Janice K. Jones

Learning and Teaching Styles

An ongoing challenge for instructional and syllabus designers and teachers and facilitators who seek to implement these curricula is finding and maintaining an appropriate balance between differing learning and teaching styles. Differences in cultural and language backgrounds, previous learning and teaching experiences, and the personal characteristics of learners and teachers create an extremely complex milieu at the intersection of learning and teaching in contemporary educational contexts. This chapter explores this issue through an analysis of three different data sets: the experiences of male Saudi nursing students at an Australian university; the role of children, parents and peers, and the natural environment as educators in an alternative school context; and the interaction between a teacher and student in an Australian senior secondary art classroom.

Professional Learning and Development

Professional learning and development hold potential for transformational growth and change for educators, and for enhancing their capacities to build the capabilities of learners. Realising this potential requires an appreciation of the philosophies, theories and practices surrounding professional learning and development and how these may progress a capacity-building agenda. This chapter examines selected conceptualisations of professional learning and development through an interrogation of the data from three research projects in diverse educational and learning contexts: classroom teachers and their work supporting student well-being; yoga teachers and teacher trainers; and circus families and teachers. As a result of the analysis of these data, we draw out the implications for professional learning and development practices that offer opportunities to build capacities.

Changes and Continuities

The multifaceted interplay between changes and continuities has a complex relationship with the opportunities for, and strategies of, capacity-building. This interplay is evident also in efforts to promote long-term and sustainable educational learning and development within and across specific educational sites. This chapter examines this interplay in the reported experiences of the individuals and groups participating in three selected research projects to portray what changes in their lives, what remains constant and continuous and how they use those changes and continuities to develop and refine contextually relevant capacities. This examination is used to distil wider implications for understanding the contemporary character of change and its significance for comprehending capacity-building and enhancing access to, and the outcomes of, educational learning and development.

Reducing the Drag

We are three women working across two Australian universities. We know the deadening, withering nature and containment of the neoliberal university. Yet, we find ourselves inspired by the wisdom of slow scholarship and recognize that with our deliberate activity with each other we have been emulating something of the cooperative reciprocity inherent in the energy-boosting-V-formations adopted by groups of flying birds.

Virtual Worlds as Restorative Environments

The overpopulation of our planet creates pressures, not only upon natural and human-created environments, but also upon human well-being. Responding to the Australian government’s focus upon education as a means for improved health, well-being and economic competitiveness, schools and universities strive to embed environmental sustainability and creativity in a crowded curriculum. The use of virtual worlds as restorative environments may help to realise this vision, which is shared by other nations with technologically rich, but time-poor and urbanised societies. This chapter draws upon the final stage of a three-stage study into pre-service teachers’ perceptions of personal well-being, sense of belonging, social connectedness and personal creativity and engagement. It considers how these senses were impacted by participants’ immersive experiences in a natural-seeming virtual world environment in Second Life and in their comparative experience in a formal garden setting. Findings suggest that Second Life may serve as a restorative environment if participants are sufficiently familiar with the user interface and virtual world environment.

Decolonising Research and Teaching Methodologies: A "Ninth Moment" Symphony of Artist-Educator-Researcher Voices.

Abstract In an era of globalisation, positivist research methodologies and voices are privileged and funded over those of qualitative researchers. This has led to narrowing beliefs about what constitutes knowledge, and about the ways in which knowledge is constructed and evaluated, impacting upon the conduct, funding and reporting of arts research, and also upon curricular content and pedagogical practices in arts education in schools and universities. Focusing upon the practices of four contemporary arts practitioners in postcolonial contexts this paper seeks to decolonise and re-map concepts of place, history, power and authority. The authors disrupt singular narratives of place and history through their use of socially engaged, performative and democratising arts practice as research. Using “little stories” to re-map the hidden histories of place the authors contest notions of certainty of knowledge in the arts, research and in their work as educators.

Consciousness and Capacity-Building

This chapter explores the relationship between consciousness and capacity-building in current educational settings. In particular, it elaborates the distinctive associations between varying levels and states of consciousness on the one hand and the potential to enhance individual and group learning and teaching capabilities on the other. The authors argue that learners and educators are sometimes enabled to share their heightened understandings of themselves and their worlds with many others across multiple educational fields. This argument is illustrated by reference to specific manifestations of consciousness raising among Australian senior secondary art classrooms, Australian teachers promoting their students’ mental health and well-being, and yoga masters and practitioners. The chapter concludes by eliciting implications of this intimate connection between consciousness and capacity-building in contemporary educational contexts.

Diversity and Identity

The multiple theoretical understandings related to the concepts of diversity and identity provide useful frameworks for exploring capacity-building in a range of complex and, at times, highly contested contexts. This chapter explores how participants in a number of education research studies make sense of diversity and identity as they seek to build their own and others’ capacities in formal and informal educational contexts. It concludes by highlighting key theoretical connections among the concepts of diversity, identity and capacity-building. These are illustrated by reference to empirical studies of Saudi university students in Australia, a university education research team in Australia and yoga teacher trainers in Australia and the United States.

Forms of Capital and Currencies

The multiple forms of capital represent a powerful framework for understanding certain approaches to capacity-building. This chapter explores how particular groups of learners and educators exhibit specific forms of capital and how the participants in the associated research projects gain access to and mobilise those forms of capital to generate certain outcomes. This exploration is analysed from the broader perspective of which activities and outcomes hold currency in certain contexts and how that currency can be converted into other contexts. The chapter concludes by synthesising key implications for theorising the links among capital, currencies and capacity-building. These propositions are illustrated by reference to circus families in England, Australian teachers supporting student well-being and Australian parents’ perceptions of capital and their adaptations to systemic practices.

The Transformative Potential of Educational Learning and Development

The concluding chapter of this book challenges the reader to engage with the ‘hot topics’ and ‘wicked problems’ presented throughout the chapters on the topic of educational learning and development and the potential for capacity-building for both educators and learners. The new perspectives generated by interrogation of this topic enable the reader to move beyond the accepted conceptualisation of educational learning and development and encourage them to consider new ways of thinking about and engaging with this area. This engagement should allow practitioners, policy-makers and researchers working in the area of education to identify and make personal and professional connections which can potentially transform the area of educational learning and development.