Cathleen Farrelly

The discourses of sexuality in curriculum documents on sexuality education: an Australian case study

This paper identifies three underlying discourses on the nature of sexuality evident in two Department of Education curriculum documents on sexuality education in Victoria, Australia, over the past 15 years. These discourses are a cultural ‘preservation’ perspective, a risk minimisation perspective, and a view that sexual expression should enable cultural and individual enlightenment and emancipation. This analysis of underpinning discourses is used as the basis for identifying a range of issues relating to course content, implied characteristics of learners, and appropriate teaching methods that need to be addressed in future documents if diverse goals in this area relating to knowledge and attitudinal outcomes are to be met.

Personalised learning: lessons to be learnt

Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self-regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framework for conceptualising and enacting this construct. We then report on an attempt to introduce personalised learning as one strategy, among several, to improve student academic performance and wellbeing in four low SES regional secondary schools in Australia. We report on a survey of 2407 students’ perceptions of the extent to which their school provided a personalised learning environment, and a case study of a programme within one school that aimed to apply a personalised approach to the mathematics curriculum. We found that while there were ongoing challenges in this approach, there was also evidence of success in the mathematics case.

Personalised learning in the open classroom: The mutuality of teacher and student agency

Abstract In this paper we examine how agency is characterised by teachers and students when personalised learning is enacted in the contemporary open classroom. A case study is outlined that identifies teacher reasoning for practice, the use of physical and virtual learning spaces, and student reaction to teacher facilitation of personalised learning. Agency is conceptualized as a multi-faceted set of behavioural, affective and cognitive choices, as realised by both teachers and students, drawing upon the action possibilities of contemporary educational contexts. A model of the mutuality of teacher and student agency is outlined. The model shows how a shared understanding of the affordances of flexible learning spaces and personalised learning interact to both produce teacher and student expectations and perceptions of their own and other’s choices and actions. Specific student choices and actions are examined in relation to problem-solving and open access of resources to achieve the task requirements. Implications are noted for teaching and learning in modern school contexts.

Adapting to Teaching and Learning in Open-Plan Schools

In recent years many countries have built or renovated schools incorporating open plan design. These new spaces are advocated on the basis of claims that they promote fresh, productive ways to teach and learn that address the needs of students in this century, resulting in improved academic and well-being outcomes. These new approaches include teachers planning and teaching in teams, grouping students more fl exibly, developing more coherent and comprehensive curricula, personalising student learning experiences, and providing closer teacher-student relationships. In this book we report on a three-year study of six low SES Years 7–10 secondary schools in regional Victoria, Australia, where staff and students adapted to these new settings. In researching this transitional phase, we focused on the practical reasoning of school leaders, teachers and students in adapting organisational, pedagogical, and curricular structures to enable sustainable new learning environments. We report on approaches across the different schools to structural organisation of students in year-level groupings, distributed leadership, teacher and pre-service teacher professional learning, student advocacy and wellbeing, use of techno-mediated learning, personalising student learning experiences, and curriculum design and enactment.

Making death, compassion and partnership ‘part of life’ in school communities

Abstract Death can be considered a social taboo, a common source of fear and public avoidance. School communities are not immune to this, as the topic of death is constantly avoided. It is vital to understand how we can socially and culturally cultivate a positive regard for death, dying and bereavement in our school communities. Community members need to discuss these difficult issues and use strategies to enhance compassion, connectedness and support. In this literature review we reason that death is specifically not ‘part of life’ in school communities. Due to the dearth of school community-based literature on this issue and the progressive literature residing in palliative care, we aim to coalesce palliative care and school-based research, evaluate it and highlight compassion and partnership as a way forward for school communities. Essentially, our societal attitudes about death and dying have been profoundly altered and our community ownership of these normal life events has largely disappeared. This is demonstrated for example, by palliative care moving from the social grass roots ‘modern hospice movement’ formed in the 1960s and being reintegrated into the mainstream health care system by the end of the 1990s, resulting in an overall medicalised morphing of death, dying and bereavement issues. Therefore, we recommend that further research be conducted in how to develop compassionate schools to inform us how death may be continually made ‘part of life’ in school communities, for the benefit of students, teachers and families alike.

Characterising Personalising Learning

Can removing classroom walls enable more personalised learning and enhance student wellbeing? In this book we claim these outcomes are possible in an open-plan school for low SES students, if appropriate conditions are met. A major condition is the development of these spaces as supportive communities where teams of teachers address learners’ individual and collective needs.

A Whole-School Approach to Adolescent Wellbeing in Open-Plan Schools

In this chapter we report on the attempts of one Bendigo Education Plan (BEP) school to respond to identified wellbeing issues by developing a whole-school approach to foster the wellbeing needs of their Years 7–10 students. The school has a cohort of students from lower than average socio-economic backgrounds. Research points to the necessity of a multi-layered approach to building a positive school culture to improve student wellbeing.

Remaking Schooling through Open-Plan Settings

In assessing a major educational reform of the kind enacted in the BEP, many questions are raised, requiring comprehensive, evidence-based answers. Was the original Plan well-conceptualised and effectively enacted to meet the needs of these twenty-first century learners? What are the short-term and long-term effects of this major reorganisation of schooling? What are the gains and losses (if any) of this approach? To what extent were initial goals achieved, and enacted strategies effective, and why? How sustainable are the emerging signs of positive changes to student academic attainment and wellbeing? What are lessons for like contexts and future schooling? Elsewhere (Prain et al., 2014), we have sought to answer some of these questions around BEP goals, implementation strategies, and outcomes, including key enablers and constraints.

New Practices, New Knowledge and Future Implications for Learning in Open-Plan Settings for Low Ses Students

In this book we have identified many BEP implementation effects, some expected and others less predictable. We also recognise that many effects and outcomes have arisen from altered conditions since the development of the BEP’s original goals nine years ago. In summarising these findings we are particularly interested in focusing again on new knowledge about the relationship between up-scaled learning communities and learning and wellbeing for predominantly low SES students.

Researching the Outcomes of the Bendigo Education Plan

For many reasons educators in this century are increasingly concerned about how to imagine and enact successful secondary education (Fullen, 2007; Good & Brophy, 2008). This is partly due to broad recognition that education systems play a key role in enabling or constraining individual, subgroup, and national capabilities (Hallinger, 2011; OECD, 2010, 2014).