Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Introducing instrumental students to improvisation
    Dipnall, Mark Fairlie ( 2012)
    Improvisation has been an integral component of music practice throughout a variety of world musics, such as the Indonesian Gamelan, Japanese Kabuki Theatre, African drumming, Australian Indigenous music, Klezmer music, the Indian Raga, Jazz and Popular music. Instrumental tuition, within the present system of Western Education, on the other hand, tends to emphasise an early and ongoing commitment to the reading of notated music. Some of the literature in the area suggests that the emphasis for instrumental tuition should be concerned with improvisation thus producing opportunities to achieve a more personalised and independent result with music expression. By including improvisation within regular tuition the student instrumentalist could feel more at one with his or her own voice and imagination, rather than attempting to take on the role of reproducing the character and style of another person's notation. This thesis focussed on the development and provision of improvised music activities with high school students from Years 10 and 11. Consideration was given to how these improvised music activities might have impacted not only their improvisational skills but also broader attitudes to music. The study included a specifically designed curriculum emphasising improvisational techniques. It was constructed and implemented over a ten-week period with accompanying interviews, questionnaire and video. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of the implementation of this curriculum and how it could assist the learning and teaching of improvisation. The study's performance-ensemble consisted of rhythm and lead instrumentalists where all participants had the opportunity to engage with specific instrumental techniques that assisted the expression of improvisation. Simultaneously, all participants had the liberty of managing the lesson-content with original extemporised melody and composition. The results showed the participants experienced increased confidence with improvisation. The conclusion suggests that improvisation be viewed as an integral component within the teaching and learning of instrumental music.
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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.
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    The role of science in the design and impact of sustainability projects and curricula within a selected primary and secondary school: a Melbourne case study
    MOHANDOSS, MANJU ( 2011)
    As far as education is concerned, it remains our responsibility to educate students by providing leadership, knowledge and experiences to ensure we are building a sustainable future. Our students envisage a sustainable future and we are in a unique position to educate them to build infrastructure to provide long-term responsibilities and opportunities for sustainability towards our nation as well as our planet. The main aim of this study was to examine current views on the issue of sustainability held by teachers and curriculum designers within specific local educational and school contexts. This research project aims to enable two schools to begin a curriculum review and reform process to develop and support a local school culture. As a result, I decided to address these challenges by undertaking research studies to find out developments made under current knowledge of sustainable management programs across a local primary school and adjacent secondary school. I wanted teachers to share their ideas, their concerns and solutions to ensure implementation of effective programs. The purpose of the interviews was to get a detailed picture of their understanding and how this issue relates to school curriculum within the Victorian educational context. Qualitative research methodology was used with data collection based on semi-structured interviews. Qualitative methods with documents and interview data were analysed against the specific research questions as well as other consistent emergent themes. Interviewing and examining views of current knowledge of sustainable management programs by local primary and secondary school teachers showed that there is a need to interconnect learning areas from primary to secondary studies. Sustainability learning areas need to be linked for further specialised pre-service and teacher training programmes at the secondary school level.
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    The structuring of knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching in higher education
    MILLAR, VICTORIA ( 2011)
    This study investigates and compares teaching within both disciplinary and interdisciplinary subjects at the higher education level. Interdisciplinary subjects are increasingly being offered within university curricula in response to a range of stakeholders both internal and external to the university system (Holmwood, 2010). Seen to expose students to complex problems that cross disciplinary boundaries, they are also considered beneficial as it is believed they provide students with a range of skills necessary to succeed in society and in the workplace (Frodeman et al., 2010). Interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity are often presented as disparate (Moore, 2010) and so the introduction of interdisciplinary subjects is seen as an alternative to discipline–based subjects. However, there has been little research investigating the nature of knowledge that is taught in interdisciplinary subjects and whether this form of teaching differs from that in discipline–based subjects. This study explores the differences between teaching in these two contexts by investigating whether and how academics within a university structured around the disciplines change their teaching for the interdisciplinary context and in particular how they perceive knowledge in these two teaching environments. This research employs a qualitative case study approach, drawing on interviews with six experienced academics from The University of Melbourne, Australia, a university that has recently undergone major curriculum reform. The academics come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds allowing for diversity in the data. At the time the interviews were conducted, interdisciplinary subjects had been part of the university curriculum for one year. This study, therefore, presents a snapshot of interdisciplinary teaching for these academics after this first year. The theoretical framework for the research draws on Shulman’s (1986; 1987) idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Bernstein’s theoretical ideas of the pedagogic device and knowledge structures (Bernstein, 2000) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton, 2000, 2007, 2009). This study reveals that there is a shift in academics’ teaching practice for the interdisciplinary context. Teaching in interdisciplinary subjects is shown to be influenced by a number of complex factors that are determined by the academics’ background, the setting in which interdisciplinary subjects occur and the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge itself. The most significant contribution this thesis makes to an understanding of interdisciplinary teaching is its discussion of the role of knowledge, knowledge structures and the knower in determining what is taught. Interdisciplinary studies that focus on a particular problem or context, such as climate change, place a stronger emphasis on developing a particular type of knower and ways of knowing while at the same time reducing the value placed on students developing an understanding of particular content knowledge. This is attributed to the manner in which the disciplines that make up an interdisciplinary subject contribute their knowledge. The study also shows that in translating knowledge for interdisciplinary teaching that some of the subtleties of disciplinary knowledge are lost and so the same topic taught in an interdisciplinary subject will not have the same depth as when taught in a discipline–based subject. These findings have a number of implications for universities incorporating interdisciplinary subjects in their curricula. While the content and skills that students are taught in interdisciplinary subjects can be seen as beneficial they are different to those in discipline–based subjects. It is argued here that in order to maintain the depth of knowledge that comes with discipline based teaching and the breadth that is associated with interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary and disciplinary subjects need to be included within university curriculum for complimentary rather than opposing reasons.
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    Primary teachers and the Information and Communications Technology domain: figuring worlds, identities, knowledge and practices
    Vacirca, Elvira Maria ( 2010)
    This study investigates the development of teacher professional practice in the context of government education policy in Victoria (Australia) that aims, through the education of its youth, to shape a successful economy that capitalises on information and communications technology (ICT). Specifically, the study examines how selected primary teachers from an ICT network conceptualise, articulate and develop a body of knowledge to teach and implement the Information and Communications Technology domain of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Victorian Government, 2005) curriculum framework. Through a constructivist grounded theory approach, the study investigates the practices of six female teachers in three government primary schools as they implement changes to curriculum in response to government reforms and local expectations. The three primary schools are within close proximity of each other in a residential growth corridor on the fringes of metropolitan Melbourne, and serve a diverse and multicultural community. Innovation with ICT is seen as necessary for addressing the challenges that arise from the social and economic context of the research sites, and is integral to improvement plans in each of these schools. The participating teachers are regarded as leaders with ICT within their schools and their efforts are deemed intrinsic to their school’s plan. Rich descriptive data of these six teachers and how they construct their worlds is utilised to develop a theory of how teachers learn to teach with ICT, with a view to understanding how they continue to learn in the context of these changes. Change efforts often focus on the importance of knowledge building to empower professionals for new directions, however while a critical component, knowledge is not the only factor in increasing capability. The study highlights that learning to teach the ICT domain is more complex than developing content knowledge, pedagogical repertoire and skills in the use of ICT. It involves networked learning where values, beliefs, vision, practice and identities are made and remade. In making changes, teachers consider new ideas in light of the old, and through the lens of their core values and beliefs, they figure a technologically rich world of vast imaginings that they can embody. They author identities to assert themselves in relation to imposed positioning and prior conceptualisations. Through changed activity related to ICT, they redefine their conception of teaching and inhabit it with their activity and energy.