Open me when you feel it's necessary

In this work, purportedly the introduction to a conference workshop, the humanist teacher figure is absent and therefore flattened into the material landscape of the auditorium, which remains open to transformation; the “stage” merely contains an envelope, lamp-lit on a plastic chair, for participants to open if they wish, playing with learner/audience expectations and disrupting conventional ideas of what a conference presentation should be. This work seeks to move beyond merely interrogating designs for future subjects to ask how the pedagogical imagination works with both the material and immaterial, with ecologies continually transforming in the process of making as the audience participates in the unfolding performance. Through this, I have sought to explore ways to challenge delivery or conduit metaphors for education, and to resist stasis and closure.

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.

Beyond curriculum, technology and transformation for an unknown future: towards a holistic model for understanding student resilience in education

Many views of fostering student resilience come from the perspective of a set of individual student traits, skill sets, or the lack of ability to "tough it out", rather than viewing resilience as a holistic entity which involves relationships, community and context. This belief, in turn, disconnects learners from the socio-cultural context in which their learning experience is embedded. These factors can play an equally pivotal role on participation and learning outcomes. This poster proposes a holistic model for understanding student resilience in a time of rapid change in education.

'A chart for further exploration and a kind of rallying call': James Moffett and english curriculum history in Victoria

Both James Britton and James Moffett were keynote speakers at the Sydney International Federation for the Teaching of English conference in 1980 - a fact reflective of the wide recognition and acceptance of their work and influence throughout Australia by that time. In Victoria, Moffett's writings became known initially through teacher education, in particular at the University of Melbourne and the State College of Victoria, Rusden, then through the visits and writing of figures from the London Institute and others, and through the State and national English teaching association, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English. In the 1970s, Moffett's influence in Victoria came rather through the mix of his vision and writing, both theoretical and practical, in conjunction with others in Australia and elsewhere. This paper takes two separate but related sites or moments in English education in the 1970s in the Australian city of Melbourne, Victoria, as instances of the permeating influence of Moffett's work - in conjunction with leading figures from the London School associated with the 'New' English' - on education discourses and practice in that State's English curriculum history. It concludes with a consideration of the ways in which Moffett's work might still act as a 'rallying call' today.

Curriculum as colour and curves: a synthesis of Black theory, design and creativity realised as critical curriculum writing

This article looks to three inspirational Black women, bell hooks, Stacey McBride-Irby and Patricia Williams, in the pursuit of radical curriculum. While today curriculum is critiqued as racialised, gendered, sexualised and classed, the formats of curriculum documents such as text books, units of work and lesson plans have changed little. These documents are often conceived as linear sequences of steps leading to outcomes, and their voices are distanced and ‘neutral’. Drawing on a doctoral study of curriculum design in Australia, this article embraces a different approach by opening up a unit of work on girls’ popular culture to hooks’ invocations to teach to transgress, so that curriculum might be experienced as colour and curves, rather than a monochrome route to a pre-determined end point. Through this, along with hooks, I invite teachers to live pedagogy, rather than to deliver it.

Curriculum as colour and curves: a synthesis of black theory, design and creativity realised as critical curriculum writing

This article looks to three inspirational Black women, bell hooks, Stacey McBride-Irby and Patricia Williams, in the pursuit of radical curriculum. While today curriculum is critiqued as racialized, gendered, sexualised and classed, the formats of curriculum documents such as text books, units of work and lesson plans have changed little. These documents are often conceived as linear sequences of steps leading to outcomes, and their voices are distanced and “neutral”. Drawing on a doctoral study of curriculum design in Australia, this article embraces a different approach by opening up a unit of work on girls’ popular culture to hooks’ invocations to teach to transgress, so that curriculum might be experienced as colour and curves, rather than a monochrome route to a pre-determined end point. Through this, along with hooks, I invite teachers to live pedagogy, rather than to deliver it.

Gender justice and the English citizenship curriculum: a consideration of post-September 11 national imperatives and issues of 'Britishness'

Although much contention has surrounded the introduction of the English citizenship curriculum, its political agenda clearly reflects a transformative approach to issues of justice and equity. In light of this agenda, this article supports feminist work in further problematizing the curriculum's silence around relations of gender and citizenship. It extends this work by exploring the implications of such silence within the context of the contemporary post-September 11 climate, where discourses around security and militarism have amplified social/gender inequities worldwide while further reducing the spaces available for active social and political engagement toward the "common good." In the U.K. context, these trends are considered in light of the recent high-profile political debate around the issue of Britishness. Here, concern is expressed about how superficial engagement with this debate may be mobilized in exclusionary ways that do little to militate against the masculinist framings of the citizenship curriculum. Conversely, critical engagement in debates around British national identity are also presented as being potentially generative in terms of their capacity to strengthen the discourse of ideal citizenship in the United Kingdom in ways that foster a more critical and gender-just approach to citizenship education.

Investigating ‘moments’ for student agency through a differentiated music curriculum

Research provides compelling evidence linking music-making to academic achievement and increased wellbeing for disengaged students. However, in the Australian context, education policy has narrowed its focus to literacy and numeracy, with an associated ‘accountability’ framework of mandated assessment and reporting practices. Within this context teachers are being asked to demonstrate how, through their pedagogical practices, they meet the needs of all their students. As a result of this, differentiation has become the lens through which student learning and engagement are being monitored. Drawing on data from a large state secondary school, this paper examines how a differentiated music curriculum is being implemented to support student agency. We demonstrate that, through a range of formal and informal music programs, agency is enhanced through the development of self-reflexive and self-referential learning practices. However, we suggest that differentiation, alone, does not unmask the reasons behind students’ different learning experiences nor does it necessarily redress entrenched educational inequalities. We also suggest that the ‘moments’ for student agency, created by these music programs, may have as much to do with the ‘fragile’ position of music within the broader school curriculum where the spotlight of high-stakes testing is directed elsewhere.

Engineering fundamentals in a new undergraduate curriculum

CONTEXTIn recent years there has been a push in Engineering education to change the basic model fromstudents learning discrete subjects, followed by design projects in third and fourth year, to learningand practicing the design process from the first year. At the same time, there has also been a pushtowards “active learning” (Prince, 2004) as opposed to the more traditional lecture/tutorial/practicalapproach. This year, Deakin University has launched a new design-centred curriculum inundergraduate engineering. Named “Project-Oriented Design-Based Learning” (PODBL), the newcourse structure is running in first and second years. In semester one of first year in the new course,students enrol in one double-unit of design, one unit of maths, and one unit of fundamental science.PURPOSEThis work seeks to determine whether a new fundamental-science unit called “EngineeringFundamentals” fulfils the educational needs of first-year students in the PODBL curriculum. It alsoseeks to determine student perceptions of the new unit.APPROACHThe unit was first offered in semester-one, 2016 to two separate on-campus cohorts and an offcampuscohort. Innovations in this unit include using the CADET model for teaching combinedpractical-tutorial seminars, a shift in lectures from delivering conceptual content to teaching problemsolving and applications (flipping the classroom), and extensive use of online videos and study guidesfor delivering primary content (Cloud Learning). Student learning was assessed by means of problembasedonline quizzes, practical reports, and a final exam. Student perceptions were queried by astandard unit-evaluation system and by a more focussed set of surveys given to students in threeseparate cohorts.RESULTSThe academic results in this unit were compared with those in the previous unit. No substantialdifferences were observed in the marks of this unit in 2016 compared with the 2015 marks of thecorresponding previous physics unit. On-campus students showed more general satisfaction with theunit than did off-campus students. However, not all on-campus students were happy with the flippedclassroommodel.CONCLUSIONSAs the course changes from a traditional approach to a design and project-based approach, it is best ifall units in the course adapt in some way to the new teaching style. Not all units need be completelyproject or design based. In the case of “Engineering Fundamentals,” we believe that due to the widevariety of topics covered, making the entire unit design-based is inappropriate. However, some designand project components can be built into the unit via the practicals. Semester one 2016 was asuccessful first offering of the unit. We recommend that in future years a design/project component beconsidered for the unit’s practicals.

Prioritizing social and moral learning amid conservative curriculum trends: spaces of possibility

Conservative trends across western schooling contexts are signalling an explicit devaluing of social and moral learning within their official curriculum mandates. These mandates are increasingly privileging the ‘academic rigour’ of traditional subject disciplines. This paper draws on interview and observation data from a case study of a large and highly diverse English secondary school to explore this school’s prioritizing of social and moral learning. Such prioritizing is supported at this school by its ‘Academy’ status—which in the English context allows schools a measure of freedom over curriculum as part of broader government moves to increase school autonomy. The paper’s focus is on how these conservative trends are understood and disrupted to support a critical view of existing curriculum and a desire to modify and re-shape it to support more relevant and connected learning for students. The paper describes particular examples of practice at the school in the areas of Citizenship and Religious Education to illustrate this approach. Engaging with social and moral learning along these lines is argued as productive in working within and against the constraints of current conservative curriculum priorities.

Engaging the ‘maximal’ intentions of the citizenship curriculum: one teacher’s story

Exploring how the transformative intentions within the mandated citizenship curriculum framework for English schools demand a particular kind of citizenship teacher – one who ‘acts against the grain’ of the inequities and injustices of the social world – this paper presents Mr C's story. Mr C is a secondary teacher at an Upper School located north of London. The paper considers the significance of his philosophies and knowledge in enabling practice aimed at developing students' socially inclusive but critical understandings of diversity and difference. Mr C's well‐defined personal philosophies about justice and the ‘common good’ and his capacity to translate these philosophies into practice are presented as central to mobilising the transformative or ‘maximal’ intentions of the citizenship curriculum. In highlighting the complexities and sophistication in Mr C's approach, however, the issues presented in this paper further strengthen the critique regarding the curriculum's depoliticised approach. While Mr C draws on the curriculum as a political device to support equity goals, it cannot be assumed that citizenship teachers more generally will have the requisite philosophies and knowledge necessary to do so.