“Come in and look around.” Professional development of student teachers through public pedagogy in a library exhibition

This paper describes a public pedagogy project embedded into "The Global Teacher", a subject within the Bachelor of Education program for student teachers at an Australian university. The subject provides a global perspective on socio-political issues that shape education. In 2013, The Global Teacher introduced an approach that asked student teachers to create a museum-style exhibition depicting six global education themes. This exhibition was displayed in the State Library and the public were invited to engage with the installations and the student teachers who created them. Our paper describes how the project was implemented by means of close collaboration between the QUT teacher educators, curators at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ), and student groups working on visually translating their understandings of global educational issues into a public exhibition. We discuss what was learned by our students and ourselves, as teacher educators, by engaging in this public pedagogy.

Critical practice and the public pedagogy of environmental and conservation media

Natural History filmmaking has a long history but the generic boundaries between it and environmental and conservation filmmaking are blurred. Nature, environment and animal imagery has been a mainstay of television, campaigning organisations and conservation bodies from Greenpeace to the Sierra Club, with vibrant images being used effectively on posters, leaflets and postcards, and in coffee table books, media releases, short films and viral emails to educate and inform the general public. However, critics suggest that wildlife film and photography frequently convey a false image of the state of the world’s flora and fauna. The environmental educator David Orr once remarked that all education is environmental education, and it is possible to see all image-based communication in the same way. The Media, Animal Conservation and Environmental Education has contributions from filmmakers, photographers, researchers and academics from across the globe. It explores the various ways in which film, television and video are, and can be, used by conservationists and educators to encourage both a greater awareness of environmental and conservation issues, and practical action designed to help endangered species. This book is based on a special issue of the journal Environmental Education Research.

Critical practice and the public pedagogy of environmental and conservation media

This article addresses the reluctance of mainstream corporate and commercial media to critically address major environmental and conservation issues. The resulting public pedagogy largely reproduces the neoliberal ideology informing much conservation practice and discourse. Nonetheless, the media retains an unrealised critical educative potential that needs to be drawn upon by critical media practitioners and educators. To do this, educators need to be cognisant of the phenomenological experience of spectatorship, the aesthetic form and relational contexts of media consumption, production and informal learning. Referring to the work of Vivian Sobchack, Henry Giroux, Pierre Bourdieu and Gilles Deleuze, the article argues that if critical practitioner-educators apply an analytic framework informed by critical realism, counter-hegemonic elements found within corporate and independent media productions and conservation initiatives may be rearticulated and re-presented in a more positive manner. For this to occur, critical media practitioners-educators need to recognise that feasible political and normative alternatives are both available and practically possible. The article ends by discussing some relatively recent non-fiction productions that express a commonality between human and non-human animals and so form the basis of a critical environmental education-media practice.

Political participation as public pedagogy : The Educational Situation in Young People´s Political Conversations in Social Media

In this article we argue that young people’s political participation in the social media can be considered ‘public pedagogy’. The argument builds on a previous empirical analysis of a Swedish net community called Black Heart. Theoretically, the article is based on a particular notion of public pedagogy, education and Hannah Arendt’s expressive agonism. The political participation that takes place in the net community builds up an educational situation that involves central characteristics: communication, community building, a strong content focus and content production, argumentation and rule following. These characteristics pave the way for young people’s public voicing, experiencing, preferences and political interests that guide their everyday political life and learning – a phenomenon that we understand as a form of public pedagogy. 

Situating preparedness education within public pedagogy

Both ‘disaster preparedness’ and ‘public pedagogy’ have been broadly defined and diversely utilised. Preparedness has been dealt within the disciplines such as civil engineering, sociology of disasters, public health and psychology, rather than education. Recently, inquiries into the learning and teaching of preparedness is increasing in the field of education, and some of them position preparedness education within the field of public pedagogy. However, conceptual discussion as to how and why the two fields are associated has been limited. The primary aim of this paper is to fill this gap by drawing on public pedagogy literature that conceptualises ‘publics’ and ‘pedagogies’. By doing so, the paper attempts to respond to Burdick et al’s call for Problematizing Public Pedagogy.

Alternative media for public pedagogy: "Chief" concerns and human agency

To demonstrate how the growing influence of alternative media in civil society correlates with the rise of social movements and their influence on contemporary manifestations of resistance, this research uses critical ethnographic methodologies to document the narratives of alternative media producers in the pro-Indigenous and anti-“Chief” campaigns at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during the 2006-2007 school year. These narratives demonstrate not only the ways alternative media help transmit dissent by distributing information to diverse populations, but also the manner they facilitate contexts that influence identity formations and strengthen counter-cultural communal practices. Particular lineages of critical social theory are used to situate knowledge construction and social relationships within specific socio-historic contexts to approach issues of subjectivity, human agency, and resistance. These include the Frankfurt School for Social Research, the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, and the Brazilian education philosopher Paulo Freire, who emphasize criticality based on the engagement of ideological analysis, as well as developing capacities to critique and resist oppressive social and political relationships. Thus, this study argues for expanding traditional notions of literacy to include the ability to decode and produce media as a critical element of meaningful democratic participation.

Militarising the body politic : new media as weapons of mass instruction

As militarization of bodies politic continues apace the world over, as military organizations again reveal themselves as primary political, economic and cultural forces in many societies, we argue that the emergent and potentially dominant form of political economic organization is a species of neo-feudal corporatism. Drawing upon Bourdieu, we theorize bodies politic as living habitus. Bodies politic are prepared for war and peace through new mediations, powerful means of public pedagogy. The process of militarization requires the generation of new, antagonistic evaluations of other bodies politic. Such evaluations are inculcated via these mediations, the movement of meanings across time and space, between formerly disparate histories, places, and cultures. New mediations touch new and different aspects of the body politic: its eyes, its ears, its organs, but they are consistently targeted at the formation of dispositions, the prime movers of action.

Digital Literacy and the Spaces of Academic Discourse

Digital literacy poses a particular challenge to the research-led university. Although these universities are often at the forefront of introducing digital literacy initiatives—such as e-learning platforms, technological infrastructure, and digital repositories—these applications of digital literacy tend to be more instrumental or functional than critical or creative. Certainly, this clash of cultures between the instrumental/functional and the critical/analytical is at the heart of debates over the uses of digital literacy in higher education. However, this simple equation of political forces with instrumentality and the corresponding equation of the university with a tradition of reflective thought that brings criticism to bear on instrumentality elide the fact that this conflict is more deeply rooted within the academy. This essay argues that, in fact, much of the resistance to critical uses of digital literacy comes from within the institution of the university itself. That is, the university is bound up in a scriptural economy that prioritises the printed word and that reinforces its power by way of a normative, political, and spatialised academic discourse. It is this print-based scriptural economy—in which this essay must acknowledge its own complicity—that a critical approach to digital literacy threatens to disrupt or lay bare.

Civil defence pedagogies and narratives of democracy: disaster education in Germany

‘Disaster education’ is a fledgling area of study in lifelong education. Many countries educate their populations for disasters, to mitigate potential damage and loss of life, as well as contribute to national security. In this paper, which draws on interview data from the German Federal Office for Civil Defence and Disaster Assistance and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, archival research, analysis of websites and promotional materials as well as relevant academic literature, I examine disaster education and preparedness for national emergencies in Germany. I argue that it is not generally extended to the general public, rather confined to trained experts, decentralised, localised and exclusive. Theorising disaster education as a ‘civil defence pedagogy’ (Preston, 2008), a type of public pedagogy, which contributes to shaping narratives of national identity, I argue that it is unlikely that Germany will develop a more inclusive, universal, formalised, nor high-profile campaign in disaster education in the foreseeable future. This, I suggest, is due to narratives of the German democratic nation state as secure, federal, peaceful and unified, which originated at the founding of West Germany in 1949, and continue to shape contemporary political narratives.

Towards a Pedagogy of Public Criminology

In light of recent debates on ‘public criminology’, this paper chooses to focus on teaching as a way of reaching more publics. The various characteristics of a more public and engaged discipline are discussed and applied specifically to the teaching of criminology, including the relative merits and demerits of reorienting teaching in this way. Following on from this discussion, the paper proceeds to outline some practical ways in which this vision can be realised. Given the many affinities betweenthe Burawoyan concept of public ‘-ologies’ and the scholarship of learning and teaching, an argument is advanced for teaching as one of the first steps towards the practice of a more public criminology.

Assessing and learning in internships: Reflecting on pedagogy and progress

An elective internship unit as part of a work integrated learning program in a business faculty is presented as a case study. In the unit, students complete a minimum of 120 hours work placement over the course of a 13 week semester. The students are majoring in advertising, marketing, or public relations and are placed in corporations, government agencies, and not for profit organisations. To support and scaffold the students’ learning in the work environment, a range of classroom and online learning activities are part of the unit. Classroom activities include an introductory workshop to prepare students for placement, an industry panel, and interview workshop. These are delivered as three workshops across the semester. Prior to commencing their placement, students complete a suite of online learning modules. The Work Placement Preparation Program assists students in securing obtaining a placement and make a successful transition to the work environment. It provides an opportunity for students to source possible work placement sites, prepare competitive applications, develop and rehearse interview skills, deal with workplace issues, and use a student ePortfolio to reflect on their skills and achievements. Students contribute to a reflective blog throughout their placement, with feedback from academic supervisors throughout the placement. The completion of the online learning modules and contribution to a reflective blog are assessed as part of the unit. Other assessment tools include a internship plan and learning contract between the student, industry supervisor, and academic supervisor; job application including responses to selection criteria; and presentation to peers, academics and industry representatives at a poster session. The paper discusses the development of the internship unit over three years, particularly learning activities and assessment. The reflection and refinement of the unit is informed by a pedagogical framework, and the development of processes to best manage placement for all stakeholders. A model of best practice is proposed, that can be adapted to a variety of discipline areas.

What it means to become a public relations professional: student perceptions of professional identity through real-world learning

Public relations educators need new solutions to prepare students to become tomorrow's practitioner today. Managers and employers in the new creative workforce (McWilliam, 2008) expect graduates to be problem solvers, critical and creative thinkers, reflective, and self reliant (Barrie, 2008; David, 2004). Enabling students to develop these attributes requires a collaborative and creative approach to pedagogy (Jeffrey & Craft, 2001, 2004). A model for the next generation of public relations education was developed to integrate industry partnerships as a way to bridge pedagogy and professional practice. The model suggests (a) that industry partnerships be embedded in learning activities, (b) that assessment items be considered on a continuum and delivered incrementally across a course of study, and (c) that connections between classroom and workplace activities are clearly signposted for students.

‘Show Me Your Wiki and I’ll Show you Mine’: Using Online Interactive Media to Improve Academic Writing and Research in a Public Health Under-Graduate Cohort

The number of Internet users in Australia has been steadily increasing, with over 10.9 million people currently subscribed to an internet provider (ABS, 2011). Over the past year, the most avid users of the Internet were 15 – 24 year olds, with approximately 95% accessing the internet on a regular basis (ABS, Social Trends, 2011). While the internet has been described as fundamental to higher education students, social and leisure internet tools are also increasingly being used by these students to generate and maintain their social and professional networks and interactions (Duffy & Bruns 2006). Rapid technological advancements have enabled greater and faster access to information for learning and education (Hemmi et al, 2009; Glassman and Kang, 2011). As such, we sought to integrate interactive, online social media into the assessment profile of a Public Health undergraduate cohort at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The aim of this exercise was to engage students to both develop and showcase their research on a range of complex, contemporary health issues within the online forum of Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/) for review and critique by their peers. We applied Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) to analyse the interactive processes from which students developed deeper and more sustained learning, and via which their overall academic writing standards were raised. This paper outlines the assessment task, and the students’ feedback on their learning outcomes in relation to the Attentional, Retentional, Motor Reproduction, and Motivational Processes outlined by Bandura in SLT. We conceptualise the findings in a theoretical model, and discuss the implications for this approach within the broader tertiary environment.

Journalling and public health education : thinking about reflecting

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to understand reflective journalling in a first year Public Health practice unit. Design/methodology/approach: This research uses pure phenomenography to interpret students descriptions of reflective journalling. Data was collected from thirty-two students enrolled in PUB215 Public Health Practice in the School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology. Participants completed a brief open-ended questionnaire to evaluate the first assessment item in this unit, a Reflective Journal. Questionnaire responses were analysed through Dahlgren and Fallsberg’s (1991) seven phases of data analysis. Findings: The Reflective Journal required students to reflect on lecture content from five of seven guest speakers. Participants responses were categorised into four conceptions - 1) engagement in learning, 2) depth of knowledge, 3) understanding the process and 4) doing the task. Participants describe reflective journalling as a conduit to think critically about the content of the guest speakers presentations. Other participants think journalling is a vehicle to think deeply about their potential career pathways. Some define journalling as a pragmatic operation where practical issues are difficult to navigate. The Reflective Journal successfully a) engaged students learning, b) increased students depth of knowledge and c) deepened students understanding of the journalling process. Originality/value: This research gives an insight into how first year public health students understand reflective journalling, supports educators in reflective journalling assessments and confirms a Reflective Journal assessment can move student reflection towards higher order thinking about practice.