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13489 results in Education, history, theory

Page 317 of 675

  • Chapter 5 - Bringing joy and success to classes through student-centred teaching of mathematics

  • from Part 3 - Curriculum-based engagement
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 90-108

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To create interest in and passion for learning and teaching primary and junior secondary school mathematics.

  • To develop a commitment to and persistence in deepening mathematical and mathematical pedagogical knowledge.

  • To look for and recognise student engagement in mathematics.

  • To be able to discuss attributes of a caring student-centred approach to teaching mathematics.

  • To plan lessons and teaching experiences using a student-centred approach.

    • Introduction

    A sense of service to community and a desire to make a difference in young people’s lives typically characterise people’s reasons for deciding to become a teacher. These objectives signify that prospective and practising teachers care about their students and are focused on enabling their students to learn and achieve their aspirations. Prospective teachers acknowledge that in the primary years of schooling lie the foundational knowledge, skills and learning behaviours necessary for lifelong learning, with each primary teacher working with their students across the broad range of disciplinary, social and cultural fields of knowledge. The student-focused assumption of primary teachers’ practice is revealed in the common saying that ‘primary teachers teach students while secondary teachers teach subjects’. But what does this actually mean? And is it true? How do primary teachers maintain a focus on the student while engaging him or her in particular fields of learning such as mathematics? How do secondary teachers of mathematics focus their attention on the students and their learning in mathematics classrooms? In this chapter original research and practice conducted by the authors are examined in tandem with the work of other researchers and teachers to examine and explain what it means to engage students in mathematical thinking and to teach mathematics using a student-centred approach.

  • Chapter 9 - Natural environments for learning

  • from Part 4 - Agents of change and student wellbeing
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 159-177

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To illustrate how learning in natural outdoor environments enables young people to access knowledge and skills that are sustainable into the future.

  • To clarify that classroom learning and experiences in natural environments together can increase the relevance of learning, and facilitate relationships that support engagement in education and futures thinking.

  • To demonstrate how reflexive experiences deepen learning and understanding.

  • To emphasise that authentic learning within natural environments builds social and ecological connections through active engagement, sensory experience, awe, risk taking, and responsibility.

  • To explore how community-based experiences develop reciprocal trusting and supporting relationships that enrich the learning environment for disengaged young people.

    • Introduction

    Understanding the broader context of learning entails determining how effectively the learning process prepares young people for a meaningful future. Classrooms and the teachers in these classrooms can provide an effective environment for the exploration of ideas and the exchange of knowledge and understanding. However, the learning opportunities are usually restricted in time and space; these organisational contextual limitations channel learning down a path where it is often experienced as being isolated and separate from the practicalities of living in the world. It is when the learning of young people is further enhanced through exploring, applying and experiencing the consequences of their actions that young people really understand their capacity, the need for taking risks and accepting responsibility, and the value of trusting relationships and working with their teachers and other people. Learning in natural environments can be described as authentic learning and prepares young people to become ‘effective problem solvers within a democratic culture’ (Slee 2011, p. 161).

  • Chapter 11 - Indigenous Australia

  • from Part 4 - Agents of change and student wellbeing
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 195-206

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To understand how Indigenous peoples in Australia have historically experienced discrimination that continues to marginalise their cultural heritages and embodied identities.

  • To understand that school communities must affirm cultural differences to end epistemic and institutional violence towards Indigenous students.

  • To see the stigmatisation of Indigenous Australians and their culture as traceable through social, economic and educational institutions.

  • To reflect on how the identities and cultural practices of Indigenous Australians have been, and continue to be compromised by, the forces of colonisation.

    • Introduction

    This chapter begins with a cautionary comment. I have been a long-time activist for the rights of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Indigenous peoples of Australia, with my activism formally beginning in my teens: at teachers college in Queensland in the 1970s I petitioned the statewide newspaper to spell ‘Aboriginal’ when referring to people with a capitalised initial letter. However, I cannot and do not speak for all other Indigenous peoples of Australia. Indigenous Australians have never been homogeneous; as individuals and as groups we are distinct. We do, however, share knowledge of the impact of the process of colonisation and the continuation of ‘whiteness’ in Australia’s legislative systems and societal practices. Being invited to write this chapter because of both the longevity and significance of my experience in the areas of Indigenous education and Aboriginal Studies is an honour. Still, I echo the sentiment that ‘although many other Aboriginal people around the country may relate to my words, mine is only one of many voices’ (Walker 1993, p. 51).

Engaging the Disengaged
  • Inclusive Approaches to Teaching the Least Advantaged
  • Tarquam McKenna, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Mark Vicars
  • Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013
  • Engaging the Disengaged addresses strategies and models of immersive teaching and learning that lead to successful schooling outcomes. The new Australian Curriculum emphasises the importance of improved educational participation. This book will equip pre-service teachers with the tools and strategies they need to successfully implement these priorities. Drawing together a diverse range of experts, this book offers innovative ways of thinking about student engagement. Addressing education across early primary, middle and secondary school levels, it explores how differences in culture, sexuality and wealth can alienate students, and examines challenges faced by schools in rural, remote and high-poverty settings. It also offers new ideas for engaging students in subjects such as mathematics, physical education and the arts. Contemporary, real-life case studies help connect theory to practice. Each chapter also includes learning objectives, further reading suggestions and a reflective closure, as well as a set of strategies for invigorating disadvantaged students.

  • Foreword - Are the engaged really engaged?

  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    Instead of critical pedagogy, my theoretical discourse should perhaps be labelled ‘Pedagogy of the Curmudgeon’. It is dificult to demonstrate sustainable, successful pedagogy … I mean the stuff that really engages kids. But is that the issue? Are our children and youth disengaged, or merely too smart, too busy, too cynical and too bored to engage in the non-engageable? And am I just too cranky about this successful pedagogy stuff?

    As educators, we consistently, emphatically, eternally seek to engage our students, yet little is done to create the pedagogical nuance, the pedagogical construct, the pedagogical ‘ah ha!’ in which to engage them. This came to me recently, when I determined to make the ultimate salad for a dinner I was hosting. I gathered fresh nuts, exotic vegetables, funky spices, unexpected fruits, the ultimate vinegar and, my pièce de résistance, pure Greek olive oil, which I’d schlepped on the plane in my laptop case from Korinthos. I sliced, I diced, I mixed, I blended. I kept the salad fresh and, at the last instant, swirled my oil and vinegar over the bowl. Placing the salad on the table, I waited to hear my guests’ reactions … there weren’t any. Indeed, most took a bite or two, and pushed the rest to the side. Rescued by a great leg of lamb, everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. But at the end, my salad remained. I took the bowl to the kitchen, took a bite. Beautifully cut and selected vegetables, fruits and nuts … and l at, old, outdated oil. It was the damn oil. Oil from the fields of Korinthos, hand-carried, authentic, the best … and it was stale.

    Not usually prone to food analogies, I still can’t forget the taste of stale oil that night. That oil is what I taste when most educators seek to engage students in learning. Preparation is often over the top; materials can be the best; naturally the source is, well, educated and expert; … and it is stale. As teachers, professors and parents, we (more often than not) expect engagement in that which is not engaging, and we do it through unengaged, uninspired, non-contextual pedagogy. All this is to say: we must interrogate our own practices of engagement. Are we engaging? Are we engaged in creating engagement? Do we understand and contextualise our students as an audience? Can we sustain engagement? And the question we don’t want to ask: do students want to be engaged?

  • Chapter 7 - Literacy

  • from Part 3 - Curriculum-based engagement
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 129-140

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To consider how the teaching and learning of literacy are increasingly being positioned by an assessment-driven culture.

  • To understand the connectedness between literacy and identity.

  • To reflect on how literacy practices are embedded in social communities.

  • To distinguish between literacy as a set of skills and as a cultural practice.

  • To develop approaches to teaching literacy that promote inclusion and engagement.

    • Introduction

    This chapter is framed by the wider contexts of economic and social inequalities in educational domains. It addresses how the teacher’s and the learners’ work, in teaching and learning literacy, is informed by contemporary national and international debates. These debates are especially relevant to this book because it focuses on social exclusion and what we know as ‘social capital’. The case studies in this chapter highlight the importance for all educators to realise the interconnectedness between schooled and out-of-school literacy practices, and the salience of ‘student’ dispositions, positions and position-takings ‘through globalised and local, virtual and material social fields’ (Luke & Carrington 2002, p. 2). The chapter endeavours to illustrate how the official literacy curriculum struggles with including texts and textual practices that represent diverse cultural and social positions and, in doing so, is constantly constructing patterns of both inclusion and exclusion. It is the matter of exclusion that is of importance to our understanding and we are especially interested in children who are disadvantaged by poverty and/or other emblematic indicators. You will come to appreciate that this chapter resists the notion that literacy is something that is only learned within the margins of institutional walls of the classroom and very deliberately refutes the idea that it is advantageous to divorce the everyday life of the person from the situated life of literacy learning in the classroom.

  • Chapter 10 - Sexualities

  • from Part 4 - Agents of change and student wellbeing
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 178-194

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To explore how hetereosexism and homophobia impact on gay and lesbian students, particularly in fostering invisibility and silenced sexualities.

  • To understand the role of schools in creating and addressing these impacts.

  • To consider what inclusive education might look like.

  • To appreciate the unique cultural legacies that have been created by gay and lesbian people.

    • Introduction

    Surveying gay and lesbian people in the United States, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found (1984) that 45% of gay males and 20% of lesbians reported having experienced harassment and/or violence during high school as a result of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. After more than a decade of pioneering research documenting the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, in 2009 another body in the United States, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), released the National School Climate Survey (GLSEN 2009). The survey revealed that of 7261 LGBT middle and high school students, nearly nine out of 10 students had experienced harassment at school during the previous year and nearly two thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation. Nearly a third of LGBT students had skipped at least one day of school in the previous month because of concerns for their own safety.

    Something is wrong when two thirds (61.1%) of LGBT students report being subjected to verbal harassment, nearly half (46.5%) report sexual harassment and over a quarter (27.6%) report physical harassment, such as shoving or even hitting (GLSEN 2009 ). There is no reason to assume that these figures differ greatly from those in other Western nations.

  • Chapter 3 - The early years

  • from Part 2 - Engagement in the early years
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 55-70

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To consider how the engagement of young children and families in preschool programs has been understood through particular discourses.

  • To appreciate the different ways young children and families are positioned by their experience of preschool.

  • To realise the potential of preschool programs as democratic sites to authentically engage disengaged families.

  • To explore possibilities and practices to redress family disengagement.

    • Introduction

    This chapter examines how the engagement of young children and families in preschool programs has been understood through particular discourses. Drawing attention to the importance of preschool as a site for igniting engagement with disengaged families, this chapter reflects on discourses of engagement and inclusion, which are considered in light of how such discourses position and reposition families in the early childhood context.

    Examples are drawn from two preschool (kindergarten) programs specifically designed to deliver high-quality programs in extremely disadvantaged geographic locations. Discourses of engagement and intervention will be interrogated to ascertain how they reproduce the notion of ‘proper’ participation. This notion of ‘proper’ family participation can exclude certain families by situating them outside of accepted expectations (Macfarlane 2006). A more critical understanding of how families are viewed and positioned by others enables an awareness to be brought to the forefront. This awareness can highlight the barriers that are present for families who do not engage and enable possibilities for other ways of thinking to emerge.

  • Chapter 6 - Physical education

  • from Part 3 - Curriculum-based engagement
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 109-128

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To develop an understanding of the current international and national evaluations of the physical activity levels of children and youth.

  • To gain knowledge of the cohorts of children and youth most likely to not be meeting recommended levels of engagement in physical activity.

  • To become familiar with international and national curriculum standards in the field of physical education.

  • To develop skills to identify and target those students who may become disengaged within physical education classes.

  • To be able to integrate an awareness of issues in relation to students’ engagement in physical education within current school pedagogy and practice.

    • Introduction

    Recent evaluations by the World Health Organization (WHO) (2011) have highlighted substantial changes in the dietary and physical activity patterns of school-aged children. Fortunately, WHO has continued to acknowledge the role that educational administrators, schools and teachers play in managing the negative trends observed in the health behaviours of young people. Opportunities for children and youth to extend their knowledge about physical activity are often created through the application of high-quality pedagogical practices within the primary and secondary school physical education learning environment. The work of the physical education teacher needs to be focused on the transmission of critical information that facilitates students’ understanding of the lifestyle choices that will support the ongoing positive development of their physical wellbeing. Curriculum in physical education utilises learning activities that engage students in physical activity; however, physical education cannot serve as a framework to directly improve fitness. It must operate as a platform from which students can utilise new skills and information within the context of their own lives and their own engagement in the activities to foster fitness through sport and physical activity.

  • three - The rise and fall of the planning model

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 53-72

  • Summary

    The 1944 settlement: the backdrop

    Under the 1944 Education Act (EA44), for the first time in English history, all parents could access secondary education free of charge for their children up to the age of 15, with all schools funded by the state required to work within the same legislative and regulatory framework. This constituted a step-change from what had been, before 1944, a far more confused and inconsistent environment of educational provision.

    In this chapter, it is argued that pre-existing and long-standing attitudes about schooling based on selection and differentiation contributed to the post-war development of a tripartite system of secondary schooling based on the division of pupils into different types of secondary schools via use of a test of intellectual aptitude at age 11; EA44 had suggested but not required that such an approach be adopted. Within the post-1944 system, local authorities had a clear mandate to organise secondary education according to the requirements of the locality and to account to their electorates for their actions. This chapter will track how problematic aspects of the tripartite system, with its promised ‘parity of esteem’, became increasingly apparent, and how changes in the relationship between central and local government, highlighted on occasion in the form of judicial decisions and legislation, eventually led to a shift in the relative rights and powers of the local authority, of parents and of central government, and laid the ground for a new system of parental ‘choice’ run through quasi-markets.

    In the post-War period up to the 1970s, Dale (1989, p 78) characterised education policy as conducted on ‘non-partisan’ and even ‘bi-partisan’ terms, and Ranson (1990, p 5) thought that the ‘partnership’ established by EA44 ‘formed a cross party consensus for a generation’. This is testament perhaps not just to a unifying post-War spirit but also to the broadly drawn nature of the powers and structures within the non-prescriptive legislation. This consensual style chimed with a pluralist view of democracy whereby different interest groups engaged with government decision-makers (and each other) in a way that respected other parties’ views and values, including democratic values, in order to arrive at a pragmatic and sustainable solution (see for example Dahl, 1967; and Held, 1996).

  • two - The changing policy context

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 21-52

  • Summary

    A framework of analysis

    By tracing the history of themes and variations within reform of the school system over the last 60 years it is possible to shed some light on the underlying tensions which bear upon the current construct of ‘the admissions question’. The essential position adopted here is that issues relating to school admissions must be viewed in the context of the broader processes of school reform. Offering a narrative history here of the reforms that have taken place could be useful and interesting, but it is important that this does not become an end in itself, as excellent examples of such work can already be found elsewhere (see Simon, 1991; Carr and Hartnett, 1996; Tomlinson, 2005). Rather, this chapter will focus on those landmarks that signify most clearly the changing power relationships within the system. In practice, this means focusing on the locus of decision-making power and, given the agenda set in the previous chapter, the accountability arrangements relevant to the deployment of such power.

    What will become apparent is that, unsurprisingly, it is political debate and political power that has shaped the various settlements and re-settlements pertaining to education policy. It might therefore be expected that this would have also resulted in a set of values that would underpin the arrangements, but the processes of conflict and compromise inherent in the political fray have arguably left the value base much less strongly built than might be desirable. Indeed, the story that will emerge in this chapter is one of repeated compromise, the gravitational pull of pragmatism and the failure of political nerve and conviction in relation to the school system, at least as regards embedding a coherent set of educational values. While structural reforms have been introduced with commitment and vigour, much less movement is observable in terms of the introduction of a clear system of fundamental values for schooling. At the broadest level, a shift in emphasis is evident from the 1944 Education Act (EA44) to the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA) and later, when schooling as a civic and personal good in itself was increasingly superseded by a priority placed on education in the service of the national economic interest.

  • one - The admissions question

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 1-20

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Schooling is crucial, in its accreditation function, as a means of accessing employment and in its other tangible and intangible benefits for the individual and society. The path of our future life will be heavily determined by the quality of education we receive as children. Therefore, understanding the way that families access secondary schools for their children and the effectiveness (or not) of the school admissions systems and safeguards that the state puts in place is of profound importance. The significance of schooling is recognised explicitly in the Universal Declaration of Rights – the United Nations’ ‘common standard of achievement for all people’ – which includes the right to free education up to elementary and standard level (Article 26). But beyond such grand statements of intent or aspiration, the legal and administrative frameworks that individual states use to guarantee and deliver access to such educational provision may choose to be explicit (or not) about the expectations or entitlements its citizens will have.

    In the English school system that evolved following the passing of the 1944 Education Act (EA44), the allocation of places within a tripartite system of secondary schooling was certainly contentious, with the obtaining of a place at a grammar school being seen as offering an enormous increase in subsequent life chances. Despite the sentiment expressed in EA44 that all types of schools would have ‘parity of esteem’, from the 1960s to the early 1980s debate persisted, varying only in level of intensity, about the place and role of selective admission to grammar schools or the perceived non-selective alternative of a genuinely comprehensive school system. From the late 1980s, with the introduction of a range of quasi-market forces, initially under the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), the way in which school places are allocated has become a vitally important issue, relating to an increasingly diverse range of forms of organisation for state schools. Throughout this period, questions of social justice and social mobility have come in and out of focus in the context of ‘the admissions question’ and, along with expectations and claims relating to meritocracy, egalitarianism and citizenship, have dominated debate at different times.

  • five - The realities of choice and accountability in the quasi-market

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 105-136

  • Summary

    Introducing the practical realities of choice

    The harshest critics of admissions arrangements within the quasi-market for schooling offer much, often blunt, comment. When it is reported in the quality media that ‘An insidious mix of selection by ability, faith and postcode is wreaking havoc on the entire schools system’ (Fiona Millar, The Guardian, 12 April 2010), or that ‘School leaders are calling on politicians to end what they call “the misleading rhetoric” of school choice – which they say cannot be delivered’ (BBC, 2008), we have cause to consider seriously whether the outcomes of the system are consistent with democratic and constitutional expectations, and indeed the extent to which choice of school is a reality rather than an aspiration or empty promise.

    The oversubscribed school is the precise point at which the rhetoric of parental choice meets the stark reality of limited places in popular schools, and in this context the power to choose seems to shift from parents to those managing the admissions process. Operating within a quasi-market context, there will be strong pressures on, or temptations for, those exercising the power of selection (in ‘non-selective’ schools) to prioritise choosing those pupils who will best serve the interests of the individual school, rather than any broader social priorities, a phenomenon implicitly recognised and addressed by policies such as the ‘pupil premium’ (see Chapter Four) and ‘fair banding’ (see Chapter Six) espoused by the 2010 Coalition. Though schools are required to state publicly their admissions criteria, in situations of oversubscription there is the possibility of the occurrence of what Chitty (1992, pp 96–7) identifies as informal selection, or what we might term ‘covert selection’, where published policies on admissions are not followed or factors or practices additional to published criteria are adopted, by schools claiming not to be ‘selective’. As Whitty (2002, p 130) suggests, ‘The covert forms of selection … may … produce greater inequalities, as socially advantaged parents learn to decipher the “real” admissions criteria’. From constitutional and democratic perspectives, equity and accountability in the exercise of such power of selection will be imperative. It might also be expected that such practices would on occasion be found to be unlawful. In the time since the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), reviewed in this chapter, came into force, the legal requirements, guidance, practices and routes of appeal have all changed significantly.

Page 317 of 675