Debra Edwards

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.

What Is Literacy? Thirty Years of Australian Literacy Debates (1975-2005).

Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. Each state and territory has its own legislature, which may not be of the same political persuasion as the Commonwealth (Federal) Government. Under the Australian Constitution primary control of school education is with the State and Territory Governments, with the Australian Commonwealth Government having no specific constitutional responsibility for school education. However, this is complicated by a dual‐tiered funding system, whereby the Australian Commonwealth Government has responsibility for some funding of government schools and majority funding for non‐government schools. Since 1975 there have been moves by the Commonwealth Ministers for Education to acquire a significant role in identifying national priorities for education and constructing policies and assessment tools to achieve such goals. Financial provision and national policy formation have increasingly become the means by which Australian Commonwealth Ministers for Education have “shaped” educational debates and policies. In November 2004 the then Australian Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training announced the details of the Australian Government National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. The focus of the Inquiry was examination of research into reading, preparation of schoolteachers and literacy teaching practices, especially reading. The Inquiry may be seen as the latest move by the Commonwealth Government to influence the teaching of literacy in Australia. In this paper official notions of literacy, as outlined through the various Australian Commonwealth Governments inquiries into literacy and national policy documents for the period 1975–2005, are examined using metaphor analysis. Metaphor analysis provides a means of analysing discourses about literacy in each of the reports and policies in order to interpret the underlying ideology. These official constructs of literacy are briefly considered within the competing and wider notions of literacy in Australia academic debates and the tensions that exist in defining literacy. Why did the Australian Commonwealth Government become involved in the literacy debates during this time? In particular, how has the Australian Commonwealth Government defined literacy and why did it take a more controlling role in both the definition of literacy and the shaping of education for literacy? The reasons for the Australian Commonwealth Government becoming involved in the literacy debates remain largely unresolved. In this paper it is proposed that involvement in the literacy debates constituted a way for the Commonwealth Government, in a time of economic rationalisation, to change their role in educational reform from one of financial assistance to one of leadership in curriculum. It is also proposed that a metaphor analysis of the policy documents and associated reports indicates a move from a wide definition of literacy to an increasingly narrow and utilitarian definition of literacy, reflecting the predominantly economic focus of the Australian Commonwealth Government.

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.

How does the glass through which we view the World frame our view? Research and literacy policy

Abstract This article considers whether the methodology used for research determines the viewpoint of the researcher, or whether the researchers view of the world determines the methodology. The purpose of the article is to consider some of the questions arising from the authors endeavour to conceptualise a methodological framework for a doctoral analysis of the Australian Commonwealth Literacy Policy Literacy for All: The Challenge for Australian Schools (DEETYA 1998).

Disciplinary cultures in an Australian college of advanced education

Recently scholars have called for more detailed historical study of the teaching lives of academics across countries, systems and institutions. This article contributes to the research on the professoriate in its widest sense. The article focuses on the disciplinary perspectives and cultures of academic staff employed in one of Australia’s oldest colleges of advanced education during the period 1965–1982. It examines official beliefs, slogans, and truisms, which formed part of these perspectives. Disciplinary perspectives include the academics’ views of the subject, the important problems for the subject, and the criteria of utility of the subject. Australia’s Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Advanced Education saw colleges of advanced education compared to universities enrolling students with different interests, stressing part‐time studies, concentrating on applied courses rather than humanities, being closely attuned to the labour market and workforce needs and being principally teaching institutions. They were to be equal but different to universities, but came to be viewed as equal but cheaper. A crucial issue is the extent to which the disciplinary perspectives of college of advanced education academics matched those that the legislators envisaged.

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.

Creating and Analysing Multi-Modal Texts in English Classes in Open-Plan Settings

As in other countries, the aims, rationale, and content of the English curriculum in Australia are hotly contested (Edwards, 2010; Green, 2008; Kress, 2006). Teachers disagree about the degree to which equity outcomes for all students are addressed and the extent to which state and national documents enshrine, or should enshrine, past and/or future versions of literacy (Goodwyn, Reid, & Durrant, 2013; Peel, Patterson, & Gerlach, 2000; Turner, 2007).

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.

“It’s Not a Plug-In Product”

As noted by Jonassen (2014), computer use has evolved over the last thirty years, deeply diversifying how students learn. This resource now functions variously as a learning guide or tutor (as in access to web-based tutorials and information sites), as a communicative tool with self and others for reasoning, inquiring, and creating or disseminating knowledge (as in the programs in computer games, English, science, and mathematics outlined in other chapters in this book), and as an organiser through which students can self-manage, reflect upon, and enact/improve their learning in systematic ways (as in learning dashboards).