Building distributed leadership for effective supervision of creative practice higher research degrees : final report 2014

Building distributed leadership for effective supervision of creative practice higher research degrees is an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) funded project, conducted in partnership between Queensland University of Technology, The University of Melbourne, Auckland University of Technology, University of New South Wales and University of Western Sydney. The project was initiated to develop a cooperative approach to establishing an understanding of the contextual frameworks of the emergent field of creative practice higher degrees by research (HDRs); capturing early insights of administrators and supervisors; gathering exemplars of good practices; and establishing an in-common understanding of effective approaches to supervision. To this end, the project has produced: • A literature review, to provide a research foundation for creative practice higher research degree supervision (Chapter 3). • A contextual review of disciplinary frameworks for HDR programs, produced through surveys of postgraduate research administrators (Section 4.1), and an analysis of institutional materials and academic development programs for supervisors (Section 4.2). • A National Symposium, Effective Supervision of Creative Arts Research Degrees (ESCARD), at QUT in Brisbane in February 2013, with 62 delegates from 20 Australasian Universities, at which project findings were disseminated, and delegates presented case studies and position papers, and participated in discussions on key issues for supervisors (Appendix 1). • Resources, including a booklet for supervisors: 12 Principles for the Effective Supervision of Creative Practice Higher Research Degrees, which encapsulates attitudes, insights and good practices of experienced and new supervisors. It was produced through a content analysis of interviews with twenty-five supervisors in creative disciplines (visual and performing arts, music, new media, creative writing and design) (Printed booklet, PDF, Appendix 3). • A project website to disseminate project outcomes , which holds project findings, relevant references, and a repository of case studies and position papers by supervisors and program administrators. • A call for papers for a special issue ‘Supervising Practice: Perspectives on the Supervision of Creative Practice Research Higher Degrees’ of ACCESS Journal: Critical Perspectives on Communication, Cultural & Policy Studies (ERA ranked A quality) in 2014 (Appendix 2). • A community of supervisory practice initiated through project partnerships, a national symposium where supervisors from across Australasia met in dialogue for the first time, resource sharing, and joint publishing opportunities. • A set of recommendations for supervision capacity building and academic development, produced through the triangulation of literature and contextual reviews, analysis of institutional frameworks, interviews with supervisors and national dialogues. It is anticipated that the project’s outcomes will support experienced and new supervisors in this emergent field, and so benefit HDR students, and will enable creative disciplines to build supervision capacity, and so to accommodate growth in postgraduate enrolments. Funded as a pilot project, the project set out to establish a robust research base to provide a foundation for future work involving sharing good practices, resource building, and designing effective approaches to academic development for supervisors. Recommendations that were produced out of this project include the need to extend beyond generic, formal training for supervisors to academic development that harnesses and extends distributed leadership; focuses on local, disciplinary contexts; has a strong emphasis on case studies; provides diverse resources; and facilitates dialogue between supervisors. Recommendations also include developing frameworks for mentoring new supervisors and building a national network to facilitate cross-institutional discourse, disseminate good practices, and share insights into the management of risk factors, ethical issues, and preparing candidates for examination. As a pilot investigation, the outcomes of this project lay the ground for this future work.

Treaty talk : past, present and future -- [Edited version of the inaugural Ngunnawal Lecture at the University of Canberra]

WELL I HEARD it on the radio and I saw it on the television. John Howard said there would be no talk of a treaty between his government and Indigenous people. He is not the first government leader to hold such views. Let me consider some of the public and official conversations that the concept of a treaty has invoked and what they reveal about white sovereignty. My interest in such dialogues stems from the fact that the idea of a treaty between white Australia and Indigenous people is not new and in the year of the centenary of Federation the Australian nation is still having trouble discussing it. Australian culture is less white than it used to be, but Anglicised whiteness forms the centre where white men established and defend institutions encouraging a possessive investment in white sovereignty. My intention is to invoke critical thought about these conversations. White sovereignty is a subject that asserts its dominance on social, political...

Dilemmatic spaces : high-stakes testing and the possibilities of collaborative knowledge work to generate learning innovations

This paper examines collaborative researcher-practitioner knowledge work around assessment data in culturally diverse, low- socioeconomic school communities in Queensland, Australia. Specifically, the paper draws on interview accounts about the work of a bridging knowledge flows between a local university and a cluster of schools. We draw on Bernstein’s (2000) concept of recontextualisation to explore the processes of knowledge mediation in dialogues around student assessment data to design instructional innovations. We argue that critical policy studies need to explore the complex ways in which neoliberal education policies are enacted in local sites. Moreover, we suggest that an analysis of collaborative knowledge work designed to improve student learning outcomes in low-socioeconomic school communities necessitates attention to the principles regulating knowledge flows across boundaries. In addition, it necessitates attention to the ways in which mediators navigate dilemmatic spaces, anxieties and affects/feelings in order to generate innovative learning designs in the current global context of high-stakes national testing and accountability regimes.

Toward a deeper understanding of branching dialogue systems

This practice-based exegesis examines the field of writing interactive branching dialogues within video games from the perspective of a professional game writer. Leanne analyses both existing critically-acclaimed titles and her own personal works to create a taxonomy for critique that expands upon the current understanding of games as a literary medium. The final project of the exegesis purposely applies the elements of her new taxonomy in an ineffective manner, making explicit the outcomes and pitfalls of writing multi-layered, tiered dialogues and how tacit assumptions made during the writing process can negatively impact player agency.

Macrophonics II

Macrophonics II presents new Australian work emerging from the leading edge of performance interface research. The program addresses the emerging dialogue between traditional media and emerging digital media, as well as dialogues across a broad range of musical traditions. Recent technological developments are causing a complete reevaluation of the relationships between media and genres in art, and Macrophonics II presents a cross-section of responses to this situation. Works in the program foreground an approach to performance that integrates sensors with novel performance control devices, and/or examine how machines can be made musical in performance. The program presents works by Australian artists Donna Hewitt, Julian Knowles and Wade Marynowsky, with choreography by Avril Huddy and dance performance by Lizzie and Zaimon Vilmanis. From sensor-based microphones and guitars, through performance a/v, to post-rock dronescapes, movement inspired works and experimental electronica, Macrophonics II provides a broad and engaging survey of new performance approaches in mediatised environments. Initial R&D for the work was supported by a range of institutions internationally, including the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, STEIM (Holland) and the Nes Artist Residency (Iceland).

Tristate

"This work forms part of a much larger collaborative album project in progress between Tim Bruniges, Julian Knowles and David Trumpmanis which explores the intersections between traditional rock instrumentation and analogue and digital media. All of the creative team are performers, composers and producers. The material for the album was thus generated by a series of in studio improvisations and performances with each collaborator assuming a range of different and alternating roles – guitars, electronics, drums, percussion, bass, keyboards production. Thematically the work explores the intersection of instrumental (post) rock, ambient music, and historical electro-acoustic tape composition traditions. Over the past 10 years, musical practice has become increasingly hybrid, with the traditional boundaries between genre becoming progressively eroded. At the same time, digital tools have replaced many of the major analogue technologies that dominated music production and performance in the 20th century. The disappearance of analogue media in mainstream musical practice has had a profound effect on the sonic characteristics of contemporary music and the gestural basis for its production. Despite the increasing power of digital technologies, a small but dedicated group of practitioners has continued to prize and use analogue technology for its unique sounds and the non-linearity of the media, aestheticising its inherent limitations and flaws. At the most radical end of this spectrum lie glitch and lo-fi musical forms, seen in part as reactions to the clinical nature of digital media and the perceived lack of character associated with its transparency. Such developments have also problematised the traditional relationships between media and genre, where specific techniques and their associated sounds have become genre markers. Tristate is an investigation into this emerging set of dialogues between analogue and digital media across composition, production and performance. It employs analogue tape loops in performance, where a tape machine ‘performer’ records and hand manipulates loops of an electric guitar performer on ‘destroyed’ tape stock (intentionally damaged tape), processing the output of this analogue system in the digital domain with contemporary sound processors. In doing so it investigates how the most extreme sonic signatures of analogue media – tape dropout and noise – can be employed alongside contemporary digital sound gestures in both compositional and performance contexts and how the extremes of the two media signatures can brought together both compositionally and performatively. In respect of genre, the work established strategies for merging compositional techniques from the early musique concrete tradition of the 1940s with late 60s popular music experimentalism and the laptop glitch electronica movement of the early 2000s. Lastly, the work explores how analogue recording studio technologies can be used as performance tools, thus illuminating and foregrounding the performative/gestural dimensions of traditional analogue studio tools in use."

An orientation to early childhood education for sustainability and research : framing the text

This publication arose from the interests of the chapter authors, ‘a small group of thoughtful people’ almost all of whom participated in one or both Transnational Dialogues in Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, held in Stavanger, Norway in 2010 and Brisbane, Australia in 2011 (Refer Appendix 1 for list of participants). These meetings were the first time that a critical mass of researchers from vastly different parts of the globe - Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand at the inaugural meeting, with additional participants from Korea, Japan and Singapore attending the second - had come together to debate, discuss and share ideas about research and theory in the emerging field of Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS. Some of the researchers who joined these Transnational Dialogues, had met serendipitously at earlier conferences and meetings, or corresponded via email, but many had never met face-to-face. Now a significant number are contributing authors in this text. It is a testament to these researchers’ interest in this agenda that they mostly self-funded their travel and other costs to attend the Transnational Dialogues research meetings. While most chapter authors come from the field of early childhood education, a few are more aligned with education for sustainability/environmental education, while a much smaller number are already working at the intersection of early childhood education and education for sustainability. What we share as a group is a range of perspectives and orientations to research and to the research focus at the heart of this book - young children and their actual and potential capabilities as agents of change for sustainability. As researchers, regardless of experience and perspectives, participants knew they had something extra to offer - their expertise as researchers - providing scholarly insights into the work of practitioners, applying critically reflective lenses to curricula, pedagogies and assumptions, testing of ideas and theories, and presenting a sense for where ECEfS might fit or, indeed, go beyond norms and orthodoxies. This is a text, then, for both researchers and those whose primary interests lie in daily interactions with children, families and communities.

Editors review of 'Research in early childhood education for sustainability : international perspectives and provocations'

Mounting concerns about climate change and unsustainable development, and their current and future impacts on all of us – but particularly on children - provided the impetus for this book. Then, as researchers in early childhood education (ECE) and/or education for sustainability (EfS), we used these concerns to shape and question our thinking. This first-ever research text in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) was advanced when the chapter authors, almost all of whom participated in one or both Transnational Dialogues in Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (Stavanger, Norway, 2010, and Brisbane, Australia, 2011) met for the first time - a critical mass of researchers from vastly different parts of the globe - Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand at the inaugural meeting, with participants from Korea, Japan and Singapore attending the second. We came together to debate, discuss and share ideas about research and theory in the emerging field of ECEfS. An agreed-upon outcome of the Dialogues was this text.

Identity in dialogue : identity as hyper-generalized personal sense

In this paper I propose that identity is momentary, fluid, and multiple while simultaneously providing us with a sense of sameness and continuity. Building on Valsiner’s ideas about human sense-making I suggest that we can reasonably deal with the multiplicity/unity paradox if we conceive of this process as resulting in the construction of a fuzzy field of hyper-generalized personal sense, which ordinarily functions as an implicit and unspeakable background of our everyday functioning, while being constantly re-created through momentary instances of foregrounded and explicit identity-dialogues. I illustrate the ideas put forward in the paper by analysing a case of a young woman experiencing a change in her being. Finally, in an attempt to illustrate and further develop the case I introduce a metaphor of carpet-weaving as an apposite image for thinking about identity as a process of a multiple and fragmented, yet also a united and constant being.

Development of an online role-play assessment initiative for nursing students in their bioscience studies

Devising assessment tasks for large units that embrace academic goals of authenticity and assessment variety can be a challenge. We developed an online Role-Play Assessment Initiative for first year nursing students in bioscience. Students responded to a case study by preparing two role-play dialogues: as a nurse with the patient, and between two nurses. The aims were to assess whether the students could: 1) understand the underlying disease process (pathophysiology) and relate it to clinical practice; 2) use language appropriate for lay and medical conversation; and 3) apply information using active learning. We conducted a student survey using quantitative questions (Likert scale: 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree), and qualitative questions. 65 completed surveys were received. 80% of respondents agreed (includes agree or strongly agree) that it was a useful way to learn and understand pathophysiology of the case study. 86% agreed that it was useful to apply pathophysiology from lectures to a clinical setting. Overall, students found it enjoyable, which is beneficial for enhanced student engagement, and agreed that it allowed them to work well in a group (74% and 85%, respectively). Most qualitative suggestions for improvement related to group work, despite the encouraging response to group work in quantitative questions. Most positive comments surrounded different communication with a nurse compared with a patient. These results demonstrate that students developed deeper understanding of pathophysiology through active learning and were able to expand their nursing career skills during the role-play. Learning using role-play to simulate the workforce has fostered active learning.

Negotiating indeterminacy in studio teaching: Using the zones of material and immaterial play to shape pedagogies and practices in art

The processes of studio-based teaching in visual art are often still tied to traditional models of discrete disciplines and largely immersed in skill-based learning. These approaches to training artists are also tied to an individual model of art practice that is clearly defined by the boundaries of those disciplines. This paper will explain how the open studio program at QUT can be broadly understood as an action research model of learning that ‘plays’ with the post-medium, post-studio genealogies and zones of contemporary art. This emphasises developing conceptual, contextual and formal skills as essential for engaging with and practicing in the often-indeterminate spatio-temporal sites of studio teaching. It will explore how this approach looks to Sutton-Smith’s observations on the role of play and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development in early childhood learning as a way to develop strategies for promoting creative learning environments that are collaborative and self sustainable. Social, cultural, political and philosophical dialogues are examined as they relate to art practice with the aim of forming the shared interests, aims, and ambitions of graduating students into self initiated collectives or ARIs.

Perspectives on global nursing leadership: International experiences from the field

AIM Nursing leaders from six countries engaged in a year-long discussion on global leadership development. The purpose of these dialogues was to strengthen individual and collective capacity as nursing leaders in a global society. Field experiences in practice and education were shared. Perspectives on global leadership can strengthen nurses' contributions to practice, workplace and policy issues worldwide. BACKGROUND Transformational leadership empowers nurses' increasing confidence. Mentoring is needed to stimulate leadership development but this is lacking in many settings where nurses practice, teach and influence policy. Organizations with global mission provide opportunity for nurses' professional growth in leadership through international dialogues. PROCEDURES Dialogues among participants were held monthly by conference calls or videoconferences. Example stories from each participant illustrated nursing leadership in action. From these exemplars, concepts were chosen to create a framework. Emerging perspectives and leadership themes represented all contexts of practice, education, research and policy. The cultural context of each country was reflected in the examples. RESULTS Themes emerged that crossed global regions and countries. Themes were creativity, change, collaboration, community, context and courage. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY Relationships initially formed in professional organizations can be extended to intentionally facilitate global nursing leadership development. Exemplars from the dialogues demonstrated nursing leadership in health policy development within each cultural context. Recommendations are given for infrastructure development in organizations to enhance future collaborations.

Evolution of self-reporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms

Emotion researchers have grappled with challenging methodological issues in capturing emotions of participants in naturalistic settings such as school or university classrooms. Self-reporting methods have been used frequently, yet these methods are inadequate when used alone. We argue that the self-reporting methods of emotion diaries and cogenerative dialogues can be helpful in identifying in-the-moment emotions when used in conjunction with the microanalysis of video recordings of classroom events. We trace the evolution of our use of innovative self-reporting methods through three cases from our research projects, and propose new directions for our ongoing development and application of these methods in both school and university classrooms.

Ticking the box and closing the loop: Can dialogue be mandated?

Dialogue is a spontaneous, free-flowing, and untrammeled form of two-way communication between participants who respect, trust, and empathize with each other. Its ethical superiority and effectiveness in bringing participants together mean it is an important aspect of organizational responses to increasingly-empowered stakeholders. But what happens when dialogue is legally mandated between participants who view each other as a problem, if not actually the enemy? When dialogue is perceived as a contest with the winner securing the prize of dictating organizational behavior? Is this – can this ever be – dialogue? Sometimes what happens in the name of dialogue is far from dialogic, and ‘dialogue’ is reduced to ticking a box on a form, or closing a communication loop. This challenges those very characteristics that are the basis of dialogue’s claim to superiority. This conclusion demonstrates the need for a radical reconsideration of both the theory and practice of dialogue in public relations.

A critical analysis of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan

This study involves the analysis of one of the most recent Indigenous Education policies, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan 2010-2014 (MCEECDYA, 2011). It examines how the language used within policy positions Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Articulating Rigney's (1999) Indigenist Research Principles with Fairclough's (2001) Critical Discourse Analysis provides a platform for critical dialogues about policy decision-making. In doing so, this articulation enables and emphasises the need for potential policy revision to contribute to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander struggle for self-determination.