CREEW'S News
May 2006
Hello everybody
Another busy month for CREEW members - presenting, publishing and practising, with photos to boot!
- Publications
- Conferences and presentations
- Awards
- Professional Practice
- Seminar Program
- Postgraduate News
- Centre News
- Future CREEW's News
Publications
A couple of 2005 publications from Judy and Rosie:
-
Peters, J & Le Cornu, R (2005). Beyond Communities of Practice: Learning Circles for Transformational School Leadership', in P. Carden & T. Stehlik (eds) Beyond Communities of Practice, Queensland, Post Pressed.
-
Le Cornu, R & Peters, J (2005) Towards Constructivist Classrooms: The role of the reflective teacher, Journal of Educational Enquiry, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 50-64.
Conferences and presentations
-
Roger Harris and Linda Rainey presented a refereed paper 'Crazy paving? Learning pathways between and within VET and higher education' at the Australian Vocational Education and Research Association (AVETRA ) annual conference at the University of Wollongong, 19-21 April. This paper examined what some of these pathways look like, explored patterns in such movement and proposed a typology of learning pathways.
-
At the AVETRA conference, Roger also chaired the symposium 'Research to support the building of capability in VET providers' which discussed some key findings of the national consortium 'Supporting VET providers in building capability for the future' - the large, two year program managed by the NCVER and funded by the Australian, State and Territory governments through the Department of Education, Science and Training.
-
Roger also presented a paper 'Organisational capability and the work of the national Consortium 2 on VET research' at this symposium.
-
Roger Harris and Michele Simons presented a paper '"I'm the meat in the sandwich": Exploring VET practitioners' ways of working with private enterprises' at the 4th International Conference on Research Work and Learning (RWL4) at the University of Technology, Sydney, 12-14 December 2005. This paper explored the role of VET practitioners in new work environments, where they play a critical part in learning within companies and in managing tensions inherent in being both external to an enterprise and an organisational representative. Click here to view paper.
-
At the RWL4 conference Roger also chaired a symposium, 'Building the capability of VET providers'. The symposium critically analysed work on capacity building of VET training providers and work currently being undertaken by the 'Supporting VET providers in building capability for the future' consortium.
-
Robert Hattam presented a paper, with Associate Professor Julie Matthews (University of the Sunshine Coast), 'Reconciliation' as a resource for 'pedagogy' at the American Educational Research Association annual conference in San Francisco.
-
Le Cornu, R & Peters, J (2005) Managing the Dilemmas of Constructivism in Practice. Refereed paper presented to the AARE conference, Melbourne, November, 2004. Click here to view paper.
-
Karen Plane presented a paper 'Towards a national sustainable development framework for VET in Australia: 'greening' small business and communities, or 'greening' the marketplace?' at the AVETRA conference. This paper highlighted the challenges in embedding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within VET and presented findings from a case study which is part of her PhD study. The paper concluded that there is a clear role for both small business and the community in ESD, for resourcing capacity builders to develop trust and find common ground, and the need to empower the VET practitioner and graduate as change agents, supported by an overarching sustainable development policy for VET.
-
On 18 April Alan Reid presented the opening keynote address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Council for Educational research (NZCER) in Wellington, New Zealand on the topic: 'From competencies to capabilities: more of the same or a new way forward?'
-
Alan Reid, on 21 April, presented the New Zealand Teachers Council keynote address at the conference of New Zealand Teacher Unions in Wellington, New Zealand on the topic: The contemporary construction of teachers work
-
Also, on 26 April, Alan presented the invited keynote address to a conference of Brisbane Catholic Education in Brisbane on the topic Building a culture of inquiry across an education system.
-
Michele Simons presented a paper 'Building a VET pedagogy: what we can learn from Certificate IV courses' at the AVETRA conference. The paper described empirical research on curricular (learning pathways) and pedagogical issues associated with the delivery of the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training, the most common initial VET teacher/training development program.
-
Michele also presented on 'What are the "contemporary career realities" for VET staff?' at the symposium, 'Research to support VET providers build capability',at the AVETRA Conference.
Awards
-
Roger Harris won the Ray Barker Award for Distinguished Service to VET Research. Last week at the Australian Vocational Education and Research Association (AVETRA ) annual conference at the University of Wollongong, 19-21 April.
-
Roger and Linda Rainey were also awarded with the 2006 AVETRA Conference Paper of the year' award for their paper entitled 'Crazy Paving? Learning pathways between and within VET and higher education'. The referees highly commended this paper as making a major contribution to the knowledge associated with the movement of students across the sectoral boundaries. Roger and Linda were congratulated for winning this esteemed award which is in recognition of research quality. More about the awards here.
-
A
photo of Robert Crotty with his wife, Marie, celebrating his Emeritus
Professorship, reported in April's Creew's News.
Professional Practice
-
Elaine Butler represented UniSA at the Adelaide Forum of the Client and Student Voice Action Group (CSVAG) held on 16 March, which was established by Ministers responsible for vocational and technical education (VTE) to develop advisory arrangements for clients and students, particularly disadvantaged students, of the national training system.
-
Design and Technology Education lecturer, Steve Keirls collection of 625 washing-up brushes and mops is on display for the month of May at the South Australian Museum on North Terrace. This is one of twelve installations for the Museums celebrations of 150-years of collecting. Steve uses some of the collection in his work with university students, teachers and school students as a focus for critiquing technological products from a wide range of design perspectives ergonomics, engineering, aesthetics, sustainability, efficiency, hygiene, as well as wow- and yuk-factors.
-
Alan Reid has accepted an invitation to chair the panel reviewing the School of Education at Murdoch University in September 2006.
-
Tom
Stehlik writes: I have been in Helsinki for the last week as a guest of the
Helsinki School of Economics where Dr Anne Herbert, a UniSA graduate, former
colleague and friend of many of us in CREEW, is working with the Management
Education Research Initiative group (MERI). Anne and four Finnish colleagues
from the group visited UniSA and also contributed to the RWL4 conference in
Sydney last December. While at HSE I have presented a seminar on communities of
practice, presented a session on action research with a group of doctoral
students, and talked about some collaborative research with MERI. I also visited
Jyvskyl University in Central Finland and spent a day meeting with staff from
the Pedagogical Studies in Adult Education (APO) program, who were very
interested in the communities of practice book as they have been developing a
community of practice approach to working with their adult learners. There are
some collaborative research possibilities here too. Finally I met with Vesa
Tonder, headmaster of a Finnish School and convenor of a conference on
educational futures to be held in Helsinki in June. Andrew Wojecki (another
distinguished CREEW PhD graduate) and I met Vesa at the RWL 4 conference, and he
has invited us both to address this conference on the theme of early school
leaving and vocational pathways options in Australia. HSE has provided
accommodation close to the city of Helsinki, which is a vibrant and culturally
fascinating place with unique and diverse architecture, lots of cafes, clubs,
bars and music. Travel to Finland from Sweden has been provided by HRISS as part
of their internationalisation seed grant initiative.
Seminar Program
-
On 7 April Barry Elsey, International Graduate School of Business, presented a CREEW seminar on a current project, 'What happens after the doctoral learning journey is completed?' Although there is plenty of attention about post-doctoral occupational mobility and careers of graduates, there has been little interest in the transfer of learning (knowledge and skills acquired, the overall learning experience, increase in self-confidence etc). This seminar presented the conceptual and contextual background that has flowed into the thinking and design of the project.
-
Following
their successful bid for funding from HRISS, Peter Willis and Sue Gelade, with
Stephen McKenzie from HRISS and Roger Harris, facilitated an International
Symposium during 26-28 April on Adult and Vocational Education and Social
Sustainability (AVESS). Participants from Europe, SE Asia and South Africa were
invited to attend and present papers alongside colleagues from across a number
of disciplines within UniSA. As well as the establishment of international
linkages between participants in future research, the main aim of the symposium
was to establish collaboration on a book about AVESS, likely to be published
through a European publishing house. The symposium also offered a well attended
public session on the first day. Overall the symposium proved to be a rewarding
and illuminating experience for the participants and we hope our book will be
similarly illuminating. We look forward to future collaborations with our new
colleagues.
Postgraduate News
-
Deb Tranter writes: Just a brief note to say that CREEW was well represented at the joint Division of EAS/Hawke Research Institute Research Education Autumn School held last weekend for postgraduate research students and Honours students. The weekend provided an excellent opportunity to explore and discuss ideas and issues in research theory and practice with around 100 participants. There was a wide variety of presentations including sessions led by Marie Brennan, Bruce Johnson, Michele Simons, Sue Shore, Rob Hattam, Jenni Carter, Nerilee Flint and Deb Tranter. There was a great buzz about the weekend and the organisers, Bruce Johnson, Christine Davis, Sam Sellar and Jenni Carter are to be congratulated.
Centre News
-
The CREEW web site has been updated with publications and projects from the 2005 annual report, as well as those that have been published in CREEW's News so far this year. You may like to check your entries and furnish particulars of your project, if there are none on the web. Click here for publications and projects.
Future CREEW's News
CREEW's News is your newsletter, so please keep us informed of all your activities and help maintain the democratic, collaborative and inclusive culture of CREEW. Please send all contributions to Linda Rainey.