Sociomaterial assemblages, entanglements and text production: Mapping pedagogic practices using time-lapse photography

This paper maps a teacher’s pedagogic practices when teaching young children to produce texts using digital technologies during a literacy lesson for 7–8 year-old children. Pedagogies are broadly understood as what the teacher does in a classroom to facilitate learning in a twenty-first century classroom. The paper argues that the very notion of pedagogy places the teacher at the centre of learning practices, more so than other aspects of teaching such as the curriculum and assessment, which are heavily regulated by policy. Underpinned by understandings of sociomaterial assemblages, incorporating the material and the spatial, data were collected using time-lapse photography, classroom observations and field notes including classroom floor plans. The findings of a frame-by-frame analysis of the time-lapse photographs are reported through the three interconnected concepts of pedagogy, space and materials. The paper concludes by suggesting that an understanding of the material and spatial entanglements in a classroom through a mapping of pedagogies augments current knowledge, enabling a fresh understanding of teaching literacy and how young children learn to write as twenty-first century learners as children enact their journey of becoming-writer.Full Tex

Children resisting deficit: What can children tell us about literate lives?

Research has demonstrated that teachers who know more about the literate lives of their students outside of the classroom are more able to set up positive connections between home and school. In this article, we theorise the notion of ‘deficit’ discourses in education. Using two cases as examples, we seek to disrupt deficit discourses about children in communities of high poverty. The first case describes children’s responses when asked to draw and talk about learning to write, and highlights children’s explication of the role of the family in literacy learning. The second case describes an outside school media space where children engaged over time with a variety of new media and digital texts. These examples make the point that listening to young people can provide surprising insights into children’s aspirations and their understandings of the affordances of learning literacy. Our findings challenge the assumptions that underpin deficit understandings of children and young people growing up in communities of high poverty, and suggest that listening to children and young people in schools may well support the goal of providing quality schooling for all students.Full Tex

Auditing education courses using the TPACK framework as a preliminary step to enhancing ICTs

The Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) project is a Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) project that involves all 39 Australian teacher education universities. This study uses the TPACK framework and focuses on future teachers to ensure they are afforded the best learning opportunities in an increasingly online world. Specifically, the project supports the ongoing development of information and communication technology (ICT) proficiency of graduate teachers across Australia by building the ICT capacity of teacher educators and through the development of appropriate resources. This paper focuses on the initial auditing and mapping of the electronic course profiles (unit outlines) that occurred at The University of Queensland’s School of Education which in turn provided a basis for the specifics of the project. The initial findings of the mapping process indicate that generally, course coordinators underrepresent the technology components in their courses.Full Tex

Teaching in alternative and flexible education settings

Alternative and flexible education settings may come in different forms, but they generally have in common a focus on young people who have been disengaged from conventional schooling. One challenge of these settings, therefore, is to change the way education is offered in order to better engage these students. Much of the onus for this changed approach is on the staff: teachers, youth workers and other support staff. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to examine different aspects of the work of staff in these settings.Several common threads run through the chapters in this book, highlighting core aspects of the work of staff in these settings:• A strong sense of commitment to working with and for young people from marginalised backgrounds.• Validation of the relational and emotional nature of education, as a fundamentally people-centred enterprise.• The importance of explicit attention to critical reflection on staff members’ own positionality, assumptions and identity.• Collegiality as a crucially affirming part of school culture for staff.These elements are pertinent to educational settings everywhere. The chapters in this book serve as a reminder of what really ‘counts’ for our young people and their schooling.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Teaching Education

Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling

Exploring the affective dimension of teachers’ work in alternative school settings

The affective dimension of teachers’ work is a vital element in shaping inclusive, child-centred classrooms. It is particularly important for students who lack certain aspects of care and support within their personal lives. Recently, neoliberal educational paradigms of data gathering, external testing and competition have increased pressure upon students and teachers in mainstream schools. Many teachers feel that they have been taken away from their core business of teaching and caring for young people. Students with the highest needs often leave or become excluded from mainstream settings; some find their way to alternative/flexi/second chance schools. Our research indicates that within such sites, teachers and workers appear to be committed to the implementation of an educational environment and ethos explicitly framed by concepts of affective justice and an ethics of care. Despite its challenges and because of its rewards, they strongly assert the significance of their emotional labour when working with, usually disadvantaged, young people and helping them to overcome marginalisation. We contend that this redefinition of schooling as inherently ‘relational’ implies forms of teacher activism that transcend the obligation to student ‘well-being’ as commonly understood in mainstream settings, and which is failing to meet the needs of many young people

Teaching in alternative and flexible education settings

In both pre-service and in-service teacher education there is increasing recognition of the diverse settings in which teachers work. Despite the power of default discourses of ‘what schools are’ (see Johnston & Hayes, 2008; Tyack & Cuban, 1995), the educational landscape is varied in terms of organisational structures and educational approaches. This special issue takes as its starting point the diversity of educational provision at secondary school level – and focuses on one specific set of providers: alternative and flexible education settings. These schools and programmes are aimed at young people who – for whatever reason – are unlikely to complete upper secondary qualifications (‘Year 12’ in Australia) in more traditional settings but who nevertheless would like to achieve such educational credentials (Mills & McGregor, 2014; Te Riele, 2007). Recent policy and economic pressures – not only in Australia (CoAG, 2009) but also internationally (e.g. European Union, 2011) – have led to increased demand for such alternative pathways to school completion. As a result, in many countries alternative and flexible education settings are now a small but significant part of the education sector in which teachers work. This makes an investigation of teaching in these settings of interest in its own right, as recognition of the relevance of these settings as workplaces and the implications for pre-service and in-service teacher education to support teachers’ work in these sites.</p