Novices no longer : computer education for rural adults

This paper reports on "Introduction to Computer" classes conducted in Ballarat, Victoria as part of Adult Learners' Week, 2002. It outlines the background to the classes, topics covered, participants' reflections and further actions taken. The paper reveals the social and learning outcomes experienced by adults who participated in the computer classes. In addition, it explains the role of Graduate Diploma, Secondary, Information Technology Education students in planning and evaluating their teaching practice.

English education for international students in local schools : practices of inclusion and discourses of exclusion

This paper is concerned with the ways secondary teachers in Victoria, Australia, speak about inclusive education for international students. Preliminary analysis of recent research shows teachers understand that English language teaching is crucial and are committed to its good practice. Nevertheless, further analysis suggests teacher approaches to education are contested, support a deficit view of teaching practice, and simplify notions of language and culture to their discrete and systemic characteristics vis-a-vis their embodied and ontological aspects. Even as teachers work to include all of their students, their efforts are mediated by discourses that negotiate the nexus between identity and difference, language and culture, and English language education. Together these discourses work to inscribe international students differently within the community, redefine the education provided to them, and constrain their access to contemporary and globalized life-worlds.

Deepening the mathematical knowledge of secondary mathematics teachers who lack tertiary mathematics qualifications

A professional learning program for unqualified practising secondary mathematics teachers regarding senior secondary mathematics teaching is described in this paper. The VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) mathematics professional learning program for senior secondary mathematics was designed for practising secondary teachers of mathematics who had no experience of teaching advanced senior secondary mathematics and who had not completed the recommended qualifications. Professional learning episodes, artefacts and reflections of three teachers who participated in the program are analysed to identify the development of these teachers' mathematical and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The PCK framework developed by Chick et al. was used to analyse teachers' knowledge, and the cases of teachers' knowledge presented in the paper illustrate the entwining of knowledge of mathematics and knowledge of teaching and learning The findings indicate that a program designed for senior secondary mathematics can enable practising teachers to deepen and broaden their understanding of junior secondary mathematical pedagogy.

The fog of flexibility : the riskiness of flexible post-secondary education in Australia

This chapter considers the political, social and technological features contributing to the rise of distance education in 20th Century Australia and to its dissolution in the early 21st Century. The discussion considers both international trends and influences, and particularly the Australian experiences that created the foggy mélange: external studies, extension studies, off-campus studies, open campus, open learning, flexible learning, flexible delivery, distance learning, distance education, correspondence learning, online learning, e-learning etc. The fogginess of the terminology reflects the ‘buzz-word’ politics of the turn-of-the-century governments, their bureaucracies and bureaucratese, and of the commercial world, its marketers and advertising slogans.

Information communication technology in secondary science education in Sri Lanka

This study researched the instruction of pre-service science teachers in Sri Lanka in the use of information communication technologies. It examined the use of a framework called the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge model that was found to assist the pre-service teachers in the effective use of technologies in their teaching.

Evaluation of delivery of the switched on secondary science professional learning (SOSSPL) program

The Switched On Secondary Science Professional Learning (SOSSPL) program consisted of three days professional learning. Days 1 and 2 were undertaken consecutively, with Day 3 following a break of several weeks. The break allowed sufficient time for teachers to undertake a small classroom-based project within one of the topics teachers will be teaching at the time. The program was designed to build teacher capacity to improve learning outcomes in secondary science.

How parental and school responses to choice policies reconfigure a rural education market in Victoria, Australia

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature of regional education markets and the choices families make in a rural school market in Australia. Through two school case studies, this article explores the effects of policy shifts on parental choice and student movement within a regional Victorian community. Informed by policy sociology, the article views the policy as a dynamic, often ad hoc process with contradictory effects. It indicates how an ensemble of federal and state funding and conveyancing policies enable some schools to develop marketing practices that reconstruct the local education market to their advantage through the introduction of transport and flexi-boarding policies. It demonstrates that education markets are not confined to urban settings and that while choice is not a new phenomenon in this rural area, federal and state funding and transport policies have reconfigured local markets and intensified the market work undertaken by schools and parents with, in this instance, unequal effects on the provision of schooling in a rural region.

Characterising secondary school teacher imperatives as subject (signature) pedagogies : a pedagogy of support in maths and a pedagogy of engagement in science

The ideas of Lee Shulman have played a major role in reconceptualising pedagogical description. In 2005, Shulman described a construct called “signature pedagogies” in order to describe recognisable and distinctive pedagogies used to prepare future practitioners for their profession. As a broader application of Shulman’s ideas, this paper asks, what is the efficacy of describing pedagogies that have become entrenched in secondary school subjects as signature pedagogies? Approached from a cultural perspective these questions are examined by comparing the subject cultures of junior school maths and science as experienced by, and represented in the classrooms of, a small number of teachers from two secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. In this research, subject culture is underpinned by shared basic assumptions that govern the dominance of certain “subject paradigms” (what should be taught) and “subject pedagogies” (how this should be taught) (Ball & Lacey, 1980). In this secondary school setting, the term signature pedagogies can be equated to the term subject pedagogies on the basis that both aim to characterise practice across the subject, or discipline, based on what was perceived as central to the task of teaching and learning. The paper draws on classroom observation and teacher interview data to show how six teachers positioned two aspects of their teaching in relation to what they believed was central in shaping their maths and science teaching: the effect of the arrangement of curriculum content on teachers’ conceptualisations of the teaching task; and a pedagogical imperative to engage students through activity-based learning experiences. The cultural expectations surrounding these two aspects of teaching appear to have a strong influence on practice, and in some senses teachers’ pedagogical responses were clear. These common responses are what I am calling “subject pedagogies” (see Ball & Lacey, 1980) because there was general agreement about what was central to the teaching task. Two subject pedagogies were seen to represent strong discourses occurring in both subjects: a “Pedagogy of Support” in maths, and “Pedagogy of Engagement” in science. Their established and shared character resembled Shulman’s posited “signature pedagogies” (Shulman, 2005). The data shows that by evaluating cultural practices that teachers have in common, and assumptions underpinning these, there is potential for highlighting imbalances, strengths and weaknesses, and connections and disconnections, associated with prevailing subject pedagogies.

The delivery of teacher education programmes in regional Victoria, Australia: Opportunities and challenges

A significant number of Australian universities have multiple campuses (Winchester and Sterk 2006). To manage successful student learning outcomes, Winchester and Sterk (2006) argue that universities may experience challenging teaching and learning issues such as fragmentation, duplication, inconsistency and lack of equitable opportunities for students across the various sites. In recent years, online educational technology has enabled Australian universities to rethink the ways in which they deliver programmes (Smith, Ling and Hill 2006). Such a paradigm and technological shift provide a ‘window of opportunity’ to meet the challenging demands of serving multiple campuses (Bottomley 2000), especially those in regional areas. In Victoria, at June 2012, the regional population was 1.38 million (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2013). However, Polesel’s (2009) report found that students from regional areas defer university at twice the rate of metropolitan students. There is also evidence that students in regional areas, on the one hand, consider such areas as a learning environment with many advantages (e.g. small classes and a compact campus)(Ellis et al. 2005). On the other hand, students’ different interests can often be overlooked in educational settings (Semke and Sheridan 2012).
This paper will report on the results of a baseline study using survey methodology, which examined the challenges and opportunities of delivering elements of two undergraduate programmes in regional areas in Victoria, Australia. In particular, the research focused on two selected undergraduate teacher education programmes: (1) primary education; and (2) early childhood education. Focused discussion data, gathered from academics involved in delivering the programmes in the regional campuses will be presented as an analysis of issues and practices of teaching and learning in the 21st century. Implications for the provision of a quality learning experience and environment for students and for the course marketing strategies will be discussed.