Understanding learning preferences in the business school curriculum

The authors aimed to understand the learning preferences of business school students and generally understand the teaching strategies and course contents that would be conducive to these preferences. They began by making some observations on the nature of the ideal business school curriculum, and they  present the results of a student survey on learning preferences that served to test some of these observations. They conclude by proposing a general unified approach to learning and teaching.

Calculators, mathematics and young children : a study of six children using calculators as part of the mathematics curriculum during their first two years of school

The thesis investigates the role a calculator can play in the developing number knowledge of three girls and three boys as part of their mathematics program, during their first two years at primary school. Random sampling was used initially to select six girls and six boys from the twenty-four children entering a 1993 prep class. These twelve children were interviewed on entrance to school and based on the performance of the twelve children on the initial interview, a girl and a boy were chosen from the higher, middle and lower achievers to take part in the full study. The class teachers involved were previously participants in the ‘Calculators in Primary Mathematics’ research program and were committed to the use of calculators in their mathematics program. A case study approach using qualitative methods within the activity theory framework is used to collect relevant data and information, an analysis of five interviews with each child and observations of the children in forty-one classroom lessons provides comprehensive data on the children's developing number knowledge during the two years. The analysis questionnaires establishes each teacher's perceptions of the children's number learning at the beginning and end of each year, compares teacher expectations with children's actual performance for the year and compares curriculum expectations with children's actual performance. A teacher interview established reasons for changes in teaching style; teacher expectations; children's number learning; and was used to confirm my research findings. An activity theory framework provides an appropriate means of co-coordinating perspectives within this research to enable a description of the child's number learning within a social environment. This framework allows for highlighting the mediation offered by the calculator supporting the children's number learning in the classroom. Levels of children's developing number knowledge reached when working with a calculator and as a result of calculator use are mapped against the levels recommended in ‘Mathematics in the National Curriculum’ (National Curriculum Council, December 1988), and the Curriculum and Standards Framework: Mathematics (Board of Studies 2000). Findings from this comparison illustrate that the six children's performance in number was enhanced when using a calculator and indicate that on-going development and understanding of number concepts occurred at levels of performance at least two years in advance of curriculum recommendations for the first two years of school.

Negotiating curriculum work in ESL

Conducting applied research in workplace settings on and/or with colleagues raises a host of ethical and procedural issues about research. Empiricist, interpretive, and critical approaches all have a place in understanding, describing and changing curriculum perceptions. As one moves from one paradigm to the other the voices of the agents in the curriculum process become increasingly prominent. With reference to some of my own workplace research under the three paradigms mentioned above, I describe ways in which educational research in workplace settings represents curriculum reality and can act as an engine of change.

Arts curriculum reform : social and cultural reproduction in Victorian schools

This thesis examines the implementation of the government educational policy document The Curriculum and Standards Framework. I examined the historical and political motivation behind the development of this document and how it introduced a pervasive new initiative of outcomes based education and accountability based on economic rationalism. In particular I examined the implications this new approach had for visual arts education and the subsequent changes to the arts curriculum. This has entailed the introduction of the aesthetic appreciation of the arts as an outcome of the CSF: The Arts. I applied Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in education which draws predominantly on a Weberian view and a theory of practice. Bourdieu discusses differential educational achievement according to cultural capital stating education requires certain forms of cultural capital that are not equally distributed among the classes. This therefore impedes or enhances life chances according to social class i.e. educational qualifications become a commodity in the labour market and other social fields. I examined how aesthetic appreciation of the arts has evolved historically as a form of social distinction. This entails an abstract element of arts discourse, which demands a certain linguistic competence, and familiarisation, which Bourdieu claims, is developed in the family, as 'cultural capital' this is further perpetuated in schools. The likely outcome is that the introduction of aesthetic appreciation in arts education i.e the demand to 'write about' and 'talk about' art, will perpetuate class inequality due to social and cultural difference. The study has been to examine the practices of arts education in four schools and the extent to which aesthetic appreciation was implemented in the visual arts. Data was collected by case study methods of observation, questionnaire and interview and was interpretive in both quantitative and qualitative methods. I analysed the data based on class differentiation by socioeconomic divisions and examined the school ethos and attitude towards the Arts along with differentiation in cultural capital between student population. I also found teacher and student habitus played a vital role in the implementation of the CSF. This is because habitus can cause resistance to change due to the division between the formulation of the curriculum in the bureaucratic order and the practice of teachers in classrooms. My thesis interprets education as a form of social reproduction, perpetuating the existing social order. However, as Bourdieu asserts and I agree education is a form of symbolic power as it conceals its social function under the guise of neutrality and the technical functional premise. Therefore, this thesis aims to make transparent how the education system serves the interests of the dominant group through curriculum policy. Consequently, it becomes clear how education has far reaching social implications where the distinctions of class are perpetuated through cultural reproduction.

Indigenous values informing curriculum and pedagogical praxis

As an Indigenous research study into the cultural quality of Indigenous education this thesis focuses on the proposition that mainstream education marginalises Indigenous learners because of its entrenchment in the Western worldview. The thesis opens with an analysis of the cultural dynamics of Indigenous values, the politics of Indigenous identity, and the hegemonic constraints of West-centric knowledge. This analysis is then drawn upon to critically examine the cultural predisposition of mainstream education. The arguments proffered through this critical examination support the case that Indigenous learners would prosper culturally and educationally by having access to educational programmes centred within an Indigenous cultural framework, thereby addressing the dilemma of lower Indigenous retentions rates. This research study was conducted using a qualitative Indigenous methodology specifically designed by the researcher to reflect the values and cultural priorities of Indigenous Australians. Collective partnership was sought from Indigenous Australians, whom the researcher respected as Indigenous stakeholders in the research. Collegial participation was also sought from non-Indigenous educators with significant experience in teaching Indigenous learners. The research process involved both individual and group sessions of dialogic exchange. With regard to the Indigenous sessions of dialogic exchange, these resulted in the formation of a composite narrative wherein Indigenous testimony was united to create a collective Indigenous voice. Through this research study it was revealed that there is indeed a stark and deep-seated contrast between the value systems of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. This contrast, it was found, is mirrored in the cultural dynamics of education and the polemics of knowledge legitimacy. The research also revealed that Australia’s mainstream education system is intractably an agent for the promulgation of Western cultural values, and as such is culturally disenfranchising to Indigenous peoples. This thesis then concludes with an alternative and culturally apposite education paradigm for Indigenous education premised on Indigenous values informing curriculum and pedagogical praxis. This paradigm specifically supports independent Indigenous education initiatives.

Curriculum for entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness in New Zealand

This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.

Curriculum history of business computing in Victorian tertiary institutions from 1960-1985

Fifty years ago there were no stored-program electronic computers in the world. Even thirty years ago a computer was something that few organisations could afford, and few people could use. Suddenly, in the 1960s and 70s, everything changed and computers began to become accessible. Today* the need for education in Business Computing is generally acknowledged, with each of Victoria's seven universities offering courses of this type. What happened to promote the extremely rapid adoption of such courses is the subject of this thesis. I will argue that although Computer Science began in Australia's universities of the 1950s, courses in Business Computing commenced in the 1960s due to the requirement of the Commonwealth Government for computing professionals to fulfil its growing administrative needs. The Commonwealth developed Programmer-in-Training courses were later devolved to the new Colleges of Advanced Education. The movement of several key figures from the Commonwealth Public Service to take up positions in Victorian CAEs was significant, and the courses they subsequently developed became the model for many future courses in Business Computing. The reluctance of the universities to become involved in what they saw as little more than vocational training, opened the way for the CAEs to develop this curriculum area.

A case example : integrating ethics into the academic business curriculum

This paper combines a review of existing literature in the field of business ethics education and a case study relating to the integration of ethics into an undergraduate degree. Prior to any discussion relating to the integration of ethics into the business curriculum, we need to be cognisant of, and prepared for, the arguments raised by sceptics in both the business and academic environments, in regard to the teaching of ethics. Having laid this foundation, the paper moves to practical questions such as who should teach ethics, and when and how can ethics be taught. The paper presents alternative models for the teaching of ethics in the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate business programmes. An integrative model is elaborated on in more detail with a case example describing the six-stage process undertaken in the move from a single entry course to an integrated approach. The case study details not only the planning and initial implementation of ethical education in the context of an undergraduate business degree programme, but also the means by which a change in the way that ethics is taught was achieved in a business faculty in a tertiary institution.

Information security management curriculum development : an Australian example

The development of Information Security as a discipline has only occurred in recent years. Currently Information Security topics are widely taught at tertiary institutions but these topics are taught from a technical perspective and in other cases from a business perspective.

This paper discusses the development of a new security curriculum within Australia and how Australian tertiary institutions responded to that curriculum, the paper also puts forwards a framework that assists in curriculum development.

Diverse approaches : a study of Australian journalism educators' use of web-based curriculum modules for reporting cultural difference

The Reporting Diversity website provides four curriculum modules to assist journalism educators to teach students about the issues and practice of reporting on cultural difference. The researchers co-ordinated the second round of trials of these resources in 2009, which involved the participation of academics and students from five Australian universities. A further 30 academics were surveyed to gauge their level of awareness of the materials. This paper reports on the educators’ evaluation of the resources and reveals the innovative ways in which the modules are being used and adapted in different classroom settings. The researchers argue that sharing different teaching approaches to the materials through the Reporting Diversity website would assist other academics to adapt the resources for their own use.