Education in City and Suburban Communities

This chapter will discuss how environmental factors, specifically one’s backgrounds and where one lives, has an impact on teaching and learning. You have learned from previous chapters that inclusive education is underpinned by human rights and social justice issues. This chapter takes up that argument by identifying the diversity of students in city and suburban schools and how some are excluded, leading to disengagement with learning. We suggest possible pedagogy such as differentiated instruction and a ‘pedagogy of hope’ to counter student disengagement. Inclusive education, as an ‘act of imagination’ engages students in creative ways with the curriculum, where they can find meaning and purpose in what they are doing. Such engagement allows student to make connections between their school work and their own life worlds.

Intercultural competence in engineering education : who are we teaching?

BACKGROUND There is little doubt that our engineering graduates’ ability to identify cultural differences and their potential to impact on engineering projects, and to work effectively with these differences is of key importance in the modern engineering practice. Within engineering degree programs themselves there is also a significant need to recognise the impact of changing student and staff profiles on what happens in the classroom. The research described in this paper forms part of a larger project exploring issues of intercultural competence in engineering. PURPOSE This paper presents an observational and survey study of undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students from four institutions working in groups on tasks with a purely technical focus, or with a cultural and humanitarian element. The study sought to explore how students rate their own intercultural competence and team process and whether any differences exist depending on the nature of the task they are working on. We also investigated whether any differences were evident between groups of first year, second year and postgraduate students. DESIGN/METHOD The study used the miniCQS instrument (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008) and a Bales Interaction Process Analysis based scale (Bales, 1950; Carney, 1976) to collect students self ratings of group process, task management, and cultural experience and behaviour. The Bales IPA was also used for coding video observations of students working in groups. Survey data were used to form descriptive variables to compare outcomes across the different tasks and contexts. Observations analysed in Nvivo were used to provide commentary and additional detail on the quantitative data. RESULTS The results of the survey indicated consistent mean scores on each survey item for each group of students, despite vastly different tasks, student backgrounds and educational contexts. Some small, statistically significant mean differences existed, offering some basic insights into how task and student group composition could affect self ratings. Overall though, the results suggest minimal shift in how students view group function and their intercultural experience, irrespective of differing educational experience. CONCLUSIONS The survey results, contrasted with group observations, indicate that either students are not translating their experience (in the group tasks) into critical self assessment of their cultural competence and teamwork, or that they become more critical of team performance and cultural competence as their competence in these areas grows, so their ratings remain consistent. Both outcomes indicate that students need more intensive guidance to build their critical self and peer assessment skills in these areas irrespective of their year level of study.

Education for sustainability : a case study of pre-service primary teachers' knowledge and efficacy

This study investigated the relationships between knowledge and efficacy for teaching sustainability in a sample of 266 pre-service primary teachers at a large, metropolitan university in Australia. A survey gathered information about the participant’s attitudes and self-efficacy for education for sustainability, along with their perceived and actual knowledge of environmental sustainability issues. The participants typically believed they were confident in their abilities to engage with education for sustainability with self-efficacy increasing with increased levels of perceived knowledge. However no relationship was found between perceived knowledge and actual knowledge which suggests that the participants either do not feel constrained by their lack of knowledge, or are perhaps unaware of their actual knowledge of sustainability issues. This lack of relationship may have implications for the development of pedagogical content knowledge with pre-service teachers potentially developing shallow, tokenistic approaches to Education for Sustainability.

International trends in early childhood education for sustainability

Early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) is an emerging field within education – a synthesis of early childhood education and education for sustainability. As a distinct field of educational inquiry and practice, it is less than 20 years old in Australia. My personal story is one that emerged from teaching Aboriginal children in an Indigenous community. These experiences made me question the marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Australian society, the colonizing impacts of education, gave me deeper understandings of human-environment interactions, and the effects of poverty and powerlessness on options for Indigenous people in Australia and elsewhere where people and their lands have been exploited. These experiences saw me return to university to undertake a degree in environmental studies to help me better understand the nexus between society, environment and economy. Hence my background in education for sustainability comes as much from the social sciences as from the biological/ecological sciences and shapes my orientation to my work in ECEFS...

Children as change agents for sustainability : an action research case study in a kindergarten

At a time when global consumption and production levels are 25 percent higher than the Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity, there are worldwide calls to find ways to sustain the Earth for this and future generations. A central premise of this study is that education systems have an obligation to participate in this move towards sustainability and can respond by embedding education for sustainability into curricula. This study took early childhood education as its focus due to the teacherresearcher’s own concerns about the state of the planet, coupled with early childhood education’s established traditions of nature-based and child-centred pedagogy. The study explored the experiences of a class of kindergarten children as they undertook a Project Approach to learning about environmental sustainability. The Project Approach is an adaptation of Chard’s work which is situated within a constructivist theoretical framework (Chard, 2011). The Project Approach involves in-depth investigations around an identified topic of interest. It has three phases: introductory, synthesising and culminating phase. The study also investigated the learning journey of the classroom teacher/researcher who broadened her long-held co-constructivist teaching approaches to include transformative practices in order to facilitate curriculum which embedded education for sustainability. While coconstructivist approaches focus on the co-construction of knowledge, transformative practices are concerned with creating change. An action research case study was conducted. This involved twenty-two children who attended an Australian kindergarten. Data were collected and analysed over a seven week period. The study found that young children can be change agents for sustainability when a Project Approach is broadened to include transformative practices. The study also found that the child participants were able to think critically about environmental and sustainability issues, were able to create change in their local contexts, and took on the role of educators to influence others’ environmental behaviours. Another finding was that the teacher-researcher’s participation in the study caused a transformation of both her teaching philosophy and the culture at the kindergarten. An important outcome of the study was the development of a new curriculum model that integrates and has applicability for curriculum development and teacher practice.

Education higher degree research students writing for publication

Higher Degree Research (HDR) student publications are increasingly valued by students, by professional communities and by research institutions. Peer-reviewed publications form the HDR student writer's publication track record and increase competitiveness in employment and research funding opportunities. These publications also make the results of HDR student research available to the community in accessible formats. HDR student publications are also valued by universities because they provide evidence of institutional research activity within a field and attract a return on research performance. However, although publications are important to multiple stakeholders, many Education HDR students do not publish the results of their research. Hence, an investigation of Education HDR graduates who submitted work for publication during their candidacy was undertaken. This multiple, explanatory case study investigated six recent Education HDR graduates who had submitted work to peer-reviewed outlets during their candidacy. The conceptual framework supported an analysis of the development of Education HDR student writing using Alexander's (2003, 2004) Model of Domain Learning which focuses on expertise, and Lave and Wenger's (1991) situated learning within a community of practice. Within this framework, the study investigated how these graduates were able to submit or publish their research despite their relative lack of writing expertise. Case data were gathered through interviews and from graduate publication records. Contextual data were collected through graduate interviews, from Faculty and university documents, and through interviews with two Education HDR supervisors. Directed content analysis was applied to all data to ascertain the support available in the research training environment. Thematic analysis of graduate and supervisor interviews was then undertaken to reveal further information on training opportunities accessed by the HDR graduates. Pattern matching of all interview transcripts provided information on how the HDR graduates developed writing expertise. Finally, explanation building was used to determine causal links between the training accessed by the graduates and their writing expertise. The results demonstrated that Education HDR graduates developed publications and some level of expertise simultaneously within communities of practice. Students were largely supported by supervisors who played a critical role. They facilitated communities of practice and largely mediated HDR engagement in other training opportunities. However, supervisor support alone did not ensure that the HDR graduates developed writing expertise. Graduates who appeared to develop the most expertise, and produce a number of publications reported experiencing both a sustained period of engagement within one community of practice, and participation in multiple communities of practice. The implications for the MDL theory, as applied to academic writing, suggests that communities of practice can assist learners to progress from initial contact with a new domain of interest through to competence. The implications for research training include the suggestion that supervisors as potentially crucial supporters of HDR student writing for publication should themselves be active publishers. Also, Faculty or university sponsorship of communities of practice focussed on HDR student writing for publication could provide effective support for the development of HDR student writing expertise and potentially increase the number of their peer-reviewed publications.

Early childhood Australia's Best of Sustainability : Research, Practice and Theory

ECA Best of Sustainability: Research, theory and practice by Elliott, Edwards, Davis and Cutter-MacKenzie collates a range of key articles focussing on sustainability from past editions of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood and Every Child. Sustainable service operation and promoting children’s responsibility and care for the environment are now part of the National Quality Standards and more importantly, all early childhood services must engage with sustainability in this time of increasing global environmental concerns. The publication documents the best of research, theory and practice to date and questions where has early childhood education for sustainability come from and more importantly, where is it going? There are multiple possibilities for educators, researchers, policy makers and managers to take action in early childhood settings for an environmentally sustainable future.

A state-wide systems approach to embedding the learning and teaching of sustainability in teacher education

Education systems have a key role to play in preparing future citizens to engage in sustainable living practices and help create a more sustainable world. Many schools throughout Australia have begun to develop whole-school approaches to sustainability education that are supported by national and state policies and curriculum frameworks. Preservice teacher education, however, lags behind in building the capacity of new teachers to initiate and implement such approaches (ARIES, 2010). This proposed project seeks to develop a state-wide systems approach to embedding Education for Sustainability (EfS) in teacher education that is aligned with the Australian National Curriculum and the aspirations for EfS in the Melbourne Declaration and other national documents. Representatives from all teacher education institutions and other agents of change in the Queensland education system will be engaged in a multilevel systems approach, involving collaboration at the state, institutional and course levels, to develop curriculum practices that reflect a shared vision of EfS.

The Gothenburg Recommendations on Education for Sustainable Development

This document calls on governments, civil society and in particular educators to prioritize processes that develop and strengthen education for sustainable development (ESD). The world has changed since the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. While there have been significant initiatives and progress has been made, the scale of effort is still overshadowed by the scope of the problem. For instance, human-induced climate change is creating a long-lasting ecological crisis with severe economic and social consequences. Recently the global economic crisis has drawn attention to the problem of borrowing from resources that do not exist. Poverty, conflict and social injustice remain critical issues on the global agenda. A renewed sense of commitment to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014 is required. Formal, informal and non-formal education and learning processes for sustainability must be strengthened and prioritized. This document supports and builds on the concepts and values that are put forward within UNESCO’s International Implementation Scheme for Education for Sustainable Development and in the Earth Charter. The purpose of ESD is to reorient education in order to contribute to a sustainable future for the common good of present and future generations. ESD recognizes the interdependence of environmental, social and economic perspectives and the dependence of humanity on a healthy biosphere. Participation and involvement are necessary components of ESD, with an emphasis on empowerment and agency for active citizenship, human rights and societal change. Re-orientation is necessary at all levels and in all phases of education, and encompasses community learning, thus making ESD a wider process challenging the form and purpose of education itself.

Early childhood education for sustainability : Queensland and Australian perspectives

Introduction Early childhood education for sustainability is an emerging field within education – a synthesis of early childhood education and education for sustainability. As a distinct field of educational inquiry and practice, it is less than 20 years old in Australia. My personal story is one that emerged from a background in primary school teaching where I worked in an Indigenous community teaching Aboriginal children. These experiences made me question the marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Australian society, the colonizing impacts of education, gave me deeper understandings of human-environment interactions, and the effects of poverty and powerlessness on options for Indigenous people both in Australia and elsewhere where peoples and their lands have been exploited. These teaching experiences took me back to university to undertake a degree in environmental studies to help me to better understand the nexus between society, environment and economy. Hence my background in education for sustainability comes as much from the social sciences as from the biological/ecological sciences...

Embedding EfS in teacher education : an introductory guide to using the systems change model

Welcome to this introductory guide on using a systems change model to embed Education for Sustainability (EfS) into teacher education. Pressing sustainability issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and depletion of non-renewable resources pose new challenges for education. The importance of education in preparing future citizens to engage in sustainable living practices and help create a more sustainable world is widely acknowledged. As a result many universities around the world are beginning to recognize the need to integrate EfS into their teacher education programs. However, evidence indicates that there is little or no core EfS knowledge or pedagogy in pre-service teacher courses available to student teachers in a thorough and systematic fashion. Instead efforts are fragmented and individually or, at best, institutionally-based and lacking a systems approach to change, an approach that is seen as essential to achieving a sustainable society (Henderson & Tilbury, 2004). The result is new teachers are graduating without the necessary knowledge or skills to teach in ways that enable them to prepare their students to cope well with the new and emerging challenges their communities face. This guide has been prepared as part of a teaching and learning research project that applied a systems change approach to embedding the learning and teaching of sustainability into pre-service teacher education. The processes, outcomes and lessons learnt from this project are presented here as a guide for navigating pathways to systemic change in the journey of re-orienting teacher education towards sustainability. The guide also highlights how a systems change approach can be used to successfully enact change within a teacher education system. If you are curious about how to introduce and embed EfS into teacher education – or have tried other models and are looking for a more encompassing, transformative approach – this guide is designed to help you. The material presented in this guide is designed to be flexible and adaptive. However you choose to use the content, our aim is to help you and your students develop new perspectives, promote discussion and to engage with a system-wide approach to change.

Ghost hunting with lollies, chess and Lego : appreciating the ‘messy’ complexity (and costs) of doing difficult research in education

This paper contributes to conversations about the funding and quality of education research. The paper proceeds in two parts. Part I sets the context by presenting an historical analysis of funding allocations made to Education research through the ARC’s Discovery projects scheme between the years 2002 and 2014, and compares these trends to allocations made to another field within the Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences assessment panel: Psychology and Cognitive Science. Part II highlights the consequences of underfunding education research by presenting evidence from an Australian Research Council Discovery project that is tracking the experiences of disaffected students who are referred to behaviour schools. The re-scoping decisions that became necessary and the incidental costs that accrue from complications that occur in the field are illustrated and discussed through vignettes of research with “ghosts” who don’t like school but who do like lollies, chess and Lego.

Fostering rapid transitions to education for sustainable development through a whole-system approach to curriculum and organizational change

Despite decades of attempts to embed sustainability within higher education, literature clearly suggests that highly regulated disciplines such as engineering have been relatively slow to incorporate sustainability knowledge and skill areas, and are generally poorly prepared to do so. With current efforts, it is plausible that sustainability could take another two decades to be embedded within the curriculum. Within this context, this paper presents a whole system approach to implement systematic, intentional and timely curriculum renewal that is responsive to emerging challenges and opportunities, encompassing curriculum and organizational change. The paper begins by considering the evolution of curriculum renewal processes, documenting a number of whole system considerations that have been empirically distilled from literature, case studies, pilot trials, and a series of workshops with built environment educators from around the world over the last decade. The paper outlines a whole-of-institution curriculum renewal approach to embedding sustainability knowledge and skills within the DNA of the institutional offerings. The paper concludes with a discussion of research and practice implications for the field of education research, within and beyond higher education.

Informing engineering education for sustainable development using a deliberative dynamic model for curriculum renewal

Literature from around the world clearly suggests that engineering education has been relatively slow to incorporate significant knowledge and skill areas, including the rapidly emerging area of sustainable development. Within this context, this paper presents the findings of research that questioned how engineering educators could consistently implement systematic and intentional curriculum renewal that is responsive to emerging engineering challenges and opportunities. The paper presents a number of elements of systematic and intentional curriculum renewal that have been empirically distilled from a qualitative multiple-method iterative research approach including literature review, narrative enquiry, pilot trials and peer-review workshops undertaken by the authors with engineering educators from around the world. The paper also presents new knowledge arising from the research, in the form of a new model that demonstrates a dynamic and deliberative mechanism for strategically accelerating for curriculum renewal efforts. Specifically the paper discusses implications of this model to achieve education for sustainable development, across all disciplines of engineering. It concludes with broader research and practice implications for the field of education research.