Fair game or no contest: contested identities in initial teacher education

The narrative of one ethnic minority early childhood student teacher tells of her journey as she (re)constructs her identities as a Cook Island woman and as a pre-service teacher, during a teacher education course in New Zealand. This story conveys her experiences of learning across different pedagogical paradigms. Findings show that teacher education lecturers can significantly enhance the learning experience for ethnic minority pre-service teachers by incorporating existing knowledges and understandings in course content and delivery.

Opportunities and challenges : preparing generalist teacher education students in music education in Australia

The Australian Curriculum ‘the Arts’ will be implemented across Australia from 2014. This curriculum is expected to replace existing State and Territory curricula where educators are given the opportunity to review, renew, and refresh their practice. Music tertiary educators are faced with opportunities and challenges to effectively prepare and engage pre-service teachers (PSTs) as generalist classroom teachers. This paper focuses on PSTs within the Bachelor of Primary Education course at Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia). Within this course PSTs undertake two Arts units as generalist teachers, in Trimester one where they are introduced to music elements and creative music making. In Trimester two they focus on pedagogical issues and classroom implementation. In 2013, I gained ethical permission to undertake a research project titled “Pre-service teacher attitudes and understandings of Music Education”. This case study draws on semi-structured interview data with music lecturers who taught in Trimester two at Deakin University in 2013 (10 x 3 hour workshops). Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis I analyzed and codified the interview data and report on two themes: ways of teaching and creative music making. This paper also highlights the challenges and opportunities sessional staff face when preparing PSTs in music education as generalist teachers.

Then and now: developing capacity and transforming pedagogy in online pre-service teacher education

The aim of the study reported in this paper was to evaluate the perceived benefit of video-recorded interviews as an alternative to the traditional lecture format in pre-service teacher education programs. Pre-service teachers traditionally struggle with the gap that they perceive exists between the theories taught at university and the practical competencies they require as teachers in primary and secondary school contexts. Additionally, they report that the shift from face-to-face to online delivery of course content, rapidly being adopted in the tertiary environment, seems to have often been made without associated shifts in format and pedagogy.

In the previously mentioned study, participants were drawn from cohorts of more than 300 pre-service teachers enrolled in an inclusive Education course in the Faculty of Education of an urban Australian university. The course was delivered both online and face-to-face on three campuses of the university to students in three different Education programs. In order to provide an alternative to the traditional lecture format, the developer of this course initiated and created video-recorded interview dialogues which were subsequently uploaded into the Faculty’s Learning Management System for student access. The interviews, conducted by the Course Coordinator, were held with a number of professionals with field experience relevant to key concepts of the course.

Data were collected from Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning (SETL) questionnaires. The questionnaires were designed to gather both quantitative and qualitative data from the pre-service teachers about the extent to which the use of video-recorded interview dialogues enhanced their learning. In particular the questionnaires sought to ascertain whether, in the views of the pre-service teachers, this delivery method, first, engaged and interested them, and, second, assisted their learning through linking theory to practice. This paper provides a synthesis of the study’s findings and explores their implications for the delivery of learning experiences in both the online and on-campus modes of pre-service teacher education programs. A focus is placed on how video-recorded interviews can be used to enhance resource accessibility and to increase pre-service teachers’ engagement and learning in coursework.

Engineering Distance Education at Deakin University Australia

Increasing numbers of engineering departments are interested in offering their programs by distanceeducation. These schools grabble with several difficulties and issues associated with distance education:course structure, communication with students, delivery of course material, delivery of exams,accreditation, equity between on-campus and off-campus students, and especially the delivery ofpractical training.In the early 1990’s, Deakin University faced these same problems when it commenced teachingundergraduate engineering by distance education. It now offers a full Bachelor of Engineering degreein both on-campus and off-campus mode, with majors that include civil, mechanical,electrical/electronics, and mechatronics. Student cohorts are approximately 72% on-campus, 28% offcampus.Accredited by Engineers Australia and part of the Washington Accord, Deakin has adapted toadvances in communications technology and changes in education design. The future direction of theSchool includes an emphasis on design-oriented, project-based learning and “flipping the classroom”.As a result, differences between the more traditional off-campus and on-campus cohorts are becomingincreasingly blurred.

Changes, challenges, and successes facing secondary pre-service teacher education in Australia

In December 2008, the Australian Government was presented with a report from a Review of Australian HigherEducation known as the ‘Bradley Review’. The report clearly articulates many challenges that lie ahead; it questions thestructure, organisation and financial position of Australia to effectively compete in the global economy. This paperprovides a succinct discussion of some of the challenges and dilemmas encountered at a metropolitan Australianuniversity in Melbourne within the Faculty of Arts and Education in the School of Education. The courses will bereaccredited in 2016 and has to comply with the new Australian Qualification Framework (AQF), the AustralianTeaching Standards Framework (AITSL) and the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT). By employing narrative inquiry,reflective practice and document analysis as methodology, I discuss the Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary)/Bachelor ofArts course (degree), the largest secondary pre-service teacher education course at a university in Melbourne presentingsome strategies and inviting international dialogue in relation to some of the challenges faced regarding increasednumbers of students and lower entrance scores. Limitations of the current course are acknowledged and generalizationscannot be made to other education courses at universities across Australia. However, some new initiatives in the facultyare offered.

Incorporating new technology into the delivery of property education

Property education has changed substantially in Australia in recent years. Whilst there has been an increase in the number of courses being offered in property education, the profile of a typical student has also changed. Property students are under increasing pressure to balance study and work due to the higher cost of living and the associated cost of education. This in turn has placed pressure on the education system to deliver property in a manner which meets the needs of the industry and the students. At the same time, there has been a marked increase in the use of technology in the business and corporate world which has resulted in increased efficiencies. This paper critiques the potential for a property education course to embrace new technology rather than 100% face-to-face teaching and only paper-based assignments. The focus is placed on the delivery of material and the interaction between the students, the lecturing staff and the wider community. Using the new Deakin property course as a case study approach, the emphasis is placed on pushing the boundaries of the conventional property education process, including the delivery of property lectures, assignment submission and assessment, as well as the overall communication process. The findings conclude that by embracing technology in a property course, there can be a 'win-win' scenario for the students, the staff and the industry stakeholders. Whilst different property courses embrace varying levels of technology, it seems inevitable that we must continue to evolve the delivery of property education in order to become efficient and effective over the long-term.

Becoming a 21st century literacy teacher:provocations, perceptions and possibilities in teacher education

This paper reports on a study that investigated pre-service teachers’ digital funds of knowledge and their perceptions of the digital pedagogies and practices in early years literacy classrooms. It also explores pre-service teachers’ experiences of “produsing” a cumulative multimodal portfolio (in the form of a wiki) and its application for future literacy teaching and learning. Specifically, 123 education students enrolled in their second year of an undergraduate initial-teacher education course at an Australian university completed an anonymous survey. The resultsshow that this group of students were active users of technology-based tools, but had limited experience with using participatory user-led knowledge creation tools (such as Web 2.0 technologies) although many observed the use of these tools in early years literacy classrooms while on professional experience school placements. Further findings show thatalthough the majority of this group of pre-service teachers felt more confident after creating a wiki and reported that they would use them in future literacy teaching and learning, their understandings of the pedagogical and creative potential of these digital tools in supporting literacy learning in young children appeared limited. The findings suggest that there is a need for educators in higher education to understand their students’ digital funds of knowledge and to provide rich opportunities to support these students’ use and understandings of the affordances of these new technologies as vehicles to explore and enrich 21st century literacy learning in early years digital environments.

Inquiry-based learning in teacher education: a primary humanities example

Inquiry-based learning features strongly in the new Australian Humanities and Social Sciences curriculum and increasingly in primary school practice. Yet, there is little research into, and few exemplars of, inquiry approaches in the primary humanities context. In this article, we outline and explain the implementation of a place-based simulation as a vehicle for inquiry in a humanities subject in a teacher education course. Preliminary findings of surveys of pre-service teachers conducted pre and post the implementation of the inquiry model suggest increased engagement and enhanced learning outcomes. Further analysis is required in order to determine the depth of pre-service teachers’ understanding of inquiry approaches.

Students' imaginings of spaces of learning in outdoor and environmental education

In this article, the author interrogates students’ stories about the spaces and places in a tertiary Outdoor and Environmental Education course that support and shape their environmental ethics. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study, she explore the ways in which particular sites of learning (outdoor, practical learning) are privileged and how particular stories of outdoor spaces get reproduced. The author employs the work of poststructuralist geography scholar Doreen Massey in her analysis to highlight the intersections between space, relations of power and identity. This analysis also underscores the simultaneity of multiple and conflicting stories around Outdoor Education’s outdoor (practical) and indoor (theoretical) learning spaces. The article concludes by drawing on Elizabeth Ellsworth’s work on anomalous places of learning to explore some of the spaces in-between the indoor/outdoor binary as a way of interrupting and re-imagining places and spaces of learning in Outdoor Education.

Composing, performing, and reflecting: teaching and learning in higher education

This case study adds to a growing body of literature that focuses on preparing generalist teachers in music education for the primary classroom. As part of my wider research on “Pre-service teacher attitudes and understandings of Music Education,” this paper situates itself within the Bachelor of Education (Primary) teacher education course at a university in Melbourne (Australia). Drawing on student questionnaire data, observation notes, and anecdotal feedback gathered in May 2015, I discuss student understandings and perceptions of music teaching and learning in a core unit (Primary Arts Education: Music Focused Study). This paper highlights the opportunity and challenges of music composition and performance as a group assessment task. The findings show that student confidence and competence improved through the creative music process. It can be argued that music teaching and learning in a pre-service teacher context is most effective when composition, performance, listening, and reflection are interconnected. Follow up research need to be undertaken in relation to how students use songs and group work to foster creativity in their future classrooms. Limitations of the study are acknowledged and generalizations cannot be made to other pre-service teacher courses in Australia

Locating non-western enlightenment texts for a global curriculum

The context of this paper is a university-based teacher education course in Melbourne, Australia. The assumption underpinning the course is that it is crucial for trainee teachers to examine the lenses they typically use in terms of common-sense understandings of children and adolescents. We point to the 18th century Western enlightenment period as the source of this thinking. I argue that it is important to be aware of other enlightenments that have shaped the traditions of students in our multicultural mix. In this paper, I explore the writings of the Mahabharata and other early Indian texts to see how they have also influenced ways of thinking about childhood and adolescence. Data for this paper have been drawn from course materials, student responses, translations of early Indian texts and popular stories depicting childhood and adolescence.

Encouraging the reflection process in undergraduate teachers using guided reflection

This article reports on the findings of a study conducted with a group of early childhood education undergraduate students from the second year of the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education course offered at the University of Melbourne. The study trialled a number of guided reflection techniques that acted to stimulate and provide a structure for reflection. These techniques were further supplemented by focus group discussions based on reflective principles, in the hope of fully engaging the students in the reflective process over the course of a year. All techniques were designed to assist the student teachers in becoming aware of the current philosophy they hold in relation to teaching and learning, and also in understanding how this has been shaped by past experiences, beliefs and knowledge. The effectiveness of the guided reflection techniques was evaluated by the participants at the end of the project. The surveys showed that three of the techniques were particularly successful. Student perceptions as to the success of the process are reported in the article.

Designing open-ended problems to challenge preservice teachers' views on mathematics and pedagogy

This study examines preservice elementary teachers' reported experiences of posing open-ended mathematics problems. Responses of 33 students in a mathematics teacher education course were analysed for the strategies participants used, what they learned and the challenges encountered from an opportunity to collect digital images and pose open-ended problems related to those images. Results indicate that preservice teachers reported a shift in the ways they viewed mathematics and how it might be taught. The school curriculum both constrained and provided possibilities for preservice teachers in noticing mathematics beyond the textbook and mathematics classroom. This study adds to our understanding of teaching as a learning practice and the art of posing mathematical problems as a significant aspect of that practice.

Designing problems : what kinds of open-ended problems do preservice teachers pose?

This paper describes preservice teachers' reported experience of problem posing based on self-selected original digital images. The 176 participants from Australia and Canada designed open-ended problems as part of their mathematics education course. Their 444 problems and accompanying photos have been analysed lo explore the types of problems posed and the focus of the mathematical connections. Findings indicate that preservice teachers are challenged when posing open-ended problems however, this process enables them to develop strategies for problem posing and to become more critically aware of the mathematical potential within their environment.

The impact of learning in the workplace policy on differing ICT degrees

At Victoria University, the release of a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy has been introduced to ensure that graduates are job and career ready. The policy underlines the importance of workplace contextual learning in all course deliveries and is scheduled for progressive implementation by 2010. For each degree, the policy mandates that a minimum of 25% of program content and assessment must be related to work integrated learning.

Compliance with the 25% shift poses significant challenges for its implementation upon all undergraduate programs since the policy is expected to impact upon program structures, unit deliveries, assessment practices, and course administrations. In particular, there has been an extensive review of existing approaches to learning and teaching in the programs that deliver information and communications technology (ICT) degrees across business and science faculties. This paper describes the current Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Business in Information Systems programs identifying similarities and differences between the two offerings with respect to their learning in workplace components. It explores possible synergies between the two programs that could be capitalized upon to implement the LiWC policy and details the challenges to both faculties in mounting a coordinated response.