Anne Cloonan

An analysis of the use of autobiographical narrative for teachers’ intercultural learning

Abstract The currency of intercultural education has risen worldwide in response to increased diversity within societies resulting from migration and global flows of populations. As intercultural education becomes a core responsibility of schooling, critical, detailed analysis of pedagogies for teachers’ own intercultural learning is largely absent in education research, in contrast to attention to developing students’ intercultural capabilities and theoretical and policy analyses. In beginning to address this limitation, this article offers a critical, reflexive analysis of our use and the efficacy of using autobiographical narrative for teachers’ intercultural learning. Framing theories include interculturality, autobiographical narratives for teachers’ professional learning, reflexivity, and the effects of silence and silencing in relation to diversity and intercultural relations in schools. Three instances of teacher autobiographical narrative elicited as part of a large-scale, longitudinal study of intercultural education in Australian schools are deconstructed to elucidate their explicit and hidden meanings and effects. The analysis reveals that while autobiographical narrative has productive potential as a strategy for stimulating teacher reflexivity about cultural identities and intercultural relations, it also contains hidden dangers and traps that caution against viewing it as a pedagogical cure-all in the development of teachers’ intercultural knowledge and skills.

Integrating by Design: Multimodality, 21st Century Skills and Subject Area Knowledge

A renewed focus on pedagogy is a pressing need as too often the incorporation of digital tools and multimodal texts into classroom programs is through traditional pedagogies. Limited pedagogical choices can fail to engage students actively in ways that foreground agency and enhance learning through maximising the affordances of the digital tools and texts. This chapter explores the use of Learning by Design as a means of integrating both multimodality and 21st century skills into subject area curriculum offerings. Foregrounding the rise of multimodality and 21st century skills and the challenges they pose for pedagogy, the chapter considers approaches to curriculum integration and positions Learning by Design as a pedagogically driven means of curriculum integration. Drawing on a case study, it then discusses one teacher’s renewed design and implementation of a unit of work in which multimodality and ‘21st century skills’ were integrated into literacy and subject area learning through Learning by Design.

Innovating from the Inside: Teacher Influence and the "Promisingness" of Digital Learning Environments.

In line with global trends, Australian educational policy emphatically recognises the need for contemporary learners to be digitally literate, with provision of ‘one-to-one’ devices to individual learners in schools a major implementation strategy. However, without teacher commitment, the benefits of such investment in one-to-one programs are undermined and the devices themselves are under-utilised. Too often, the focus on hardware is not accompanied by insight into the organisational learning and change required in pedagogical practices. In the knowledge that curriculum and pedagogical renewal rests squarely with teachers and leaders rather than with technological hardware and software per se, this article draws on outcomes/findings from a school/university ethnographic collaboration which closely explored the introduction of a school-funded, one-to-one netbook program in a school excluded from a state-wide initiative. It seeks to make visible the often overlooked work of teachers as members of learning organisations through a narrative of change. The narrative focuses on teacher agency and capacity to mobilise a school community to commit to a vision of; no-blame risk taking; collective professional learning; the power of purpose and passion; leadership in the face of government practice which disempowered teachers and disadvantaged students; and the development of an innovation ‘from the inside’.