2009 Events
Our program of events draws from current ACE and MGSE staff members, PhD students and invited international and national researchers. Unless otherwise specified, all events will be held in the Frank Tate Room, Ground Floor, Alice Hoy Building at the University of Melbourne from 5:00pm. For further information about any of these events, and to RSVP, please contact Emma Brimfeld
- 16 March - Roundtable Discussion:'Shall we Dance? Arts Partnerships in Education', Professor John O'Toole
- 30 March - Colloquium: 'Arts in the Context of Peace and Conflict: The Case of Theatre Education', Dr Shifra Schonmann (University of Hafia)
- 27 April - PhD Confirmation panels: Sabrina Lian and Jessie Weng
- 11 May - Colloquium: 'Developing case studies for the context of Indonesian teacher education: a possible contribution to case study methodology', Dr Mary Fearnley-Sander
- 25 May - Colloquium with Professor Barry McGaw AO
- 15 June - Colloquium: 'Beethoven or Britney - the great divide in music education', Associate Professor Robert Walker (University of NSW)
- 22 June - Colloquium: 'Engaging the Bricolage: New Rigour in Qualitative Research', Shirley Steinberg (Director, The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, McGill University, Quebec)
- 17 August -'Curriculum and Collaboration in Arts Based Education', Book Launch and Seminar
- 31 August - Colloquium: 'Inventing Australia Through Children's Books', Robyn Floyd & Jenny Peters
- 14 September - Colloquium: 'The lessons we learnt: the nature of early professional learning for beginning teachers in Victorian secondary schools through induction and mentoring relationships', Jane Kirkby
- 12 October - Colloquium: 'Voyage of the SS Discovery and The Truman Show: Fifty years of lessons in trans-disciplinary curriculum', Wesley Imms & Sally Godhino
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16 March - Roundtable Discussion:'Shall we Dance? Arts Partnerships in Education', Professor John O'Toole
Abstract:
The Arts are nominally at least established as a key learning area in every state throughout the years of schooling. The arts-free National Curriculum aside, national and state policy statements, frameworks and summit recommendations stress the Arts' contemporary importance in both education and related fields such as health, human services and of course, cultural history and heritage. Presumably to fill a perceived skills and knowledge gap in schooling systems, governments, private corporations and philanthropic foundations are increasingly putting money, resources and trust into partnerships with artists in schools and communities. Is this well-founded? Will it or does it work - in the short run? In the long run? What is or is not happening in teacher education to make this injection of energy and funds necessary? Is it a way of keeping artists employed? What kind of skills or training do artists need to work in educational contexts? Are artists better than teachers at teaching the Arts?
The first colloquium of the year will be a round table (ie open) discussion, to let people share their views about the position of Arts in the nation's education and in teacher education institutions including ours. It will be chaired by John O'Toole, Chair of Arts Education in Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Please come with an opinion and be ready to share it and discuss it.
30 March - Colloquium: Arts in the Context of Peace and Conflict: The Case of Theatre Education, Dr Shifra Schonmann (University of Hafia)
Abstract:
Can theatre or any other artistic expression, be it music, the visual arts, dance, literature or film -empower witnesses to step in and not stand by when an act of violence occurs? Should it aim to do so? Can theatre demolish the mental images that we have in our heads? Can theatre transform reality? This presentation is aimed at analyzing the proximities between real life situations and situations staged in a theatre. I will use the image of Baron Munchausen and his 'tall stories' to illustrate the point that the peace process in the Middle East should be regarded as a multi-faceted construction of the truth, and the ways that theatre constructs images in our heads in order to transform that reality are questionable. The focus will be on:
- How is an image constructed in our Head?
- Can Theatre (for example) transform reality?
- Challenging the axiom that peace education via the arts is applicable to all stages of conflict and hostilities.
Biographical Note:
Shifra Schonmann is Associate Professor, holder of the Hanan Bar-Netzer Chair of Education and Society, focusing on Theatre for Young People. She is the Head of the Laboratory for Research in Theatre/Drama Education, in the Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa, Israel.
She also conducts the programs of Aesthetic Education and Theatre Teachers' Training. The continuing areas of her research are aesthetics, theatre/drama education, theatre for young people, curriculum, and teacher training. She has published numerous articles on these issues, as well as three books: Theatre of the Classroom (published in Hebrew by Tshrikover). Behind Closed Doors, (published in English by SUNY Press, co-written with Miriam Ben Peretz) and Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People: Images and Observations (published in English by Springer). During her career, she has been a visiting professor at a number of universities such as Rochester, New York, Stanford and Reading. Professor Schonmann has been an invited speaker in many international conferences and also acts as a member of the Editorial Board of several leading journals.
11 May: Colloquium: 'Developing case studies for the context of Indonesian teacher education: a possible contribution to case study methodology', Dr Mary Fearnley-Sander
Biographical Note:
Dr. Mary Fearnley-Sander is a former academic from the University of New England and University of Tasmania in the area of SOSE. Currently she is an Honorary Research Associate of the University of Melbourne. For the last eight years she has been working full-time in Indonesia in projects supporting the Indonesian government's basic education reforms, including in post-tsunamic rehabilitation in Aceh. She has worked in teacher education and education governnance reform for AusAID, UNESCO and the Indonesian National Ministry of Education. Her most recent work has been participating in Indonesia's program of upgrade of 1.7 million teachers to Bachelor level qualification. Her recent publications have been in the area of Indonesia's social and citizenship curriculum. Her interest in case studies in teacher education grows out of work with Indonesian teacher educators and practitioners in pre-service and inservice teacher competence upgrade programs in Indonesia.
25 May: Colloquium with Professor Barry McGaw AO
Biographical Note:
Professor Barry McGaw is half-time Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne where he is Executive Director of the Cisco-Intel-Microsoft Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. He is Chair of the National Curriculum Board.
Prior to returning to Australia at the end of 2005, he was Director for Education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He had earlier been Executive Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Professor of Education at Murdoch University, Head of the Research and Curriculum Branch in the Queensland Department of Education and originally a science teacher in Queensland secondary schools. He holds BSc, DipEd and BEd(Hons) from the University of Queensland and EdM and PhD from the University of Illinois.
Professor McGaw is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian College of Educators and the International Academy of Education. He has been President of the Australian Association for Research in Education, the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian College of Educators and the International Association for Educational Assessment.
He received an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003 and was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2004. He was the 2005-2006 recipient of University of Illinois Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement.
15 June - Colloquium: 'Beethoven or Britney - the great divide in music education', Associate Professor Robert Walker (University of NSW)
Co-hosted by the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Society for Music Education and supported by Currency House
Biographical Note:
Robert Walker received degrees of BMus(Hons) and PhD from King’s College, University of London. He was director of music at two grammar schools and a special music school (cathedral school) prior to moving to Canada in 1981 as Professor and Chair of Music Education at both Simon Fraser University and The University of British Columbia in Canada. He moved to the University of New South Wales in 1998 and served as head of the then School of Music and Music Education for a time. He is the author of 8 books, 10 chapters in books and over 100 research papers. His most recent book: “Music Education, cultural values, social change and innovation” – published in the USA in 2007 – is a major commentary on current issues and is being used in many universities. He was Chair of the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education (1998-2002), Chief Examiner for Music and coordinator of the Arts Programs the International Baccalaureate Organisation (1986 – 1994), and a member of a research team invited to South Africa following the end of Apartheid to teach indigenous South Africans research techniques in music and music education. One of his early and enduring interests has been the use of 20th century music, especially that of the avant-garde, into school music curricula. He made two films for public television in Canada and the USA on this topic in 1988 and 1990. He currently teaches in the School of English, Media and Performing Arts at UNSW, where he supervises 12 doctoral students.
Abstract:
In 1996, Gary McPherson, the new Ormond Professor in Music at the University of Melbourne, described the state of music education in Australian schools as being “in crisis”. In 2005 the National Review of School Music Education was completed for the Federal Government, and came to the same conclusion. The Review pointed to the great disparity of provision and musical experience provided by some rich private schools, as compared with the majority of public schools. In public primary schools, music hardly exists as a subject, and primary school teachers have little or no musical education during their teacher training programs. The reasons for this state of affairs are complex, but identifiable. The problem can be traced to two main developments which eventually had significant effects on the music classroom. The first was the rise of sociological approaches to curriculum and educational delivery during the 1970s, inspired by post-modern viewpoints and mostly French philosophical arguments which fuelled the post-modern movement. The ideals behind these approaches were supportable by most sensitive, intelligent educators: to bring in huge numbers of children from the margins who were dispossessed by both the system and their socio-economic status. But it all went wrong as the content of education became dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator in order that deprived could cope. Most of us wanted the opposite – improved teaching and facilities in order that all children, irrespective of their background, could grow and develop and join the mainstream of society as equals. The second development was the massive growth in influence of the entertainment media fuelled by an unbelievable growth of highly sophisticated micro-technology enabling canned music to be stored, listened to, and selected from unlimited sources, in the form of the internet and the iPod. What has happened is that what was in the margins is now mainstream, and what was mainstream in now in the margins! Education in music is hardly distinguishable for many children from entertainment. But for those who can pay, education at its most effective as a preparation for leadership and for full participation at all levels in society, is available, while for the dispossessed and poor, little has changed. They are still unable to access the corridors of power: the sociological revolution in education has failed. We need to revitalise our pedagogy with special attention paid to subject content; we need a subject-based pedagogy, not a sociological or political pedagogy. This would empower all socio-economic groups of children, especially the dispossessed and marginalised.
22 June - Colloquium: 'Engaging the Bricolage: New Rigour in Qualitative Research', Shirley Steinberg (Director, The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, McGill University, Quebec)
Biographical Note:
Shirley R. Steinberg is the Director of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec (freire.mcgill.ca). An internationally known speaker and writer, she is the author and editor of over 25 books and hundreds of articles. Her latest books are: Diversity and Multiculturalism: A Reader, Christotainment: Selling Jesus Through Popular Culture, and Media Literacy. Her research disciplines are cultural studies and education, and she focuses on diversity, urban education, youth culture, and media studies. Additionally, along with Joe Kincheloe, she developed the notions of critical research bricolage, postformal thinking, and kinderculture. Steinberg is a frequent guest of CTV, CBC radio and television, and contributer to many internationsl newspapers.
17 August -'Curriculum and Collaboration in Arts Based Education', Book Launch and Seminar
Presenters:
Drama and the Curriculum authors: John O’Toole, Madonna Stinson and Tina Moore. Published by Springer 2009.
Launch - Professor Lyn Yates, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Melbourne. Foundation Professor of Curriculum, Melbourne Graduate School of Education Creative Arts Partnerships Professor Pat Thomson, Director of Research in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham and the School’s Centre for Research in Equity and Diversity in Education (CREDE).
Abstract:
Australia is one of the few countries which has established Drama more or less throughout the curriculum, at all levels and all schooling systems in all states – and has had some sort of a continuous establishment for over 20 years. The book, Drama and the Curriculum, is written by leading international and national drama practitioners and theorists, John O’Toole, Madonna Stinson and Tina Moore and explains Drama’s theoretical and practice contribution. Following the book launch, Professor Pat Thomson will provide an overview of Arts partnerships in the U.K. Join the Artistic and Creative Education cluster in a celebration of Arts education and critical conversations focusing Arts based partnerships.
31 August - Colloquium: 'Inventing Australia Through Children's Books', Robyn Floyd & Jenny Peters
Abstract:
Ruth Hawker (1897-1976) was a member of the renowned pioneering family who settled in South Australia in 1838. Although Ruth published two volumes of poetry and two books which are autobiographical, the main body of her work is children's fiction - seven novels published between 1918 and 1970. Her work is invaluable in coming to an understanding of Australia and Australian children during this period.
In 1904, at the age of sixteen, Olga Ernst wrote Fairytales from the Land of the Wattle, transposing fairy folk emanating from the rich German literature of her childhood and weaving them into magical stories set in the bush. Primary sources and interviews with her daughter, Helen Dixon, are the beginning of a fascinating exploration of the experiences and events that fuelled her quest to invent an Australian fantasy genre.
Biographical Note:
This forthcoming colloquium features the research of two leading educators.
Robyn Floyd is Assistant Principal at Glen Iris Primary School where her role includes utilising a range of e-learning tools and developing 'challenge and opportunity' curriculum for all students, particularly in the area of Literacy and Personal Development. Robyn's varied career includes teaching pre-school programs, at primary and secondary level and developing programs for teacher education in Disability Awareness and ICT. In 2008, Robyn was awarded the ACEC National ICT Teacher of the Year Award for her development of bilingual story resources for deaf students by government school students in years 5-11 (hearing and deaf). Her study of Olga Ernst is the focus of her PhD.
Jenny Peters is a Senior English Teacher and Director of Communication at Firbank Grammar School. She has a passionate interest in Gifted Education and facilitates the Gifted and Talented Program in the Senior School. She has taught in regional and metropolitan government and independent schools and has been Head of Year 7 and Transition, Head of English and Director of Staff. The work of Ruth Hawker and her place in Australian children's literature is the subject of her D. Ed.
14 September - Colloquium: 'The lessons we learnt: the nature of early professional learning for beginning teachers in Victorian secondary schools through induction and mentoring relationships', Jane Kirkby
Abstract:
This study has its roots in a highly personal experience and it is probably true to say that as such the methodology selected me rather than vice versa. At the time of my trompe l’oeil moment, the focus on formal mentoring was just beginning to gain greater attention and the introduction of Victorian Institute of Teaching and the standards for registration was imminent. Two beginning teachers departed our school stating, as they walked out the door, that they had felt unsupported. I was left to wonder what they had seen or heard that I had not. These events have underpinned the study and have been contributing factors for decisions made regarding methodology, the structure of the study and nature of data analysis and representation.
Biographical Note:
Jane is clinical specialist in the Master of Teaching program and a D.Ed student in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She has extensive experience as a teacher and administrator in Victorian schools. She has had a long involvement with the state and national bodies of Tournament of Minds Inc. She was a member of the team that delivered the Principles of Learning and Teaching professional learning for Victoria Teachers during 2005-6 and she has taught professional studies programs in teacher education.
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12 October - Colloquium: 'Voyage of the SS Discovery and The Truman Show: Fifty years of lessons in trans-disciplinary curriculum', Wesley Imms & Sally Godhino
Abstract:
During the early part of this century trans-disciplinary curriculum was enthusiastically embraced by many Australian education systems as a means of making learning more relevant and cohesive, and of cultivating student voice and civic engagement. However, given the apparent problematic nature of fully implementing such curriculum, including most notably Tasmania and Western Australia, John Dewey’s 1930s rebuke of school systems for their segregation of knowledge and inability to connect school-based knowledge to their lived experiences would seem to ring even more true in the 2000s. This emphasises that the cyclical nature of curriculum implementation is a matter of historical fact, as are the many lessons history can teach us about what does and does not work in the classroom. In this paper, the co-researchers present evidence from two trans-disciplinary projects conducted almost half a century apart to argue that certain characteristics always have, and perhaps always will, encourage success with this style of curriculum development. In the first project, a grade two teacher in a regional Tasmanian school sailed her class around the world in a virtual ship, facilitating enthusiastic creative, cultural and academic learning by her students. Illustrated by a rich array of photographs, authentic hand-written ‘log’ entries, and interviews with class members and the teacher 44 years after the voyage, this case study demonstrates the power of a literacy-arts rich program to engage students in multi-disciplined learning in the primary setting. As a method of contrast, a recent trans-disciplinary project in a Victorian secondary school explore students’ perceptions of ‘reality’ through film analysis, writing and discussion within the disciplines of Science, English and Religion. Resulting interview transcripts and writing samples acknowledged the role teachers played in opening up spaces for students to ask questions, to explore each other’s ideas and to engage in independent thinking. The students valued the creation of opportunities for extended dialogic interactive learning which they identified as enabling them to develop depth and complexity of understanding. In this paper, the content, teaching styles and student artefacts of the two programmes are examined, discussed and compared to identify epistemological and pedagogical traits common to these successful – but historically separated – trans-disciplinary projects.