From the cathedral to the classroom : the emergence of new discourses on religious education

In 2009, Religious Education is a designated key learning area in Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Brisbane and, indeed, across Australia. Over the years, though, different conceptualisations of the nature and purpose of religious education have led to the construction of different approaches to the classroom teaching of religion. By investigating the development of religious education policy in the Archdiocese of Brisbane from 1984 to 2003, the study seeks to trace the emergence of new discourses on religious education. The study understands religious education to refer to a lifelong process that occurs through a variety of forms (Moran, 1989). In Catholic schools, it refers both to co-curricula activities, such as retreats and school liturgies, and the classroom teaching of religion. It is the policy framework for the classroom teaching of religion that this study explores. The research was undertaken using a policy case study approach to gain a detailed understanding of how new conceptualisations of religious education emerged at a particular site of policy production, in this case, the Archdiocese of Brisbane. The study draws upon Yeatman’s (1998) description of policy as occurring “when social actors think about what they are doing and why in relation to different and alternative possible futures” (p. 19) and views policy as consisting of more than texts themselves. Policy texts result from struggles over meaning (Taylor, 2004) in which specific discourses are mobilised to support particular views. The study has a particular interest in the analysis of Brisbane religious education policy texts, the discursive practices that surrounded them, and the contexts in which they arose. Policy texts are conceptualised in the study as representing “temporary settlements” (Gale, 1999). Such settlements are asymmetrical, temporary and dependent on context: asymmetrical in that dominant actors are favoured; temporary because dominant actors are always under challenge by other actors in the policy arena; and context - dependent because new situations require new settlements. To investigate the official policy documents, the study used Critical Discourse Analysis (hereafter referred to as CDA) as a research tool that affords the opportunity for researchers to map and chart the emergence of new discourses within the policy arena. As developed by Fairclough (2001), CDA is a three-dimensional application of critical analysis to language. In the Brisbane religious education arena, policy texts formed a genre chain (Fairclough, 2004; Taylor, 2004) which was a focus of the study. There are two features of texts that form genre chains: texts are systematically linked to one another; and, systematic relations of recontextualisation exist between the texts. Fairclough’s (2005) concepts of “imaginary space” and “frameworks for action” (p. 65) within the policy arena were applied to the Brisbane policy arena to investigate the relationship between policy statements and subsequent guidelines documents. Five key findings emerged from the study. First, application of CDA to policy documents revealed that a fundamental reconceptualisation of the nature and purpose of classroom religious education in Catholic schools occurred in the Brisbane policy arena over the last twenty-five years. Second, a disjuncture existed between catechetical discourses that continued to shape religious education policy statements, and educational discourses that increasingly shaped guidelines documents. Third, recontextualisation between policy documents was evident and dependent on the particular context in which religious education occurred. Fourth, at subsequent links in the chain, actors created their own “imaginary space”, thereby altering orders of discourse within the policy arena, with different actors being either foregrounded or marginalised. Fifth, intertextuality was more evident in the later links in the genre chain (i.e. 1994 policy statement and 1997 guidelines document) than in earlier documents. On the basis of the findings of the study, six recommendations are made. First, the institutional Church should carefully consider the contribution that the Catholic school can make to the overall pastoral mission of the diocese in twenty-first century Australia. Second, policymakers should articulate a nuanced understanding of the relationship between catechesis and education with regard to the religion classroom. Third, there should be greater awareness of the connections among policies relating to Catholic schools – especially the connection between enrolment policy and religious education policy. Fourth, there should be greater consistency between policy documents. Fifth, policy documents should be helpful for those to whom they are directed (i.e. Catholic schools, teachers). Sixth, “imaginary space” (Fairclough, 2005) in policy documents needs to be constructed in a way that allows for multiple “frameworks for action” (Fairclough, 2005) through recontextualisation. The findings of this study are significant in a number of ways. For religious educators, the study highlights the need to develop a shared understanding of the nature and purpose of classroom religious education. It argues that this understanding must take into account the multifaith nature of Australian society and the changing social composition of Catholic schools themselves. Greater recognition should be given to the contribution that religious studies courses such as Study of Religion make to the overall religious development of a person. In view of the social composition of Catholic schools, there is also an issue of ecclesiological significance concerning the conceptualisation of the relationship between the institutional Catholic Church and Catholic schools. Finally, the study is of significance because of its application of CDA to religious education policy documents. Use of CDA reveals the foregrounding, marginalising, or excluding of various actors in the policy arena.

“Diving into reading” : revisiting reciprocal teaching in the middle years

This paper reports on a project that was designed to support teachers to introduce reciprocal teaching and student-generated questioning in the middle years. It began as a solution to teachers expressing a concern that there was a lack of professional development related to the teaching of reading in the middle years.

David Hicks and Cathie Holden (eds.) (2007). Teaching The Global Dimension. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 212 pages.

Teaching The Global Dimension (2007) is intended for primary and secondary teachers, pre-service teachers and educators interested in fostering global concerns in the education system. It aims at linking theory and practice and is structured as follows. Part 1, the global dimension, proposes an educational framework for understanding global concerns. Individual chapters in this section deal with some educational responses to global issues and the ways in which young people might become, in Hick’s terms, more “world-minded”. In the first two chapters, Hicks presents first, some educational responses to global issues that have emerged in recent decades, and second, an outline of the evolution of global education as a specific field. As with all the chapters in this book, most of the examples are drawn from the United Kingdom. Young people’s concerns, student teachers’ views and the teaching of controversial issues, comprise the other chapters in this section. Taken collectively, the chapters in Part 2 articulate the conceptual framework for developing, teaching and evaluating a global dimension across the curriculum. Individual chapters in this section, written by a range of authors, explore eight key concepts considered necessary to underpin appropriate learning experiences in the classroom. These are conflict, social justice, values and perceptions, sustainability, interdependence, human rights, diversity and citizenship. These chapters are engaging and well structured. Their common format consists of a succinct introduction, reference to positive action for change, and examples of recent effective classroom practice. Two chapters comprise the final section of this book and suggest different ways in which the global dimension can be achieved in the primary and the secondary classroom.

Teaching sustainability : vehicle or endpoint?

In 2006, the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering introduced the first faculty wide unit dedicated to sustainability at any Australian University. BEB200 Introducing Sustainability has semester enrolments of up to 1500 students. Instruments such as lectures, readings, field visits, group projects and structured tutorial activities are used and have evolved over the last five years in response to student and staff feedback and attempts to better engage students. More than seventy staff have taught in the unit, which is in its final offering in this form in 2010. This paper reflects on the experiences of five academics who have played key roles in the development and teaching of this unit over the last five years. They argue that sustainability is a paradigm that allows students to explore other ways of knowing as they engage with issues in a complex world, not an end in itself. From the students’ perspective, grappling with such issues enables them to move towards a context in which they can understand their own discipline and its role in the contradictory and rapidly changing professional world. Insights are offered into how sustainability units may be developed in the future.

Why teaching about Asia matters in higher education

I commence this opinion piece with specific reference to the Gillard Government's decision to cut funding for the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)in 2011. I then consider impact of this decision on quality teaching in higher education with specific reference to Studies of Asia. In particular, I reflect on the teaching of Asian languages and cultures in Australia since the 1970 Auchmuty report, and conclude that despite the efforts of policy makers, not much has really changed. In doing so, I emphasise the importance of quality teaching in higher education for inspiring students to challenge their cultural assumptions and to prompt them to develop new views of the world.

Constituting the teacher of reading in contemporary Australian literacy debates

This chapter documents the history of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy and the subsequent fate of the figure of the teacher, in terms of how the inquiry has acted to background the teacher and bring new figures into prominence. The classroom teacher is being moved out of a central role of authority in literacy education, in spite of claims about the importance of the teacher in parts of the report. Authority is now being placed in the figure of the scientific researcher who decides what the best techniques are, and develops diagnostic tools that the teacher must use in order to decide which of the techniques to apply. Specialist literacy teachers, well “trained”by these experts, are needed to ensure that teachers do what the experts recommend (evidence-based practice). Thus, the classroom literacy teacher becomes a cipher for applying expertly designed techniques and tests.

Media skills for daily life : designing a journalism programme for graduates of all disciplines

This article in the journalism education field reports on the construction of a new subject as part of a postgraduate coursework degree. The subject, or unit1 will offer both Journalism students and other students an intro¬ductory experience of creating media, using common ‘new media’ tools, with exercises that will model the learning of communication principles through practice. It has been named ‘Fundamental Media Skills for the Workplace’. The conceptualisation and teaching of it will be characteristic of the Journalism academic discipline that uses the ‘inside perspective’—understanding mass media by observing from within. Proposers for the unit within the Journalism discipline have sought to extend the common teaching approach, based on training to produce start-ready recruits for media jobs, backed by a study of contexts, e.g. journalistic ethics, or media audiences. In this proposal, students would then examine the process to elicit additional knowledge about their learning. The article draws on literature of journalism and its pedagogy, and on communication generally. It also documents a ‘community of practice’ exercise conducted among practitioners as teachers for the subject, developing exercises and models of media work. A preliminary conclusion from that exercise is that it has taken a step towards enhancing skills-based learning for media work.

Challenges of tracking topical discussion networks online

Attempts to map online networks, representing relationships between people and sites, have covered sites including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. However, the predominant approach of static network visualization, treating months of data as a single case rather than depicting changes over time or between topics, remains a flawed process. As different events and themes provoke varying interactions and conversations, it is proposed that case-by-case analysis would aid studies of online social networks by further examining the dynamics of links and information flows. This study uses hyperlink analysis of a population of French political blogs to compare connections between sites from January to August 2009. Themes discussed in this period were identified for subsequent analysis of topic-oriented networks. By comparing static blogrolls with topical citations within posts, this research addresses challenges and methods in mapping online networks, providing new information on temporal aspects of linking behaviors and information flows within these systems.

Pedagogy of feedback on student academic writing : research supervisor practices for the end of the research degree candidature

All academic writing is advanced with the benefit of feedback about the writing. In the case of the academic writing genres of the research proposal and the dissertation, feedback is usually provided by the research supervisor. Given that academic writing development is a process, and in the case of the research proposal and dissertation, writing which develops over time, it seems likely that the nature of feedback on drafts written early in the candidature may be different from feedback provided by the research supervisor later in a student’s candidature. ----- ----- When a research supervisor has been reading a student’s writing over a period of time, their own familiarity with the writing generates a risk to their ability to provide critical and objective feedback. Particularly by the end of a student’s candidature, the research supervisor’s familiarity with the work may cause them to miss elements of writing improvement. ----- ----- The author, as a research supervisor, has developed a feedback grid to facilitate feedback on the final drafts of a dissertation. This feedback grid is generated by the embedded promises in the early sections of the dissertation, which are then used to audit the content of the final sections of the dissertation to ascertain whether promises made have been fulfilled. This provides a strategy for the research supervisor to step back from the work and read the dissertation with the agenda of a dissertation examiner. ----- ----- The grid is one strategy within a broader pedagogy of providing feedback on writing samples.

The design and development of an undergraduate signal processing laboratory

The School of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering of Queensland University of Technology (like many other universities around the world) has recognised the importance of complementing the teaching of signal processing with computer based experiments. A laboratory has been developed to provide a "hands-on" approach to the teaching of signal processing techniques. The motivation for the development of this laboratory was the cliche "What I hear I remember but what I do I understand." The laboratory has been named as the "Signal Computing and Real-time DSP Laboratory" and provides practical training to approximately 150 final year undergraduate students each year. The paper describes the novel features of the laboratory, techniques used in the laboratory based teaching, interesting aspects of the experiments that have been developed and student evaluation of the teaching techniques

Continuous and pedagogically sound assessment : A new economy of power relations in Australian Law schools

In recent decades, assessment practices within Australian law schools have moved from the overwhelming use of end-of-year closed-book examinations to an increase in the use of a wider range of techniques. This shift is often characterised as providing a ‘better’ learning environment for students, contributing more positively to their own ‘personal development’ within higher education, or, considered along the lines of critical legal thought, as ‘liberating’ them from the ‘conservatising’ and ‘indoctrinating’ effects of the power relations that operate in law schools. This paper seeks to render problematic such liberal-progressive narratives about these changes to law school assessment practices. It will do so by utilising the work of French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault on power, arguing that the current range of assessment techniques demonstrates a shift in the ‘economy’ of power relations within the law school. Rather than ‘liberating’ students from relations of power, these practices actually extend the power relations through which students are governed. This analysis is intended to inform legal education research and assessment practice by providing a far more nuanced conceptual framework than one that seeks to ‘free’ law students from these ‘repressive’ practices, or hopes to ‘objectively’ contribute to their ‘personal development’.

Entry into Valhalla : contextualising the learning of legal ethics through the use of Second Life machinima

An ability to recognise and resolve ethical dilemmas was identified by the Australian Law Reform Commission as one of the ten fundamental lawyering skills. While the ‘Priestley 11’ list of areas of law required to qualify for legal practice includes ethics and professional responsibility, the commitment to ethics learning in Australian law schools has been far from uniform. The obligation imposed by the Priestley 11 is frequently discharged by a traditional teaching and learning approach involving lectures and/or tutorials and focusing on the content of the formal rules of professional responsibility. However, the effectiveness of such an approach is open to question. Instead, a practical rather than a theoretical approach to the teaching of legal ethics is required. Effective final-year student learning of ethics may be achieved by an approach which engages students, enabling them to appreciate the relevance of what they are learning to the real world and facilitating their transition from study to their working lives. Entry into Valhalla comprises a suite of modules featuring ‘machinima’ (computer-generated imagery) created using the Second Life virtual environment to contextualise otherwise abstract concepts. It provides an engaging learning environment which enables students to obtain an appreciation of ethical responsibility in a real-world context and facilitates understanding and problem-solving ability.

Technology : new horizons in teaching law

17.1 Up until the 1990s the methods used to teach the law had evolved little since the first law schools were established in Australia. As Keyes and Johnstone observed: In the traditional model, most teachers uncritically replicate the learning experiences that they had when students, which usually means that the dominant mode of instruction is reading lecture notes to large classes in which students are largely passive. Traditional legal education has been described in the following terms: Traditionally law is taught through a series of lectures, with little or no student involvement, and a tutorial programme. Sometimes tutorials are referred to as seminars but the terminology used is often insignificant: both terms refer to probably the only form of student participation that takes place throughout these students‘ academic legal education. The tutorial consists of analysing the answers, prepared in advanced (sic), to artificial Janet and John Doe problems or esoteric essay questions. The primary focus of traditional legal education is the transmission of content knowledge, more particularly the teaching of legal rules, especially those drawn from case law. This approach has a long pedigree. Writing in 1883, Dicey proposed that nothing can be taught to students of greater value, either intellectually or for the purposes of legal practice, than the habit of looking on the law as a series of rules‘.

Teaching tribology and maintenance-related subjects : a hands-on focus

In this paper different aspects of teaching tribology and maintenance-related subjects with a hands-on focus at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) are presented and discussed. As part of the study, a combination of data from core units, such as engineering design units, and elective units, was used, in addition to laboratory experiments, real-life projects, interactive software packages and industry visits. The mechanical engineering curriculum structure used at QUT, consisting of the main specialization (first major) and the second specialization (second major), is also discussed with specific emphasis on the teaching of tribology and maintenance-related subjects. To evaluate students' satisfaction with the novel teaching approaches used, tailored questionnaires were used as well as QUT's online learning experience survey (LEX). Statistical results of these sureveys are presented and discussed. In summary, these showed that students overwhelmingly support the hands-on and practical focus in teaching tribology and maintenance-related subjects and that the teaching approaches used shorten the learning curve and make students better prepared for integration in the workplace.

Nurses driving change to improve access to education and quality in lcinical teaching : A partnership between Australia and Viet Nam

In Viet Nam, standards of nursing care fail to meet international competency standards. This increases risks to patient safety (eg. hospital acquired infection), consequently the Ministry of Health identified the need to strengthen nurse education in Viet Nam. This paper presents experiences of a piloted clinical teaching model developed in Ha Noi, to strengthen nurse led institutional capacity for in-service education and clinical teaching. Historically 90% of nursing education was conducted by physicians and professional development in hospitals for nurses was limited. There was minimal communication between hospitals and nursing schools about expectations of students and assessment and quality of the learning experience. As a result when students came to the clinical sites, no-one understood how to plan their learning objectives and utilise teaching and learning approaches appropriate to their level. Therefore student learning outcomes were variable. They focussed on procedures and techniques and “learning how to do” rather than learning how to plan, implement and evaluate patient care. This project is part of a multi-component capacity building program designed to improve nurse education in Viet Nam. The project was funded jointly by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the Australian Agency for International Development. Its aim was to develop a collaborative clinically-based model of teaching to create an environment that encourages evidence-based, student-centred clinical learning. Accordingly, strategies introduced promoted clinical teaching of competency based nursing practice utilising the regionally endorsed nurse core competency standards. Thirty nurse teachers from Viet Duc University Hospital and Hanoi Medical College participated in the program. These nurses and nurse teachers undertook face to face education in three workshops, and completed three assessment items. Assessment was applied, where participants integrated the concepts learned in each workshop and completed assessment tasks related to planning, implementing and evaluating teaching in the clinical area. Twenty of these participants were then selected to undertake a two week study tour in Brisbane, Australia where the clinical teaching model was refined and an action plan developed to integrate into both organisations with possible implementation across Viet Nam. Participants on this study tour also experienced clinical teaching and learning at QUT by attending classes held at the university, and were able to visit selected hospitals to experience clinical teaching in these settings as well. Effectiveness of the project was measured throughout the implementation phase and in follow up visits to the clinical site. To date changes have been noted on an individual and organisational level. There is also significant planning underway to incorporate the clinical teaching model developed across the organisation and how this may be implemented in other regions. Two participants have also been involved in disseminating aspects of this approach to clinical teaching in Ho Chi Minh, with further plans for more in-depth dissemination to occur throughout the country.