Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAn investigation into early childhood science within an emergent curriculum framework( 1997)A considerable interest in the concept of emergent curriculum has been generated by the early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia in Italy. This study traces the progress of a science project on spiders in an Australian early childhood centre which purports to have an emergent curriculum. In particular, this study sought to answer the question: What form does a science learning project take in an early childhood class that purports to have an emergent curriculum philosophy? What are the processes involved? What are the roles of the main players? Was this curriculum truly an emergent one? How did it fit with the different perspectives being taken to emergent curriculum in the literature? Did science learning take place? How did this learning fit with current views on science learning in the literature? Using a participant observation approach, this study looks at factors that characterise the processes and the players in this project and considers these in the context of current views on emergent curriculum and early childhood science. Results indicate that while the curriculum in this centre was clearly ‘emergent’, it differed in some minor aspects from both the Reggio Emilia model and the American model of emergent curriculum. The approach used was consistent with the social constructivist approach to science teaching and was clearly conductive to the children's science learning. The study shows that emergent curriculum is a very appropriate approach for science learning.
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ItemThe development of music concepts in the primary school aged child: a Victorian profile( 1999)Music educators are continually striving to find a comprehensive curriculum to adequately cover developments made in music. It could be argued that, at present, Victorian music curriculum places more emphasis on the aesthetics of music education rather than the learning of music concepts. This researcher firmly believes that the concepts of music are the building blocks through which children become better musicians. Researchers, music educators and curriculum designers must understand the way in which concept knowledge develops in children, so that they can use this knowledge in order to create meaningful learning experiences. The aim of this study, therefore, is to find out whether the acquisition of concepts, particularly rhythm, pitch, harmony and melody can be directly related to development in children, specifically primary aged children in State Government schools in Victoria.
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ItemEvaluating textual diversity in perspective and practice: a case study( 2009)This study takes questions and debates over ‘what makes a good classroom text?’ as its starting point. With the growth of critical literacy in the secondary English curriculum, the reasons why teachers select and use specific texts have started to be considered and contested. Textual diversity is a construct that has emerged out of this debate: the idea that students should engage with a range of texts exposing them to a variety of beliefs and perspectives not their own, better enabling them to understand, reflect and critique their own positions in society and consider those who may be ‘othered’ by traditional literary canons. Taking the emancipatory aim of textual diversity as a given as a classroom teacher, I was soon forced to consider the different and distinct motivations of other teachers in choosing and using the set classroom text. The subsequent research involved a detailed analysis of existing Victorian curriculum documents from the past decade (CSF II, VELS and two iterations of the VCE study design) to examine how the potential of classroom texts and associated student outcomes were positioned in official policy, and then interviewing a series of secondary English teachers to gain an understanding of the perspectives on the policies used to determine ‘good classroom texts’ as well as their own individual ideals. Although grounded in my own perspective that textual diversity is a positive and desirable concept for text selection, the thesis found that the use of similarly critical and progressive concepts around text choice and use have decreased in the state government’s English curriculum between years 7 and 10. Conversely, the last two years of school education, comprising the senior school certificate in Victoria, has seen the opposite change with the most recent version of the VCE study design heightening the capacity for students to speak back to, criticise and understand dominant paradigms by a close study of texts. Interestingly, the teacher interviews further highlighted a dissonance between various interpretations of what the official curricula mean and promote, with the majority of teachers interviewed finding them dry, vague and unhelpful in creating their teaching practices around text selection, unaware of the change in text teaching theory embedded in different revisions. Furthermore, each teacher interviewed believed that their own perspective on selecting and using texts was normative and widespread – despite each teacher having a distinct and separate view of the usefulness of official curriculum, and the means to which text teaching should be put.