Karl J. Matthews

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.

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.

Resilience and Capacity-Building

Resilience is generally considered to be a capacity to act and adapt in the face of adversity or constraint, and is the result of a complex interplay of risk and protective factors. Initially focused on the individual, the resilience concept and research have extended to groups such as teams and communities. In this chapter, we examine conceptualisations of resilience and research about the development of individual, team and community resilience by engaging data from three research projects in diverse educational contexts: a community informatics project in a regional town; teachers and their work supporting student well-being; and a university education research team. The chapter concludes by synthesising key implications of resilience for understanding and building capacities in educational settings.

Regionality, Rurality and Capacity-Building

Residents in regional and rural communities remain distant from many of the affordances and opportunities associated with urban centres of population. Conversely, regional and rural residents have been characterised as being particularly resilient owing to having to adapt to changing circumstances. Against this backdrop, it is crucial for those residents to build their capacities in order to make their full contributions to local, regional, national and global development. This proposition is explored in this chapter by reference to the ambivalent status of Australian circuses, an innovative strategy for community-wide knowledge development in a regional town in Queensland, Australia, and the adjustment experiences of migrants and refugees in regional and rural communities in Queensland.

Information and Communication Technologies

In a world of rapid technological advances, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in educational contexts has grown exponentially. Similarly, the form and focus of research into ICTs for lifelong, life-wide learning and development and the resultant contributions to the literature are extremely diverse. This chapter brings a capacity-building lens to explore ways in which ICTs can be employed in holistic ways to assist learners. Research data are drawn from: research into the practices of a university research team; an inquiry into technology-enhanced lifelong learning in a small, rural Australian Community Informatics project; and a study of the use of remote access laboratory technology for an international collaborative learning activity involving primary school students in two countries.