Teacher perceptions of the role and value of excursions in years 7-10 geography education in Victoria, Australia

Excursions are extremely important to the education of students in the geography curriculum. However, personal observations demonstrated a lack of readiness to conduct excursions in secondary schools. This apprehension of the teachers in this school to implement excursions in geography education was the basis for this study. The study addresses the importance of excursions in education and the roles and values that teachers place on excursions in years 7-10 geography curriculum. Quantitative research was conducted in the form of a questionnaire on a wide range of Study of Society and Environment (SOSE) teachers in secondary schools. The research population consisted of 60 teachers from both rural and urban schools across Victoria. The findings of this study showed that teachers conduct on average one to two excursions per class per year, teachers understand the importance of excursions in geography education and they find planning difficult, but work collaboratively with other teachers to overcome these issues. Other barriers include transportation, student behaviour and cost. With a firm grounding in the conceptual theories and state-level policies of geography education, the conduct of excursions was found to be both difficult and rewarding by teachers in Victoria.

Change and stasis in schoolmusic education in Victoria: the past informing the future

This article reviews the current state of music education in Victoria in terms of both past and present issues. It is argued that many of these issues are the result of change and stasis that have occurred over the past 150 years of school music in Victoria. The principal issues that confront the present generation of music educators and policy makers are the role and place of music in school education and the provision of music teachers for government schools. Both of these issues are discussed in terms of the historical development of music in Victorian schools and it is demonstrated that many of the problems associated with these issues are either cyclical in nature, or have been endemic and simply never adequately addressed. It is suggested that one of the principal challenges to be faced in the government school sector at present is to retain the integrity of music as a discrete subject area in face of the current trend towards a generically-based arts curriculum. There is often a tendency in education to adopt an overly critical and even pessimistic approach to what are perceived as long-standing and seemingly insolvable problems. However, a counter-balancing factor is the rich heritage of Victorian music education which provides the basis for a more optimistic outlook. An important aspect of this heritage is the example of many outstanding music educators in Victoria and elsewhere. It is argued that a knowledge of such past achievements as well as a fuller appreciation of the historical development of music education policies and practices should provide a more informed and rational basis from which to decide the future course of music education in Victoria.

Taking stock of school music education in Victoria: the lessons of history in the present context of the national review

The National Review of School Music Education represents a unique opportunity to identify and find solutions to some of the very long-standing problems in Australian school music education, particularly in the government school sector. This paper is based on the premise that there are lessons to be learned from the over 150 years of music education in Victorian government schools and that it is only by considering the current status, provision and quality of school music from an historical perspective and resolving emergent issues that effective and worthwhile music education can be provided for future generations of Australian students. Developments in school music education since the 1850s are discussed and analysed in terms of the present-day issues to be addressed by National Review and a number of mutually-dependent factors are identified as combining to produce almost cyclic patterns of ebb and flow in the status, provision and quality of music education in Victoria. The paper identifies several such factors requiring immediate attention including the inadequacy of generalist primary teacher education in music, what has effectively become the extra-curricular status of music in many government schools, and the more recent problems associated with 'the over-crowded curriculum' and the emergence of The Arts as the generic Key Learning Area in which Music now finds itself as just one of many arts disciplines. The paper concludes by making three key recommendations for consideration in the context of the current National Review of School Music Education.

Many layers of meaning : multicultural music education in Victoria, Australia

This paper explores music education viewed through lenses of cultural identity and the formation of personal identity in contemporary, multicultural Victoria, Australia. The people of this state come from more than 280 countries, speak more than 240 languages and follow more than 120 faiths. Our population diversity is constantly changing which challenges music educators to respond to classroom demographics and as tertiary educators we prepare our pre-service students to become culturally responsive teachers. As music educators, we occupy and are situated in multiple identities that shape the ways in which we experience and understand music and its transmission. As Australian tertiary music educators, we explore pre-service teacher cultural identity, attitudes and values about the inclusion of multicultural music in the classroom where cultural dialogue provides a platform for the construction of meaning. While marginalization and diversity occurs within multifaceted forms, we question: What music do we present in contemporary Victorian schools? Why do we make these choices? How do we present this music? This consideration, contextualized within the curricular framework, addresses issues of access, equity and community engagement. The making of meaning in shared cultural experiences contributes to the formation of identity which is a fluid and multilayered construct.

The outcomes, processes, and challenges of inclusive education in Victoria

A collaborative school culture is important to improve the learning of students with special education needs. This could be met through a consolidation of a school's understanding of students' learning difficulties as environmental causes and an increase of teachers' confidence and knowledge on addressing students' diverse needs.

From risk to relationship : redefining pedagogy through applied learning reform

The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) emerged to provide more relevant curriculum programs that would cater for increasing retention rates of post-compulsory students. It is also an example of the ‘new’ learning arising from contemporary debates and reforms that highlight inadequacies of the more traditional modes of learning. This thesis focuses on the pedagogical and sociological issues emerging from the VCAL being introduced as an ‘alternative’ learning pathways for ‘at-risk’ students within a traditional secondary school culture. Through the eyes of an insider-researcher, the thesis argues for a deeper understanding of applied learning as a ‘re-engaging’ pedagogy by studying the schooling experience of VCAL students and teachers. The thesis concludes that traditional academic modes of teaching contribute to the social construction of ‘at-risk’ students and argues that secondary school pedagogy needs to be redefined as a cultural phenomenon requiring teachers to be reflexively aware of their role in bridging the gap between students’ life experiences and the curriculum.

Study of the images for the Visual Arts Education in Secondary Education textbooks: educational implications

In this paper we present the first data from the research conducted to determine the relationship between traditional visual arts and other forms of visual culture closer to the experiences of high school youth. The hypothesis of this research is that while students are nurtured and live primarily with the images provided by the media culture, their textbooks basically refer to the more traditional art images. The research has been limited to a review and analysis of the most common educational materials for teaching visual arts in high school. After the systematization and analysis of the images appeared in textbooks, we have detected three major types: the artistics, those who belong to media culture and others. The most relevant conclusions indicate that: there are hardly any connections between different types of images, they offer a very traditional view of art and they are far removed from the experiences of young book users.

Mentorships and co-op placements as a means of heightening the need for a secondary school diploma to the education of at-risk students.--

Both educators and politicians appear to be quite concerned about a dropout rate in Ontario's public schools of some 30 percent. With the basic understanding that a high dropout rate is costly both in economic terms and in human terms, something quite obviously needs to be done to reduce the dropout rate in Ontario schools and, in doing so, ensuring Ontario and its graduates an active role in a growing global economy. This study is an exploratory pilot study in that it examined mentoring and the role that mentoring can play in assisting a student in staying in school and graduating from secondary school. Also incorporated in this is co-operative education and the role it can play, through mentoring, in making students aware of lifestyle level of employment, and of the skills necessary to obtain gainful, meaningful employment. In order to gain information on student attitudes, needs and expectations of a mentoring situation, a series of three questionnaires was used. Also, a questionnaire was distributed to the various co-operative education employers. The intent of this questionnaire was to probe the attitudes, needs and expectations of a mentoring situation from the perspective of an employer. The findings of this study indicated that co-operative education and mentoring are a very valuable and useful component in education. There exist certain factors in a co-operative education setting that serve to enhance and to augment the traditional or "theoretical" setting of the classroom. In addition, a mentoring situation tends to add a sense of relevance to education that students seem to require. Also, an opportunity is offered that allows a student to practice and further refine the skills that have been taught over the course of the student's academic life. Results from this study suggested that a mentoring situation, occurring through a co-operative education situation, adds relevance and a sense of "application" to the traditional or classroom schooling situation. The whole idea of mentoring bodes well for the future of education and of the student. Many advantages are identified in a mentoring situation. One of the advantages is that the schools are able to work quite closely with the community and business in order to stay current and informed on the needs and expected needs of the business community. Co-operative education has now gone beyond being an "experimental" mode of education. All students can benefit from being involved in the program. Certainly at-risk students are aided with staying in school. Those students who are said to be not at-risk can also benefit from being enrolled in the program by gaining hands-on work experience and some of the necessary skills to ensure a place in a growing world economy.