Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemProactive aggression in children : self-preservation or cruelty(University of Melbourne, 2009)
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ItemCircumscription and compromise theory : its impact on occupational preferences and outcomes(University of Melbourne, 2009)
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ItemScaffolding practices in ESL writing classes in Zanzibar(University of Melbourne, 2009)
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ItemMore than music : freely painting in glorious sound(University of Melbourne, 2009)The study consisted of the design and implementation of a course of musical instruction based on the teachings of Carl Orff (1895-1982), specifically through an approach based on improvisation. Twenty six participants volunteered to take part in a 25 contact hour course run over seven weeks. All had at least a rudimentary knowledge of improvisation and all but one (a music therapist) were actively teaching music in a classroom or studio setting prior to the course. The main aim of the course was to instil a sense of confidence in the participants in relation to musical improvisation, a determinate of self that has been lacking in many teachers, according to anecdotal evidence. It was not a jazz or piano based course and was 'More than Music', as it aimed to teach values and life skills as well as music skills. The course consisted of a series of activities that included practical music-making in small and large groups, discussion and reflection, and special guests that culminated in a recording studio experience. Data was collected through questionnaires, both pre-course and post-course, mid-course evaluations, reflective journals, interviews, video-tapes and photographs, and analysed for themes and content. Results of the investigation showed that most participants felt their confidence in improvising had increased and that, following the completion of the course of instruction, most were using the Orff approach in their teaching. A further outcome of the course was the production of a teaching manual and three CDs that have been used in further courses of instruction.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableTask-based learning for oral communication : a case study of Thai EFL learners(University of Melbourne, 2009)This thesis reports on a study of teaching less competent Thai university students oral skills in English through Task-Based Learning (TBL). The study was guided by the following research questions: (1) whether TBL contributed to the students' speaking performance, (2) what obstacles hindered the development of speaking skill, (3) what experience the teacher researcher gained from the process of conducting TBL and (4) how TBL could be implicated in English teaching. The task-oriented approach to language teaching, gready influenced by CLT (Communicative Language Teaching), consists of three phases, namely the `Pre-task Phase', intended to prepare students' readiness before performing the task, the During-task Phase' � the time for students to perform the task and the `Post-task phase' � the language scrutiny after performing the task. Student participation in the study was on a voluntary basis. The participants were five non-English-majors, three mathematics majors and two Thai majors, of the Faculty of Education, at a university in Bangkok, Thailand, all of whom had received grade `C' or below for the first two fundamental English for communication courses. They attended totally twelve-week TBL lessons through six-task performance. Those tasks were `Pretending to be someone else', `Speaking from cards', `Speaking from pictures', `Library Tour Task', "Department Store Tour Task' and `Discussion Task'. The teacher researcher taught the lessons by herself. The data sources were 1) transcripts of classroom activities including the teacher researcher's and the students' speech, 2) transcripts of interviews: preliminary interview intended to survey students' problems in learning English, initial interview aimed to obtain the students' background of learning English and their needs in learning the language, post-task interviews asked the students' opinions towards each task after the post-task and the interview of the overall program after all tasks had been done and 3) the teacher's journals, containing field notes that the teacher researcher kept throughout the program. The data were analysed in terms of the cognitive (accuracy, fluency and complexity) and affective domains. Although there was no obvious evidence of participants' cognitive improvement, the affective side demonstrated increased risk-taking, raised self-esteem and lowed anxiety. Some supportive factors in task performance were found to be pre-task activities which provided knowledge and agreement prior to task performance, the safe environment provided through the teacher's feedback and the task conditions, which required both preparation outside class and impromptu speaking. Some obstacles were poor background of linguistic knowledge and inhibition to speak because of attitudinal factors, such as anxiety and shyness. The recommendation were made that in teaching English oral skills teachers should provide meaningful activities for students as well as speaking opportunities, arrange pre-task activities to build up students' readiness before performing tasks and provide opportunities for students to use their knowledge of other areas in practising speaking English.
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ItemPictures, words and voices : provoking thinking and inquiry through art rich picturebooks(University of Melbourne, 2009)This thesis examines an emerging phenomenon in children's literature � the vast, varied and growing sub-genre of picturebooks, linked together fundamentally by their intertextual references to art, artists and artmaking within their narratives (text and visual). These works have been collectively termed art rich picturebooks for this study. The aim of this project was twofold: to investigate the collected works of art rich picturebooks and to use this investigation as a foundation to a narrative inquiry and self-study into their pedagogical possibilities. The research design encompassed an intrinsic case study model containing within it two loosely bounded systems under investigation: the range of books categorised through predetermined criteria as art rich picturebooks, and a small selection of primary school teachers using these books in their teaching. Extending on Sipe's (2001b) research on 'picturebooks to teach art history' (197), the study here used a sample of 190 art rich picturebooks to analyse, categorise and generate into a bibliography and profile of these books � their qualities, challenges, limitations and possibilities. The second strand of this study used the researcher's own practice as a framework for analysing the narrative data collected from three participating teachers. The findings informed the development of an exemplar for teaching with these resources. It became increasingly evident that while these picturebooks present with multiple entry points for thinking and inquiry through art, integral to activating their potential, is the flexibility and artistry a teacher brings to translating the curriculum into lived practice. The artistry allows the teacher to seek creative and art rich ways into the books, and the flexibility lets them invite in the children's thinking, wonderings and imaginings. Aoki (in Pinar and Irwin, 2005) talks of the teacher seeking the spaces 'between' and 'among' in their teaching, and that these interspaces are 'the voice of play in the midst of things' (282). This study has worked towards finding these interspaces of possibility through teaching with art rich picturebooks.
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ItemFrom the general to the particular : connecting international classroom research to four classrooms in Brunei Darussalam( 2009)This doctoral research project set out to investigate whether large-scale international classroom studies have the capacity to connect with and offer insights into the classroom practices of individual teachers in Brunei Darussalam (hereafter, referred to as Brunei). In this study, the categorising scheme and results of the 1998-2000 Third International Mathematics and Science Video Study (TIMSS-99 Video Study) were used to examine the practices of four Grade 8 mathematics classrooms in Brunei. The practices documented in the four Brunei classrooms were then compared with the practices identified in the seven countries that participated in the TIMSS-99 Video Study. The comparative analyses were made possible by the application of the analytical codes of the TIMSS-99 Video Study to the Brunei video data. Adapting the Learner's Perspective Study (LPS) data collection methods (lesson sequences, interviews and an additional questionnaire) in combination with the analytical framework of the TIMSS-99 Video Study, generated a substantial body of detailed data about each of those four classrooms, sufficient to characterise the practices of those classrooms using the TIMSS-99 Video Study coding scheme and to support comparison with the TIMSS-99 Video Study findings. Connecting the generality of the TIMSS-99 Video Study findings to the specificity of the four classrooms studied in Brunei revealed both similarities and differences between the patterns of practice evident in the international and local data sets. In addition, the study addresses the question of how these similarities and differences might be used to inform classroom practice among the four Brunei teachers. Certain characteristics were common to the 20 Brunei lessons analysed: (i) The consistent shortness of the Brunei lessons (about 22 minutes), (ii) The consistent use by the Brunei teachers and their students of short spoken public utterances (typically less than five words); and, (iii) The relatively high "connectedness" of the Brunei mathematics lessons in comparison with those lessons analysed in the TIMSS-99 Video Study. One reading of my findings is that between-teacher variations problematise the usefulness of national typifications of practice. On the other hand, studies such as the TIMSS-99 Video Study can offer us salient dimensions of practice that alert us to characteristics of familiar classrooms that might otherwise go unnoticed.