Teaching about the Holocaust : essays by college and university teachers

This collection of fourteen essays by renowned scholars in the field of Holocaust studies seeks to reflect on the experience of teaching and researching this complicated and emotional topic. Contained within are the pioneering stories of those presently engaged in the work of Holocaust education. Separately, they represent a variety of disciplines and orientations. Collectively, they give evidence of the strong commitment to continue this important work, and the moral and ethical demands such teaching, writing, and research place upon all who engage in it. Different perspectives from historical, philosophical, and religious frameworks come together to create a unique contribution to the literature on the Holocaust. Educators discuss what they teach, their methodologies and theoretical orientations and reflect on their own journeys that brought them to this field. The unique nature of these stories bring needed background to the field of Holocaust studies and also serve to inspire others to enlarge their thinking and understanding of previous work on this topic. The stories of these committed Holocaust educators will serve to inspire a new generation of thinkers, writers, and activists to engage in such work. In reading their stories, their collective commitment to make a difference today and tomorrow shines through. This volume will be a valuable resource for courses in the Holocaust, contemporary post-Holocaust realities, as well as courses in genocide. Scholars and anyone with an interest in enriching their understanding of the Holocaust will find much within to inspire them and provoke new ideas.

Social networking and teaching : an Australian case study

In recent years, the Internet has impacted all aspects of modern society. We have now seen the phenomenon of social networking and the impact that this had upon all aspects of modern society including higher education. An issue is how can these social networking technologies relate to tertiary education and how can they be used in this educational context. This paper is based on two case studies which were conducted at an Australian University into the usage of two social networking systems in a teaching environment. The results of these case studies were assessed using a socio-technical framework.

A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms

This presentation reports on the methodological issues confronting an Australian-German-Taiwanese team planning comparative video ethnographic research into primary science classrooms. The issues that will be canvassed include: the benefits of cross-cultural comparisons in providing perspectives on local practice, the theoretical justifications of such comparisons, selection of cases for comparison and possibilities for claiming cultural representativeness, the planning of appropriate data sets, the different comparative stories offered by different analytical frames, practical issues of communication and data sharing, and issues of entanglement of language and culture in the analysis.

Relationships between civil engineering students’ learning approaches and their perception of curriculum and teaching quality

BACKGROUND: Deakin University graduated its first cohort from four-year undergraduate civil engineering course/program in 2012. The internal annual Course Experience Survey, which has been running annually since 2012, targets to identify the graduating students’ learning approaches and students’ perceptions of the curriculum and teaching quality. Literature suggests that students’ learning outcomes can be achieved more efficiently when the students’ perceptions of curriculum and teaching quality are closely aligned with their learning approaches. Where the students’ approaches to learning and their perception of curriculum and teaching quality are mismatched, a series of frustrations can result for the students that may not only negatively impact their learning achievement but also their learning experience.
PURPOSE OR GOAL: This study explores the relationships between students’ learning approaches and their perception of curriculum and teaching quality in an undergraduate civil engineering program/course. This will help understand whether the curriculum and teaching quality provided by the university have actually accommodated ‘all’ enrolled students in the similar way.
APPROACH: To uncover these relationships, this study adopts questionnaire survey approach to collect response data over a two year period by asking students about their perception through a series of statements. 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire survey (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) is developed and responses are collected. The responses are then statistically analysed in order to uncover the relationships between students’ learning approaches and their perception of curriculum and teaching quality provided by the university.
DISCUSSION: Deep learners and surface learners had a statistically different perception of curriculum and teaching quality. These results contradict the assumption that learners will have uniform preferences on the curriculum, teaching quality and the way they deal with the demands of specific learning situations. Anecdotal belief that ‘good course/program curriculum and good teaching approaches are good for all students and vice-versa’ may not be strictly true for contemporary heterogeneous student cohorts.
RECOMMENDATIONS/IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSION: This finding highlights the challenge for curriculum designer to design appropriate course curriculum and teaching staff to implement efficient teaching strategies that benefit both surface and deep learners, who are usually enrolled together. It may be beneficial to provide diversity and flexibility in the curriculum and teaching approaches (rather than a uniform approach). However, this may demand additional resources and may also be questioned for equity and consistency of education. It is also important to note that due to relatively a small dataset, these results may not be generalised.

Fostering cultural diversity in Australia: a case study of teaching, learning and assessing African musical arts

Australia is forged by ongoing migration welcoming a range of cultures, languages and ethnicities thus celebrating a diverse range of musical arts. In this multicultural society, music and dance may serve as a positive medium to transmit and promote social cohesion. I argue that the inclusion of innovative and immersive practice of African music in particular where authentic teaching and learning is facilitated may help foster understandings of culture in educational settings and the wider society. As a migrant forming part of the African Diaspora in Melbourne, I am strongly connected to my ancestral homeland (South Africa) when teaching African music to Australian tertiary students. Having gained ethical clearance to undertake the two research projects at Deakin University in Melbourne (Attitudes and perceptions of Arts Education Students: preparing culturally responsive teachers and Pre-service teacher attitudes and understandings of Music Education), I discuss tertiary students experience in relation to the teaching and learning of African music within higher education courses. Drawing on interview, questionnaire, observation notes, anecdotal feedback and narrative reflection, I employ Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to analyse and code the data into themes. By offering a discussion of assessment and evaluation, I explore and invite international dialogue in regards to how best we can prepare, assess and evaluate our students to improve the quality of musical arts education.

It makes you realize, really, just how deep your subtext is : Literature, subjectivity and curriculum change

This paper draws on the notion of discourse to explore complex relationships between teachers and curriculum change. It uses poststructuralist views of discourse to explore ways in which school subjects, such as Literature, are discursively constructed across time, while teachers too are positioned within discourses that shape the ways they understand the subject and themselves as teachers of it. This paper reports on the experience of a small group of teachers of a new literature course in the Australian state of Victoria. Nine teachers were interviewed over 3 years, and the interview transcripts read for traces of discourses formative in shaping their response to the new course. I identified three discourses: Leavisite and New Critical formations of the subject Literature; charismatic pedagogy; and critical theory, which was embodied in the new subject's study design. These 3 discourses, together with the traditions and culture of the school, form the framework for analysis of the interviews. The paper explores ways in which the teachers' positioning within this mix of discourses and settings variously supported or undermined their preparedness to accept new configurations of the subject Literature as well as the implications of curriculum change not just for constructions of the subject but also for teacher subjectivity.

A review of strategic issues in using the internet for teaching and learning

In 1998 the author published a paper entitled ‘Current Issues and limitations in using the Internet for Teaching and Learning’ [1] that acknowledged the new educational possibilities provided by the Internet, while at the same time sought to identify the limitations and related issues of going on-line in education. As predicted, the passage of time and the advancement of technology have ameliorated many of the identified limitations, and, have brought new issues to the fore. This paper re-visits the area of important strategic issues in using the Internet for education, giving an overview of equity and access, infrastructure and costs, copyright and plagiarism, content development, libraries and on-line information access, and other strategic issues. As in the earlier paper, this paper draws on the experiences of the author in conventional and off-campus university teaching in engineering.

Authenticity in assessment : reflecting undergraduate study and professional practice

The literature suggests that assessment is a powerful tool for influencing student study habits. It is also recognized that there is a tension between traditional forms of assessment and newer forms of assessment that offer a more authentic representation of practice, but are more complex and expensive to administer. The international trend in undergraduate engineering course accreditation to move to demonstration of attainment of graduate attributes poses new challenges in assessment of learning. A case study based on integrating assessment practices across the year levels of an engineering management studies stream in an undergraduate course is presented. Key features of the assessment portfolio include: the use of assessment in the first year as a foundational tool to establish student study habits and skills; the evolution of assessment tasks by the fourth year to reflect the world of professional practice and to allow students to demonstrate their integration of knowledge and skills; the weighting of assessment tasks to indicate the value attached to particular tasks; the structured inclusion of group work; a concern for student and staff workloads; the recognition of student diversity, in particular the needs of off-campus and mature-age students; and the matching of assessment tasks to professional accreditation requirements.

Individual and organisational factors influencing academics` decisions to pursue the scholarship and teaching of ICT

This paper focuses on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) academics' perceptions of factors that promote and inhibit their pursuit of scholarship in their teaching work. It identifies critical factors that influence academics' attitudes, orientations and behaviours in respect to the scholarship of teaching, and from these builds a framework for understanding the interaction between these factors. We have named this framework the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

During 2001 and 2002 a national project investigated teaching and learning initiatives in the major discipline of lCT in Australia's universities. As part of this project a mini-conference program was devised to elicit academics' perceptions of the factors influencing their teaching work and their participation in scholarly activities around this work. In total 83 ICT teachers from 29 universities participated in the mini-conference program. Attendees included staff members from a range of academic levels.

In discussions of aspects of the scholarship of teaching at the mini-conference participants referred to both attributes and responses of both university teachers and the university institutions. We have categorized these factors into those that relate to the individual academic (Individual domain) and those that relate to the tertiary institutional system (Organisational domain). Many contributions highlighted the interaction between these two domains.

Within the Individual domain, two key factors described by participants as affecting the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching were teachers' motivation towards, and their capabilities in, scholarly activities surrounding their teaching. Within the organizational domain two influential factors also emerged. These were the organizational support provided through allocation of resources and symbolic support reflected in an institution's systems, policies and processes.

Our findings indicate that both the Individual and Organizational domains contribute to university teachers' decisions to pursue (or not to pursue) the scholarship of teaching.

These two domains were seen by participants to interact within university environments to influence whether a particular environment is supportive or unsupportive in terms of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Factors both from and within the individual and the organizational domains were seen to interact with each other forming a web of interrelated factors that appear to influence individuals' decisions to pursue, or not to pursue, the scholarship of teaching. From this complexity four theoretical extremes emerged providing the dimensions and components of the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

We argue that responsive and innovative approaches to university teaching are best supported by academics undertaking scholarly activities around their teaching work, yet this article presents a picture of a university work environment where scholarly activities that focus on teaching and learning are seen as generally unsupported and unrewarded. This perception was identified as commonalities across a university system. Although some exceptions were noted, participants generally agreed that the organisational domain of Australian universities was largely unsupportive of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Similarly, in general, university ICT teachers were not thought to have the backgrounds and capabilities necessary for pursuing the scholarship of teaching, such as familiarity with literature on teaching and learning and skills in educational evaluation. However, despite perceived inhibitors in universities' organisational culture and allocation of resources, and a perceived lack in individuals' skills, participants agreed that scholarly activities and innovation in university teaching and learning do take place, These are largely driven by the intrinsic motivation of individuals. It was recognised that further work is necessary to explore how motivation can be engendered and encouraged.

The Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework is a useful tool for examining how conducive a given university teaching context is to the scholarship of teaching and, therefore, can be used for review purposes within both research and policy contexts. Such tools will become increasingly important as policy changes begin to affect practices in how university teaching work is managed, supported and encouraged.

Social justice and the study and practice of leadership in education : a feminist history

This historical sociology deconstructs the interrelationship between the theory and practice of the troublesome notions of leadership, social justice and feminism. First, it tracks marginalised groups' relationship to the field of educational administration and their claims upon the state. Mainstream approaches have been informed by theories, practices and politics that do not focus on the core educational work of teaching and learning, therefore sidelining social justice issues. Second, it maps feminist and critical theorists' alternative conceptualisations, for example, of democratic leadership, which dissolve artificial binaries between formal and informal leadership. Finally, it considers what this means for re-theorising leadership for social justice.

Learning and teaching assessment: reviewing the evidence

The authors have recently completed a research review on learning and teaching of assessment in social work which was commissioned by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and the Social Policy and Social Work Learning and Teaching Support Network (SWAPltsn) to support the development of the new social work award in England. This involved reviewing relevant literature from social work and cognate disciplines back to 1990 with the aim of identifying best practice in learning and teaching of assessment skills.

Although assessment has been recognised as a core skill in social work and should underpin social work interventions, there is no singular theory or understanding as to what the purpose of assessment is and what the process should entail. Social work involvement in the assessment process may include establishing need or eligibility for services, to seek evidence of past events or to determine likelihood of future danger, may underpin recommendations to other agencies, or may determine the suitability of other service providers. In some settings assessment is considered to begin from the first point of contact and may be a relatively short process, whereas elsewhere it may be a process involving several client contacts over an extended period of time. The assessment process may range from the collection of data on standardised proforma to a flexible approach depending on circumstances. These variations permeate the literature on the learning and teaching of assessment in social work and cognate disciplines.

Several different approaches to classroom based learning were proposed in the literature including case-based teaching, interviews with actors who have been trained to play 'standardised clients', and observation of children and families, as well as didactic lecturing and various uses of video equipment and computers. Furthermore learning by doing has long been one of the hallmarks of social work education, and there are a number of models proposed in which students learn about the assessment process through conducting assessments. The evidence to support these different approaches to learning and teaching is variable. Based on the evidence reviewed, recommendations as to what is good practice in learning and teaching about assessment will be presented.

Musical arts education in Africa : differentiation, integration and disassociation

By discussing the future challenges to musical arts education in Africa in which local cultural practices are valued, the differences of those historically marginalised by virtue of gender, race, ethnicity, and class, are celebrated. In Africa, musical arts education and culture are regarded as an integral part of our life, which not only embraces the spiritual, material and intellectual aspects of our society, but also contributes greatly toward our emotional development. This affirms the integrity and importance of various forms of 'Art' including literature, technology, design, dance, drama, music, visual art, media and communication.

This paper will discuss the future of African musical arts education programmes through the dynamic cycle of differentiation, integration and disassociation. The authors will consider the concept of ‘differentiation’, ‘integration’ and ‘disassociation’ within musical arts practice. An analysis of selected international arts education programmes provides a globally differentiated perspective through a discipline-based approach. In the African context, arts education programmes are located within an integrated approach. The structure of a Music Action Research Team (MAT cell) in Southern African Developing Community (SADC) countries will be highlighted as a means to address disassociation through the active engagement of professional development programmes offered by the Centre for Indigenous African Instrumental Music and Dance (CIIMDA).