Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemCurriculum and programme provisions for gifted and talented children in Victorian J.S.H.A.A. schools( 1992)This study has surveyed the provision of programmes for Children with High Intellectual Potential (C.H.I.P.) in Victorian member schools of the Junior Schools Heads Association Australia. Fifty-nine schools were surveyed; fifty-four responded, representing some 19,000 junior school children. The survey was divided into six sections covering staffing provisions, curriculum and programmes, definition of gifted children, identification procedures, changing perspectives and importance of C.H.I.P., and subscriptions to journals. The literature search was divided into two distinct sections. Within the Australian context the review was historical, marking the modern beginnings of education for C.H.I.P.. There is a dearth of literature with Australian origins on gifted and talented children. The late seventies and early eighties uncover some material, basically funded and inspired by the Commonwealth Schools Commission. The emphasis is on surveys of programmes. The conclusion is clear that what programmes were operating were ad hoc in nature. This was inevitable, as teacher training for C.H.I.P. was non-existent. In the early eighties, promising programmes in the Victorian Education Department and the Catholic Education system were quickly quashed by a change of government. Major writers such as Gallagher, Maker and Van Tassel-Bash identify three distinct curriculum models, the Content, the Process/Product and the Epistemological. There is no evidence at this stage to suggest that the Victorian C.H.I.P. programmes are anything more than ad hoc. They do not fit into the three identified curriculum models. In-class provision is the main methodology, with programmes based on Bloom's Taxonomy or the Sato/Kaplan Differentiated Curriculum. Many schools are not yet operating strongly founded theoretical based programmes, and are clearly moving without direction. There is lack of understanding of the concept of C.H.I.P., even though identification procedures are quite sophisticated. Interest in teacher in-service appears to be growing rapidly. There is clearly a crucial need to provide pre-service courses at teacher training institutions. The major need for C.H.I.P. is for the Commonwealth government and the Ministry of Education in Victoria to develop and implement a policy on gifted and talented children.
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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( 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.