[Refereed Articles]
Interrogating Learner-Centredness as a Vehicle for Meaning Emerging in and Researching Personal Pedagogies: Transformative Learning, Self-efficacy and
Social Presence at Two Australian Universities
P. A. Danaher, Geoff Danaher and Beverley Moriarty
pp. 4-13
Learner-centredness is a key element of the contemporary dominant discourse
pertaining to pedagogies and learning. Yet enacting learner-centredness is far from
easy in the increasingly massified higher education system. The authors contend that
it is in the intersection between this philosophy and practice that meaning emerges
and personal pedagogies can be researched.
This paper deploys the authors' experiences as higher educators covering a diversity
of disciplines, encompassing pre-undergraduate, undergraduate and postgraduate
domestic and international students and including face-to-face, distance and online
delivery modes in two Australian universities. Learner-centredness is interrogated in
relation to three key sites: exploring transformative learning with previously educationally marginalised
pre-undergraduate students in face-to-face and external modes; enhancing self-efficacy with face-to-face undergraduate teacher education students in relation to their mathematical competence; experiencing social presence with online postgraduate students learning about educational research methods and ethics.
The paper reports examples from each site where learner-centredness is successfully
engaged and hence where the meaning emerging in practice is fulfilling and
productive. At the same time, interpersonal and structural factors sometimes obstruct
the attainment of such positive outcomes. These findings have important implications
for the authors' ongoing research into their personal pedagogies as well as for policy
and practice in contemporary higher education more broadly.
Students with Low Entry Scores Succeed at University
Bernadette Lynch and Shalene Werth
pp. 14-22
University of Southern Queensland low entry score, first year Business students were
more likely to pass MGT1000: Organisational Behaviour and Management than any
other Bachelor of Business core course during the period 2003-2005. In this paper two
of the academics teaching this course identify the two key teaching strategies that they
contend contributed most to these results.
The first of these strategies (scaffolding) was used to teach students strategies that
they can use – for example, to analyse a case study or construct an argument within an
essay. The teaching team speculate that scaffolding facilitated the students’ transition
into the university as an academic milieu and thus enhanced their prospects for
academic success in the course. The second teaching strategy presented in the paper
involved the creation of the academic as a supportive social presence within the
course (even for students studying at a distance) through the adoption of a particular,
conversational kind of 'voice' in text based materials. The team assert that this
facilitated students' transition into the university as a social milieu and facilitated their
subsequent retention and success within the course.
Papers of this type have an increasing significance as the acceptance of students with
low entry scores into university seems likely to continue. Universities need to create
learning contexts which accommodate these students, without diluting academic
standards. The paper is intended more as food for thought for other practitioners than
as a simple recipe for teaching success.
Past Student Voices: Providing Authentic Collaborative Descriptions
Michael Ryan
pp. 23-34
The use of collaboratively produced assignments for assessment is a risky undertaking
for both students and course designers, especially in higher education. Yet the
benefits, in terms of graduate capabilities, collaborative sense making and student
involvement, suggest that the effort is worthwhile. Among the critical elements for the
design of a collaborative assignment (such as a Web Inquiry Project) are clearly
expressed expectations and considerable scaffolding of the task. However, formal
descriptions and rules do little to ameliorate the perception of risk and increased
anxiety by students. This paper reports on a longitudinal design experiment that was
conducted in a large first-year university course. The study included past students who
provided informal and authentic advice for present students as they were engaged in a
collaborative assignment. Thus, through mediated communication channels (such as
video interviews, cameo appearances and online forums), the past students provided
voices that complemented the course designer's formal descriptions. Analysis of the
conversations between the past and present students reveals them to be simultaneously
rich, functional and reflective. In particular, the past students forum grew into a multithreaded,
complex set of conversations that covered a substantial set of topics and
concerns for the current students. It proved functional because it promoted
confidence, had immediate application and was clearly expressed for these students.
And because the forum remained as a persistent record, it provided the basis for
reflective thinking about the task and how it might be approached. As a technique that
is relatively easy to set up, using a simple online forum along with considerate and
able past students, the method described has immediate practical application.
Reflections on Engagement in Online Learning Communities
Anita Ryle and Kaye Cumming
pp. 35-46
Engagement with course content, facilitators and peers is necessary for students fully
to achieve their learning potential. This paper demonstrates how peer-to-peer online
interaction enables deeper learning through discourse and helps with retention issues
by increasing motivation and reducing feelings of isolation.
The authors were motivated to write this paper following their personal experiences in
an online postgraduate course as members of a successful learning community. Their
reflections on the facilitation methods and levels of student participation during the
semester are supported by quotations from chat logs and discussion postings made by
fellow students in the course, thereby enabling the inclusion of a wider student voice.
To give more breadth, the authors also reflect on another two shared online learning
experiences which resulted with varying success in building the community of
learners. These comparisons provide a distinctive perspective because the authors
reflect upon their experiences as students rather than as teachers.
This research informs a future action research project to improve facilitation strategies
used in a large undergraduate course and highlights strategies for facilitators to
consider in the formation of online learning communities. Topics include facilitator
presence, online activities, the use of regular announcements, asynchronous and
synchronous methods of engagement, the tone of discussions and group dynamics.
Engaging Student Voice to Monitor and Improve a Post-experience ICT Management Program
A. S. C. Hooper
pp. 47-57
Good course design relies on an understanding of student needs and demographics. It
should also incorporate feedback from graduates familiar both with the programme
and the marketplace in which students will be employed. The dynamic nature of the
skills mix required of the Information and Communications Technology professions
make course design for this group particularly problematic. This paper reports on the
demographics and self-reported needs of students in a taught masters programme in
Information Management within one New Zealand university. It relates this
institution's response to these findings and comments on their wider significance to
the sector. The main findings confirm the need for course design to reflect the relative
maturity, career focus and sophistication of this student group, and the need for
curriculum design to deliver a significant strategic management component to midcareer
ICT professionals. They also identify possible handicaps that professional
stereotypes might place on career development.
Exploring the Challenge of Applied Learning Reform
Damian Blake
pp. 58-76
Post compulsory education in Australia has changed significantly since the early
1990s. For many young people in their later years of schooling, learning now involves
a blending of experiences derived from education and training institutions once
historically separated and defined by distinctly different approaches to pedagogy and
assessment. It is also increasingly common for students to include formalised workbased
learning arrangements in their learning program, adding further to the students'
experiences of learning and exposure to different learning contexts. Added to this new
mosaic of learning experiences, increased participation rates in schooling have
contributed to greater diversity in post compulsory students’ learning temperaments.
This paper draws on five case studies to explore the new pedagogical challenges
presented by these students' exposure to different systems of learning and examines
the emergence of applied learning in Victoria as a pedagogical response to these
challenges. It proposes that effective pedagogical change aiming to address these
challenges must overcome the tendency to be marginalised in schools and labelled as
an alternative approach to learning. The paper concludes by exploring the possible
future of applied learning emerging from the current context of pedagogical change.
The Impact of Diversity in Queensland Classrooms on Literacy Teaching in Changing Times
Mary-Anne Fleming
pp. 77-91
The intent of the paper is to identify possible inhibitors to best practice for literacy
teaching and learning and to identify key considerations for a responsive, relevant and
constructive curriculum and pedagogy for the teaching of literacy in diverse
classrooms. A review of relevant research and pedagogical frameworks such as
sociocultural constructivism, productive pedagogies and multiliteracies pedagogy,
will provide the basis on which to argue some possible classroom practices for
teachers to consider for the as ways forward in diverse classrooms. This paper will be
contextualized within the current political agenda in regard to literacy education and
recent research into literacy teaching and learning in Australia, reported in 'The
National Inquiry into Literacy' and consider the issues together with the assessment
demands placed on teachers in classrooms.
Peer Training Methods for Children and Adolescents with Autism: A Review
Serene H.-J. Choi
pp. 92-100
I review how the training of peers is undertaken in peer-mediated interventions for
children and adolescents with autism. Common elements of training include peer
modelling, peer initiation, peer response, and multiple interaction training for peers.
The intent is to provide some practical notions about designing peer involvement for
inclusion.
Meanings Emerging in Practice for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students: An Early Years Multiliteracies Project
Beryl Exley
pp. 101-113
This paper reviews the characteristics of changing education in new times (Castells,
2000, 2001; McNaughton, 2002). It draws attention to the complex nature of teachers'
work when working with linguistically and culturally diverse populations in an era of
new literacies and new technologies. Attention is turned to one teacher, Mrs Jessie
Alexander (pseudonym), as she implements a multiliteracies project within her
culturally and linguistically diverse early-years classroom. The theoretical framework
of the analysis draws on international work on student diversity (McNaughton, 2002)
designs of meaning and components of pedagogy (New London Group, 1996, 2000;
Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) and knowledge processes within multiliteracies projects
(Kalantzis & Cope, 2005) to analyse Jessie's approach and its outcomes for her
diverse student group. This examination highlights both the utility of Jessie's 'wide –
but not vague' approach and the robustness of the theorisation of multiliteracies for
meeting the needs of this group of 21st century learners.
Do Middle Ear Infections Matter? Student Self-reported Perceptions of Behaviour, Including Social Skills, Following Experience with Otitis Media with Effusion
Janice S. Stenton
pp. 114-122
Children frequently experience fluctuating conductive hearing loss during and following episodes of otitis media with
effusion. With the prevalence of the disease increasing in the non-Indigenous population in Australia, many children may
be at risk of long-term problems related to their behaviour. There are conflicting findings in the research literature
regarding the effects of this type of hearing loss. For some students it appears that experience with otitis media with
effusion with or without tympanostomy tube (grommet) insertion is associated with various educational problems, including
inappropriate behaviours. A current concern is whether or not these possible effects would continue to influence the
behaviour of children as they continue into their high school years. A study was undertaken to identify the impact of
otitis media with effusion and its associated sequelae on the behaviour of high school students. Self-reporting by high
school students in Years 8 and 9 attending a Brisbane school provided information about their perceptions of various
aspects of their behaviour (including social skills). Three groups were formed: a Non-OME/Non-Grommet Group (n = 28), an
OME/Grommet Group (n = 17) and an OME/Non-Grommet Group (n = 32). Analysis of the results revealed a range of mild effects;
in particular, girls with a history of grommets exhibited a lack of confidence in their social skills and boys (with or
without grommets) an increase in behaviour problems. The study identifies a number of associated teaching and learning
issues, including noise levels in childcare environments and school classrooms, current teaching and learning methodology
and the training of new teachers.
