All of these are proposed for inclusion in a sample program, with an emphasis on the visual arts. The concept of visual literacy is emphasised as a platform for this study. The role of the Jewish artist in society and education is examined. It is often pointed out that because the Bible was written without illustrations, all of the later teaching appeared to strengthen the assumption that Israel is a nation without images. In terms of the Jews' contribution to the visual arts and the visual nature of much of Jewish law and lore this is not so. Classical Jewish texts have an infrastructure which can be an educational tool used to enhance learning, however this is not utilized to any real degree in contemporary Jewish education. The sources for modern Jewish education are discussed and the results of the survey reinforce the assumptions stated in the study. These are analysed and evaluated. Several curriculum models are examined and modified for use in a Jewish Studies environment. As a result of this, several factors as guiding principles are evolved and a basis established for the design of a curriculum framework. A sample program is designed with a basis in several of the curriculum models, it is then evaluated and suggestions made for further development.
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ItemTeachers in the middle: reflections from teachers on middle secondary school curriculum( 2005)The study centres on perceptions held by teachers about the curriculum needs of students in middle secondary schooling, years nine and ten, in a Victorian state secondary college. The middle years of schooling are the current focus of school reform (Department of Education & Training, 2003) in the State of Victoria, Australia. The factors that shape the curriculum decision-making and the learning culture of a school can be well known within that school. These factors in general can be largely without documentation with the exception of records kept within the school. In the past, practices in Australian educational reform have been bureaucratic in nature (Green, 2003) and rarely seemed to recognise the perceptions held by teachers in general. Although some provision is made for teacher responses, via electronic means (Education Queensland, 2002) it has been barely enough considering the dramatic changes expected in achieving school reform. Teachers' perceptions of the curriculum needs of adolescent students were gathered using taped interviews and a teachers' problem solving group activity. This study reveals that teachers are acutely aware of adolescent needs, but are unable to implement strategies to effect the required changes. This study highlights the need for consultation and effective, extensive and ongoing support for teachers in curriculum development relevant for today's adolescents. This research adds to the existing body of knowledge by identifying the location of teachers' knowledge and pedagogy, with respect to adolescent education.