Diary dates

Ride2Uni Breakfast

Date: Thursday 21 March
Time: 8am - 10am
Venue: South Lawn carpark

Staff and student cyclists are invited to join the Ride2Uni breakfast in the South Lawn carpark.

If you can't stay and need takeaway please bring your own reusable coffee cup/food container.

Book Launch
Unsettling the Gap, Race, Politics and Indigenous Education

Sophie Rudolph

Date: Thursday 21 March
Time: 5.30pm - 7pm
Venue: 234 Queensberry Street, Kwong Lee Dow Building, Level 5
RSVP

A panel of invited guests including: Dr Sue Mentha (Lecturer, MGSE); Maree Clarke (Artist); and Prof Sarah Maddison (co-convener Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration) will discuss the concepts of ‘unsettling’ and ‘education’ in Australia,  chaired by author Dr Sophie Rudolph. The book will be launched by University of Melbourne Provost, Mark Considine and light refreshments will be served.

PhD Confirmation Seminar

Illuminating integrated STEM teacher education in Australian universities

Date: Monday 25 March
Time: 11am
Venue: Kwong Lee Dow Building, Level 5, Room Q509

Presented by Emma Stevenson
Supervisor: Professor Jan van Driel and Dr Victoria Millar
Panel Chair: Associate Professor Wee Tiong Seah

STEM education has received renewed emphasis this century, with innovation, economic stability and employment needs underpinning this agenda. Contemporary literature frequently focuses the STEM education dialogue on its integrated versions, aiming to enhance student engagement, interest and achievement. Australia has not been immune to this emphasis and multiple reports advocate for greater STEM teacher education due to its complex and challenging implementation. However limited research investigates integrated STEM teacher education, particularly in an Australian context. This exploratory study aims to fill this gap and provide insight into why and how Australian universities are designing teacher education in this field.

Social Transformations and Educational Research Hub presents
An Unpacking Education Panel

Date: Tuesday 26 March
Time: 12pm - 1.30pm
Venue: 234 Queensberry Street, Level 3, Q372
More information

Panel 1: Entanglements: Conducting research with Mapuche Indigenous Communities, School Admissions’ Systems, and School Choice for Social Minorities

Doing the work, considering the entanglements of the research team while undoing settler colonialism

Ana Luisa Munoz
This paper presents the work of three researchers in a self-study on researcher positionality using the reflective practice and pedagogy of correspondence as preparation for future work with Mapuche women in Chile. We start from the assumption that research with and on indigenous groups has a historical debt to consider given the ways in which it has historically perpetuated and been complicit in violence against indigenous people. This paper is an invitation to reflect on how we can decolonize our methodologies as a way to work through the historical debt that academia has with and to indigenous groups.

Opportunities, dilemmas and conflicts involving families choosing schools under a process of educational reform: the case of the new admission system in Chile

Alejandro Carrasco

This paper will explore the social and educational consequences and outcomes of the school choice policy under a recent deep process of reform policy change. The paper will analyse to what extent this reform give wider school access to the most marginalized families. What are the main pedagogical challenges that teachers and principals have in order to respond to socially heterogenous classrooms? Part of the findings of a mixed methods empirical research about these topics will be exposed in this presentation.

New educational policies producing new inequalities? Intersections and affections in school choice processes in parents from social minorities

Juan de Dios Oyarzun

Current structural changes in educational policy frames affect families from social minorities (indigenous, immigrants and parents with children with disabilities), allowing them to a wider and more inclusive access to schools, or if new regulations bring other and new institutional arrangements that exclude the needs and particularities of these social groups. In the context of the current Chilean educational reform, this paper will address the design of a recent qualitative study carried out in Valparaiso and La Araucanía region, about the school choice experiences of migrants and indigenous parents, and parents with children with disabilities; along with part of its preliminary findings will be presented in this session.

PhD Confirmation Seminar

Exploring the factors which impact on the English language pre-service teachers' perceptions of preparedness for teaching in Indonesia

Date: Tuesday 26 March
Time: 3pm - 4pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 7, Rooms L713/714

Presented by Caecilia Tutyandari
Supervisor: Professor Janet Clinton and Associate Professor Larissa McLean-Davies
Advisory Committee: Dr Ghislain Arbour and Dr Eeqbal Hassim

This study aims to explore the factors which impact on pre-service teachers' sense of preparedness for teaching in Indonesian contexts. A mixed-methods approach was employed with an online survey, interviews and written reflections as the data collection tools. A cohort of final-year students who were enrolled in a four-year English language teacher education program were invited to participate in this project. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed separately and, then, integrated to be analyzed further. The research results show the interrelatedness among the participants’ foundational characteristics, their four-year experiences in teacher education,  their professional self-efficacy in shaping their sense of preparedness for teaching.

PhD Confirmation Seminar

Worker activism and education in precarious and feminised occupations

Date: Tuesday 26 March
Time: 11am
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 7, Rooms 713-714

Presented by Rosie Joy Barron
Supervisor: Professor Jane Kenway, Dr Jessica Gerrard
Advisory Committee Members: Professor Julie McLeod, Professor Raelene Frances

The rise of ‘precarious’ work – that is, informal, casualised, and in some cases criminalised work – has raised pressing questions about worker activism and education. Precarious workers face considerable challenges in engaging in political organising, and trade unions have been confronted with the task of developing new approaches to meet their needs (see Burgmann, 2016). In this context, there has been renewed scholarly attention to labour organising on the margins of trade unionism, on part of workers that have historically been excluded from the movement (e.g. Milkman & Ott, 2014). This study contributes to this scholarship by undertaking a comparative analysis of the forms of activism and education developed by two groups of ‘precarious’ Australian workers – sex workers and untenured academics – each of which draw from distinct organising traditions and community norms (see Jeffreys, 2017; O’Brien, 2015). The methodological approach developed by this study incorporates elements of microhistory and community history, using oral history interviews and document analysis as research methods. It is hoped that this research will contribute to recent histories of worker organising in conditions of precarity, and support the development of community archives that are valuable for the workers and activists at the centre of this study.

MGSE Learning Interventions Forum Series

PhD Completion Seminar
Supporting social skills development through a targeted intervention using cooperative videogames in a Special Development School

Date: Wednesday 27 March
Time: 2pm – 3pm 
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 6, L613

Presented by Matthew Harrison
Supervisors' name:  Dr Natasha Ziebell, Dr Anthony Jones, Professor David Clarke
Chair: Professor Lorraine Graham
Bookings essential

This research utilised a Design Research methodology to design an intervention using cooperative videogames as a tool for social skills development. Using specifically selected videogames to create the conditions required for collaboration, this study examined how educators can support and nurture the performance of targeted skills and behaviours in the physical and virtual environments. The findings of this study present a set of guidelines for planning and implementing a games-based social skills intervention and a set of game design principles to guide the development of future games that can be used in such interventions.

Social Transformations and Educational Research Hub presents
An Unpacking Education Panel

Date: Thursday 28 March
Time: 12pm - 1.30pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 8, rooms L814/815
More information

Panel 2: Atypical Involvements, Behavioural Mental Health in An Intercultural Urban Setting, Challenging Homogeneity in Education

Atypical involvements: rhizomatic ways of reading and being read by picturebooksSoledad Veliz

How behavioural mental health diagnoses can be produced in an intercultural urban governmental school?
Natalia Hirmas

BioSocioCultural Inclusion: Challenging Homogeneity in Education
Claudia Matus

PhD Confirmation Seminar

As a young person, you do feel shafted”: Perspectives on, and experiences of, social (in)justice amongst working-class young people in urban and rural Scotland

Presented by: Charlotte McPherson

Date: Thursday 28 March
Time: 12pm - 1pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 5

In virtually any given society in the Global North, young people have historically had significantly poorer structural outcomes, social status and political voice and representation than older adults. These inequalities have justifiably garnered considerable research attention, as well as policymaking, in recent years. Despite this intensive activity, however, little has changed or improved for young people, and particularly for those of low socioeconomic status, who are the most at-risk of experiencing disadvantage. Whilst there has been extensive research focused on the various difficulties facing young people, few studies have considered the realms of culture, structure and politics in symbiosis. Even fewer have consulted young people’s views on this directly. This seminar presents some of the key findings emerging from doctoral research conducted with young people living in deprived communities in urban and rural Scotland which explores these themes. The participants reported a strong sense of injustice across the terrains of structure, culture and politics, which was conveyed with an emphasis on collective, generational experiences, but which had significant implications for their individual decision-making. The study found that young people largely attributed their lack of social justice to a combination of their age, generation, social class and/or place of residence, and expressed a strikingly externalised locus of control when considering their futures, exacerbated by narratives of ‘generation doomed’.

World Autism Acceptance Day

World Autism Acceptance Day is being held on Tuesday 2nd April and to celebrate the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) would like to invite you to participate in 'Hoodie Up for Autism'. Hoodie Up is a chance for us to show our support for colleagues and students with autism on this day by wearing a 'hoodie' and enjoying a morning tea together.

The significance of wearing hoodies is to raise awareness of the differences in sensory sensitivities experienced by some people with autism. For some people with autism wearing a hoodie is a means for them to control their sensory environment and avoid 'sensory overload'.

The morning tea will be held in the kitchen area of Level 3 of the 100 Leicester St building at 11am. We ask that you bring a small plate of food to share and a gold coin donation for Amaze, a non-profit organisation that supports and advocates for people with autism and their families. During this morning tea we will also be sharing a set of resources to support you in planning for students with autism in your classes.

For more information about 'Hoodie Up' please visit this link: http://www.amaze.org.au/waad/

For background information about Amaze please visit their website: http://www.amaze.org.au/about-us/

If you would like any further information please contact Matthew Harrison (Learning Intervention): matthew.harrison@unimelb.edu.au

PhD Completion Seminar

Teachers’ perceptions and experiences of a performance and development process as a mechanism to support teacher development

Date: Tuesday 2 April
Time: 2pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Frank Tate Room, Level 9

Presented by Kerry Elliott
Supervisors: Laureate Professor John Hattie and Professor Lorraine Graham
Panel Chair: Associate Professor Shelley Gillis

Prior studies indicate that teacher performance and development processes in schools have often been viewed as ‘tick the box’ administrative exercises (Jensen & Reichl, 2011; OECD, 2013). However, limited research investigates the factors that may enable it to surpass such expectations. This mixed methods study examines teachers’ experiences during a newly mandated annual performance and development cycle following the adoption of the Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework (AITSL, 2012) and Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2011). This study affords insights into how these new processes in Australian schools may be designed that engage teachers in meaningful performance and development.

PhD Confirmation Seminar

Imagining futures: Youth identities in transnationally-linked villages in the northern Philippines

Date: Wednesday 3 April
Time: 11am - 12pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Frank Tate Room, Level 9

Presented by Elizer Jay Y. de los Reyes

Each year a sizable proportion of mothers leave Philippine villages to work abroad. While they leave behind their families and onlookers who remain, attend schools, and work in the villages, their connection and sense of belonging persist, reinforced through sending home gift boxes, remittances, and ideas. This creates a complicated relationship between home and away that transforms the villages, making them into a new and different kind of place. Drawing on an ethnographic study of secondary school students in the northern Philippines, this thesis explores the ways young people – both whose mothers work elsewhere, and those who do not – come to imagine their place in the world and their possible futures within the domains of home, school, labour, and gender.

PhD Confirmation Seminar

Game-based learning experiences and students’ cultural production of meaning

Date: Thursday 4 April
Time: 10am
Venue: Kwong Lee Dow Building, Level 5, Room Q509

Presented by Fiona Trapani
Supervisors: Associate Professor John Quay, Dr Maurizio Toscano, Dr Claire Scoular
Advisory Committee Chair: Professor Jan van Driel

Games are promoted as classroom learning tools, with literature suggesting games increase student motivation to persevere with their learning. However, there is little empirical research focused on why students find game-based experiences compelling as part of their learning. Few studies attend to student voice about using games as a cultural tool in the socio-cultural space of the school classroom. Employing a methodology informed by Harré’s positioning theory, the teachers and students participating in this study reflected on their perceptions of different game-based learning experiences. They reported a range of learning behaviours supported by the games involved. Further, following Schatzki, it was found that the game-based learning experience offered an ontological site which supported teleo-affective meaning making experiences for both students and teachers.

Universitas 21 Forum for International Networking in Education (FINE)

FINE Forum & Dinner
Date: Thursday 4 April 
Time: 1pm – 5pm followed by dinner
Venue: The Westin Harbour Castle, Pier 7 & 8

FINE Breakfast
Date: Sunday 6 April
Time: 8am – 9am
Venue: TBC

Register

The Universitas 21 Forum for International Networking in Education (FINE) invites graduate and early career researchers to our annual forum at AERA 2019 in Toronto, Canada. The theme of the forum is “Practical Networking for Collaboration”. Esteemed panellists contributing to the discussions include: Professor Rowena Arshad OBE, Head of Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh; Associate Professor Carol Mutch, University of Auckland and UNESCO NZ Commissioner for Education; Dr Lars Andersson, Senior Lecturer and Director of Education, Lund University; and Dr Aileen Kennedy, Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh. These events are sponsored by the U21 Schools of Education and are free for all graduate and early career researchers.

Book Launch
Languages other than English in Australian Higher Education, Policies, Provision and the national interest

Dr Jennifer Baldwin

Date: Tuesday 9 April
Time: 4.30pm - 6pm
Venue: 234 Queensberry Street, Kwong Lee Dow Building, Level 5
RSVP to Amanda Burritt by Friday 5 April

The Language and Literacy Research Hub and the Research Unity for Multilingualism and Cross-Cultural Communication (RUMACC) invite you to the launch of Languages other than English in Australia Higher Education, Policies, Provision and the national interest to be launched by Professor Emeritus

Workshop
Working with media and becoming an 'Expert'

Date: Tuesday 9 April
Time: 10.30am - 12.30pm 
Register

Like it or not, the media is the key to generating an effective public profile and, of course, an effective public profile is almost mandatory these days if you are to have an impact with your research. This workshop looks at establishing and maintaining a profile in the media and taking part in the public conversation.

For any enquires contact Melissa Hendicott or call 9035 6429.

UNESCO Artist in Residence
Composing music to Alison's Lester's books

Performer Michelle Scully

Date: Wednesday 10 April
Time: 5.30pm 
Venue: Kwong Lee Dow Building, studioFive, Level 5
RSVP

Double bassist/composer Michelle Scully is currently in collaboration with well-known Australian children’s author Alison Lester AM to compose and record music for thirty of Alison’s books. Michelle will introduce a selection of her compositions through live performances of several of Alison’s books including Kissed By The Moon, The Journey Home, and Tricky’s Bad Day. A discussion on how this music can be used will follow. The Victorian Branch President of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Christine Oughtred, will discuss the synergy between picture books and musical composition and the creative experience of story.

All of Michelle’s recordings use unabridged text and the narrative has been adapted into song she deliberately varies the musical genre and instrumentation for each book to appeal to a wide audience. Joining Michelle will be vocalists, Georgia Brooks and Sarah Ward, with Louise Goh (piano), Kathleen Halloran (guitar), and Sean Loughran (percussion). This presentation is perfect for parents and their young children, early childhood educators, librarians, classroom music teachers in both primary and secondary school, and allied health professionals who work with children.

Social Transformations and Education Group presents
Transformative Arts & Cultural Praxis Circle: A model for exploration and action on issues of (in)equity and (in)justice

Presenter Mary Drinkwater
OISE University of Toronto

Date: Wednesday 10 April
Time: 12pm - 1pm
Venue: 100 Leicester Street, Level 7, rooms 713/714
Enquiries: Fazal Rizvi or Julie McLeod

The arts and cultural practices have long been used in countries, regions and cultural communities around the world as a way to interrupt, see differently, express ideas and emotions, and engage people in and for social transformation. With developments in information technology, both historical and current practices in critical and socially transformative work through the use of the arts and cultural practice are being engaged with and disseminated through the work of critical and decolonial scholars, and also through public broadcasting and social media. However, the socially transformative role for the arts and cultural praxis in schools around the world, under the projects of colonial modernity and neoliberalism, has been minimized, threatened and even censored. This seminar will introduce a new pedagogical model, which I call a Transformative Arts and Cultural Praxis Circle (TACPC) that speaks through the rhetoric of cultural production, to re-open the possibilities for teachers, students, schools and communities to the use of the arts and cultural praxis for socially transformative purposes.

Mary Drinkwater is associated with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, as a Lecturer in Comparative, International and Development Education. Mary’s research interests include critical and decolonial theory and praxis in education, arts and cultural praxis, transformative education, critical leadership, and cross-sectoral policy development. Her doctoral research utilized critical-democratic and decolonial theory to explore teachers use of the arts and cultural praxis in schools and communities in Maasailand, Kenya and Ontario, Canada. She has published widely and is a lead editor of a recently published book, Transnational perspectives on Democracy, Citizenship, Human Rights and Peace Education (Bloomsbury 2019). Between 2013 and 2018, she taught a jointly-developed and taught course online, offered by OISE, MGSE and the London Institute of Education. She serves on the executive of the Africa SIG for the Comparative International Education Society.

TERI Symposium
Beyond Boundaries in Teacher Education: Promoting Collaboration and Partnerships

Date: Friday 26 April
Time: 9am - 5pm
Venue: Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne
Register

You are invited to a one-day Teacher Education and Research Innovation Symposium in Melbourne on Beyond Boundaries in Teacher Education: Promoting Collaboration and Partnerships, 26 April 2019, 9 am – 5 pm.

This is a great opportunity to hear keynotes by Professor Ken Zeichner and Emeritus Professor Anne Edwards and participate in round table discussions to share research insights and consider developing a research proposal or extend an existing project in the area of collaboration and partnerships.

Teaching & Learning Seminar Series

A series of seminars and discussion panels will be presented throughout semester 2 to showcase exemplars of evidence-based practice in teaching, learning, and assessment. Speakers from a range of disciplines across the University will discuss the approaches they are taking to engage students in large class lectures, blended, and fully online learning environments. Read more.

2019 Teaching and Learning Conference

Date:  Tuesday 4 - Wednesday 5 June
Venue: Glyn Davis Building
Read more 

The Melbourne Centre for Study in Higher Education is hosting the 2019 Teaching & Learning Conference. This conference seeks to bring together academic and professional staff involved in teaching and learning from across the University to share scholarly approaches that contribute to a unique Melbourne experience.

Abstract submissions are invited from academic and professional staff, and papers can be empirical studies or practitioner-focused examples of best practice. Abstracts should address one of the six themes of the conference.

Submissions close on Monday 1 April. More information:

2019 Primary and Early Childhood Mathematics Education Conference

Date: Thursday 20 - Friday 21 June 2019
Time: 9am - 5pm
Register

The Mathematical Association of Victoria (MAV) in collaboration with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s Mathematics Education Group (MEG) present a conference focusing on primary school mathematics education.

Call for Papers
4th Islamic Schooling Conference and Forum AAISC 2019

The Centre for Islamic Thought and Education (CITE) at the University of South Australia would like to extend our Call for Papers for the 4th Islamic Schooling Conference and Forum AAISC 2019 – A Focus on Social Justice.  The Conference and Forum will take place on the 13th and 14th of July 2019, at the University of Melbourne.

The Conference and Forum has successfully made it to its fourth year, and this year, the theme of AAISC4 2019 is social justice in Islamic Schooling.  The event encompasses both the annual Conference for academics and researchers from around the world, as well as a concurrent Forum that will critically engage with the theme of social justice in a practical sense.  The Conference and Forum aims to explore, and critically analyse, the personal experiences and practical insights of teachers and practitioners on a significant and focal topic – the concept of ‘social justice’ from the perspective of Islamic schooling, and the Islamic classroom.

This year’s conference will host two concurrent streams: an academic Conference Stream and an educator’s Forum Stream.

We recognise the critical nature of both perspectives as we forge a path forward for Islamic schools. Hence, for academics who are researching and teaching in higher education with a focus on Islamic schools, madrassa, and Muslim learners broadly, the Conference Stream provides a platform to share empirical findings, debate conceptualisations, and grapple with theoretical understandings. For educators who are leading and shaping the learning process in K-12 schools (both Islamic and State/Public), the Forum Stream promises an opportunity for educators and teachers in the field to raise challenges, share practices, and collaborate on renewal. Topics of interest for submission to either stream include (but are not limited to):

• Educational politics
• Globalised educational policy discourses
• Educational leadership and justice
• Social Justice in Islam (jurisprudential, historical and otherwise, and its application to Islamic schooling)
• Muslim learners and identity politics
• Dignity and the Muslim learner
• Islamophobia
• Inequalities and exclusion
• Inclusion
• Equity
• Racism
• Pedagogical justice
• Curricular justice
• Social justice possibilities for classroom educators
• Critical learners and social action/activism

More topics of interest are included in the 'Call for Papers' attached.  We are very excited about this year’s concurrent conference/forum approach and hope it will provide fodder for deep discussions within and between each stream. We intend our keynote addresses to provide a broader framing of social justice in Islamic schooling that provides the language and conceptualisation necessary for both streams.

Prior to submitting your abstract, please indicate which stream you intend your contribution to be positioned in. And based on the stream of choice, please ensure that your abstract considers the following conventions of an abstract relevant for that stream:

Conference Stream abstracts should include a theoretical and/or conceptual framing, be empirical or conceptual in nature, and clearly present findings or conclusions relevant to this year’s theme of social justice. We anticipate that in this stream presentations will be similar to academic conferences that include an approx. 20 mins lecture followed by Q&A.

Forum Stream abstracts should include a case example or problem that is school based, description of the practical (often instructional) approach taken to address the problem, reflections on implementation tied to this year’s theme of social justice. We anticipate that in this stream presentations will be similar to a condensed version of an in-service workshop where educators focus on practical instructional approaches through an interactive discussion and/or modelling of approaches (but not lecture) for approx. 30 mins followed by Q&A.  

If you have questions about the concurrent streams or drafting your abstract, please feel free to contact CITE Centre Manager, Ramila Chanisheff.

Education Beyond Borders

• EBBS Agents Workshop, Muscat, Oman, October 21 - 23, 2019

Information about past EBBS workshops: You can see pictures from our last workshop in October 2018 and comments from agents and educators.

The EBBS workshop in Sofia will be held in parallel with the International fair EDUCATION BEYOND BORDERS - SOFIA (EBBS) which will be held in the National palace of culture, Sofia, Bulgaria, March 15 – 16, 2019.

You can see pictures from the educational fair in Sofia or read more about the event on our website.

Enjoy our discounts:
Book the EBBS workshop in 2019 (Sofia or Muscat) and take 50% off for all EBBS events in 2019.

The workshop Includes the following services:

• 1-day Seminar with included presentation
• 2 days One-to-one meetings (Full table)
• Info package + a full profile page in the event catalogue
• Accommodation and full board during the workshop for one representative