Faculty of Education - Theses

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End date: 2013 × Subject: curriculum × Subject: education ×

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    An investigation into early childhood science within an emergent curriculum framework
    Smith, Ann C. ( 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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    Thinking about historical thinking in the Australian Curriculum: History
    Martin, Gerard Francis ( 2012)
    This study analyses and evaluates the approach to historical thinking in the Australian Curriculum: History. This research study adopts interpretative discipline based pedagogy, with a document content analysis method. The study draws upon the research of Peter Lee (1983) on historical substantive and procedural concepts which have influenced the models of historical thinking by Wineburg (2000), Seixas (2006), Lévesque (2008) and historical reasoning by Van Drie and Van Boxtel (2008). These models provide a theoretical frame to critically evaluate the relationship and application of the disciplinary structures in the Australian Curriculum: History. Historical methods and procedures engage students in the process of historical construction through active historical thinking and reasoning. Research judgments are made on the effectiveness of the curriculum and its design in understanding and communicating the relationship between the substantive and procedural concepts of history as a discipline. The research findings indicate that the curriculum fails to recognize the importance and distinctiveness of substantive concepts as the building blocks of historical knowledge that make historical inquiry meaningful and intelligible. The analysis of substantive concepts in the Australian Curriculum: History using unique, organizational and thematic concepts reflects a curriculum that does not always pay attention to historical context. The study revealed that the curriculum fails to make explicit the interrelationship between substantive and procedural concepts in the Historical Knowledge and Understanding strand and the Historical Skills strand. This has resulted in a curriculum that does not enact the analytical and evaluative nature of procedural concepts such as historical significance, continuity and change, etc. Also, there is limited understanding of the method of application of procedural concepts like historical perspectives, contestability and empathy in the curriculum and as a result this undermines the role of these concepts in facilitating historical thinking. From this analysis a new pedagogical model, “Framework for Historical Reasoning” emerges which relates the historical substantive and procedural concepts and historical skills as a unified pedagogical approach. This model provides a framework which teachers can use to engage with the enacted curriculum and facilitate student historical inquiry and understanding.