Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemGirls can do science!!! : a personal history of professional development(University of Melbourne, 1992)
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ItemThe investigation into the application of chaos theory and fractal geometry as a cross-curricular enrichment theme for highly able students(University of Melbourne, 1994)Chaos theory and fractal geometry is investigated as an interdisciplinary enrichment theme for gifted students. A literature search revealed the recommendation that this topic be introduced into secondary schools, but no references could be found to a suitable course. Hence an action research group of highly able secondary school students aged from twelve to seventeen was established to help develop just such a course. It was found to be necessary to divide the emergent curriculum into seven streams to satisfy the individual needs of the students. The streams were mathematics, science, programming, software, history and philosophy, communications and art. The mathematics stream formed the basis introducing concepts such as iteration, deterministic systems, iterated function systems, complex numbers, the Cantor, Mandelbrot and Julia Sets, The Koch curve, fractal dimensions, period doubling and phase space. Some students programmed the mathematical procedures in both Quick Basic and Turbo Pascal. The applications in science, including weather forecasting, dissecting lungs, chemical reactions, astronomy, population dynamics and magnetic pendulums were investigated using practical methods wherever possible. Software packages were explored as were the historical, philosophical, sociological and artistic questions which arose during the action research phase. Modern communications were used to gain programs and information over Internet. Links with people of similar interests around the world were established. Through these activities, a final course of eighty work sheets and supporting reference sheets was developed. This course is presented in Volume Two. Students and the candidate maintained journals and these, along with a questionnaire and other documentary data, were analysed using a grounded theory methodology. As a result, chaos theory and fractal geometry was shown to be a suitable and stimulating theme for cross-curricular enrichment of highly able students.
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ItemThe school production : a study in four parts( 1991)An academic introduction to relevant material and an overview of the major philosophical themes and debates in Drama in Education over the past fifty years. This also provides important background information to the rest of the study, placing the school production, Drama, the teachers and the curriculum development work in a broader context.
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ItemStudent expectations of the future( 1992)Specific aims of the study To investigate how present-day students view the future and their place in the workforce of the future. To establish whether or not students regard their present educational experiences as an adequate preparation for their future work. To investigate acceptance of unconventional futures scenarios as possible futures.
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ItemThe effect of the employment of an overwhelming majority of lay persons as staff members on the teaching mission of the Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus at Genazzano F.C.J. College, Kew( 1988)This paper will show how the teaching mission of the Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus (F.C.J.) has been influenced by the laicization of staff since the advent of Commonwealth funding following the establishment of the Schools Commission in 1972 and will document the ways in which structures have changed and the composition of staff has been altered.
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ItemAn analysis of how an innovation is disseminated by using the origins of the vertical curriculum concept in Victorian State Secondary Schools( 1985)The purpose of this investigation was twofold. One aim was to discover the origins of the vertical curriculum structure that has made a considerable impact on state secondary schools in the last decade. The other aim was to establish how the idea spread throughout the system and why schools made this major change away from the horizontal curriculum. Three research methods were used in this study. Firstly, Education Department Secondary School Handbooks were studied to identify the vertically structured schools in 1975 and 1982. Secondly, a telephone survey was undertaken in order to find more information about each of the forty-four vertical models discovered in the 1983 Handbook. This survey also enabled the original innovative schools to be identified, key individuals to be established and communication links between schools to be drawn up. Finally, the key carriers of the concept were interviewed to gain in depth information on the innovation. The outcome from the data collected should assist in the understanding of how a major curriculum change can disseminate throughout the schools in an education system. These implications should apply to educational systems outside of both Victoria and Australia.
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ItemA.S. Neill and the Russells : theory and practice in English progressive education( 1990)This essay examines the theory and practice of both Summerhill and Beacon Hill within the context of the Progressive Movement in education in England during the inter-war period. It attempts to see both schools as the manifestation of all influences which had culminated in the development of educational theory as expressed by A.S. Neill and Bertrand Russell, before and while these schools were in operation. Evidence is used to demonstrate that while these two schools were widely regarded as being on the extreme libertarian wing of the progressive movement, and in fact shared many features, they were in fact quite fundamentally different in their aims and in the practical manifestation of them.