CREEW Major Projects - Learning/Teaching/Curriculum
Current Projects
Addressing the teacher exodus: Enhancing early career teacher resilience
and retention in changing times
Funding body: ARC Linkage Grant 2008 - 2012
Researchers: Professor Bruce Johnson, Professor Barry Down (Murdoch); Dr
Rosie Le Cornu; Dr
Judy Peters; Dr Anna Sullivan; Dr Jane
Pearce (Murdoch); Ms Janet Hunter (Edith Cowan)
The first few years of teaching are difficult for many teachers.
Yet research into the ‘problems’ of beginning teachers is nearly
exhausted. Few new ideas about how to address these
‘problems’ are emerging. There is a need for a new generation
of collaborative research that investigates how beginning
teachers develop resilience and sustain their commitment to
teaching. Therefore, this project aims to find out how early
career teachers deal with threats to their wellbeing. It will
identify what internal strengths and external strategies promote
teacher resilience. It will provide the evidence base for
interventions that will increase teacher commitment and reduce
teacher attrition.
The project involves a strong collaboration between UniSA, Murdoch University, Edith Cowen University and seven Industry Partners in SA and WA. The ARC will contribute $140,000 to the project, with cash and in-kind contributions by the collaborating Universities and Industry Partners making this a million dollar investment in research into early career teacher resilience and retention over the next five years.
Learning resource development
Funding body: Open Universities Australia
Researchers: Michael O'Donoghue, Heather Foster & Robert Crotty
An investigation of how generic skills and understandings are represented
in official curriculum texts nationally and internationally, and in teachers’
practices locally
Funding body: UniSA DRPF Grant
Researchers: Alan Reid, Bruce Johnson, with Rosie Kerin
Beyond national boundaries? An international comparative study of the
construction of citizenship as represented in the curricula and pedagogy of
school-based citizenship education
Funding body: UniSA DRPF Grant
Researchers: Alan Reid, Judy Gill
Education investment in Australian schooling: Serving public purposes
Funding body: ARC
Researchers: Alan Reid with Professor Jack Keating (Melbourne University);
Professor Bill Mulford (University of Tasmania); and Associate Professor Neil
Cranston (University of Queensland); Australian Government Primary Principals
Association Education Foundation.
International approaches to civic education
Funding body: UniSA/HRISS seeding grant
Researchers: Judy Gill & Alan Reid
Reality Check: Matching needs and learning in regional Australia
Funding body:
NVETRE
Researchers: Sue Gelade with Dr Tricia Fox (QUT)
This research
interrogates the notions of match and mismatch between VET delivery and need, or
perceptions of need by industry in regional locations. The research investigates
how stakeholders, such as those connected with regional development boards,
might use their local knowledge, in light of economic realities, to leverage
providers to deliver appropriate skill development. The research was guided by
two key questions:
- In particular regions of Australia, how well does the range of VET offerings meet local skill needs based on realistic economic opportunities?
- How can VET become more mobile and/or flexible to meet those locally identified needs?
This study involved a three-stage collection of data, to compare the views on how and whether needs are matched with learning. The first stage was to examine recent literature and web sources for regional course information that could be related to identified regional industries. The second stage involved telephone interviews with TAFE institutes about the ways in which they make decisions on course offerings, the flexible options they offer to learners and industries on those courses; and their views on making their courses more flexible. In the third stage, the study investigated the regional industry view of skill development through the eyes of two regional development groups: The Limestone Coast in South Australia and the Cairns Region in Queensland. In this stage, the research focussed on questions about the negotiations undertaken by industries with training providers and covered: their leverage to get courses operating, what solutions and funding have they accessed, what economic or industry factors influence decisions, and how they relate economic opportunities with realistic local frameworks.
PNG Curriculum reform implementation project: Impact study 4
Funding body: Coffey International
Researchers: Rosemary Badenoch
Reinvigorating middle years’ pedagogy
Funding body: ARC Linkage
Researchers: Rob Hattam, Alan Reid et al.
Learning to learn
Funding body: DETE
Researchers: Judith Peters & Rosie Le Cornu
An innovative South Australian project aimed at developing curriculum policy for
the future.
Recently Completed Projects
Child protection curricula in schools
Funding body: DECS
Researchers: Bruce Johnson
This project will involve schools and preschools in the Darlington/Seaview
Cluster working collaboratively to conduct research on six issues: delineating
curriculum authority; promoting facilitative leadership; establishing moral
purpose; generating community support; promoting and assessing educator
learning; and promoting and assessing teacher learning. These issues will be
addressed through promoting evidence-based practice through local inquiry and
promoting networking within and across sites. A range of inquiry approaches and
techniques will be used. Action research reports will be delivered in July 2006
and a final report in September 2006. This project is registered on the Project
Quality System at UniSA. More about the PQS here.
Calling Australia home: Children's understanding of national identity and
place
Funding body: ATN Research Grant
Researchers: Judy Gill & Sue Howard
Schooling and the construction of allegiance
Funding body: UniSA/DEASS
Researchers: Judy Gill & Sue Howard
Factors influencing the behaviour of students as bystanders observing peer
victimisation in primary and secondary schools
Funding body: UniSA Divisional grant
Researchers: Bruce Johnson & Rigby
Constructions of learners and learning
Funding body: NREC
Researchers: Michele Simons, Roger Harris with E. Smith (CSU)
Design as a process: Primary teacher practices that encourage students to
work technologically through design
Funding body: UniSA/CREEW Seed Grant
Researchers: Yvonne Zeegers & Denise MacGregor
Pedagogical practices in mathematics and science that assist student
transition in the middle years of schooling
Funding body: Divisional Research Grant
Researchers: Yvonne Zeegers, Bruce White & Ian Clark
Teaching as risky business: Teacher education students' views on 'no
touch' and other 'risk management' strategies in schools
Funding body: UniSA/CREEW Seed Grant
Researchers: Bruce Johnson, Faye McCallum &Robyn Nayda
Learning styles and the workplace
Funding body:
NREC
Researchers:
Michele Simons, Roger Harris, with CIT and Qld TAFE
Making the links: Education of boys project
Funding body: DETE
Researchers: Bruce Johnson
An investigation of constructivist classroom cultures in primary schools
Funding body:
UniSA EASS Divisional Research Grant
Researchers:
Rosie Le Cornu, Judy Peters with J. Collins (Open University)
The aims of the project are to investigate the ways in which teachers who are
committed to a constructivist philosophy construct teaching and learning in
primary classrooms. The research sites for the project are four classrooms in
two South Australian schools that have been involved in the Learning to Learn
Project, an innovative South Australian project aimed at developing curriculum
policy for the future.
Past Projects
Lifelong learning and the democratic imagination: revisioning justice, freedom
and community
Funding body:
UniSA Divisional grant for support for development of a book
RResearchers:
Peter Willis
Active schools research project
Funding body:
ACHPER-Sport Consortium
Researchers:
Bob Smith
Learning to learn
Funding body:
DETE
Researchers:
Bruce Johnson, Judy Peters, Rosie Le Cornu
A longitudinal study of resilient and non-resilient children’s self and life
perceptions
Funding body:
ARC Small Grant
Researchers:
Bruce Johnson/S Howard/M Oswald
Competency standards for Marriage and Relationship Educators
Funding body: Commonwealth Government Department of Family and Community
Services Grant
Researchers: Michele Simons, Roger Harris, A. Edwards & G. Edwards
The field of relationship education has undergone significant changes in the
past ten years in terms of both the services that are provided and the
diverse contexts in which educators now work. The study that underpinned the
development of the revised competency standards and the users guide for
educators captures these changes and provides organisations and educators
with information and tools to assist them in a range of activities relating
to employment, initial training and on-going professional development of
educators.
Small enterprise workplace learning: Links with school vocational
education
Funding body: National Research and Evaluation Committee Grant (with
Enterprise Partnerships)
Researchers: J. Mulraney, P. Turner, F. Wyatt, Roger Harris & T. Gibson
This project explored the determinants for training in small enterprises and
links with school-based workplace learning. It identified triggers that
influence school - workplace vocational education in small enterprises. The
determinants affecting the decision to train by small enterprises are
critical to the establishment of workplace experience for the VET in Schools
link to small enterprises. The sample was drawn from enterprises and schools
in SA and NSW, and methods included focus groups, interviews and critical
incident analysis.
The purpose, nature and utility of work placements in vocational
education and training courses: Evidence from the cross-sectoral literature
Funding body: National Research and Evaluation Committee Grant
Researchers: E. Smith & Roger Harris
This study focussed on work placements in courses within the school, VET and
university sectors. It involved study of relevant literature on placement
research and practice, discussion with key figures in the three sectors,
focus groups with VET teachers and telephone interviews with State and
Territory authorities. The report contained discussion of critical issues in
work placements, and analysis of assumptions in literature, current policies
and practices, areas of difficulty, gaps in research and policy
implications.
Programs for students in transition from primary to high school:
Development and implementation of service workers
Funding body: NSW Dept of Community Services Grant
Researchers: Bruce Johnson & S. Howard
An investigation of the role of resiliency promoting factors: Preventing
adverse life outcomes during adolescence
Funding body: Criminology Research Council Grant
Researchers: Bruce Johnson, S. Howard, M. Oswald
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