title: The HfG Ulm and Sustainable Design: a comparative analysis

authors: Short, Carolina

subjects: sustainable design

abstract: This article presents a comparative analysis between ideas of the HfG Ulm and the contemporary understanding of Sustainable Design. The Ulmer institution, through an innovative curriculum, an articulated discourse and a significant set of projects, manifested an avant la lettre awareness of social and environmental issues. Through a series of case studies, the research looks at the School’s approach to design problems, focusing on the design for transportation and systems. The purpose is to identify whether the concepts of Sustainable Design were present in these earlier developments. Considering the impact of its legacy, we propose the HfG as a predecessor of an understanding of design that, from its conception, is respectful towards the environment, seeks social equality and aims for society’s improvement. A broader perspective will enable more accurate work in design projects with a Sustainable perspective: recovering valuable practices from the past to step purposefully into the future.

text: The HfG Ulm and Sustainable Design: a comparative analysis This article presents a comparative analysis between ideas of the HfG Ulm and the contemporary understanding of Sustainable Design. The Ulmer institution, through an innovative curriculum, an articulated discourse and a significant set of projects, manifested an avant la lettre awareness of social and environmental issues. Through a series of case studies, the research looks at the School’s approach to design problems, focusing on the design for transportation and systems. The purpose is to identify whether the concepts of Sustainable Design were present in these earlier developments. Considering the impact of its legacy, we propose the HfG as a predecessor of an understanding of design that, from its conception, is respectful towards the environment, seeks social equality and aims for society’s improvement. A broader perspective will enable more accurate work in design projects with a Sustainable perspective: recovering valuable practices from the past to step purposefully into the future.

year: 2020

title: Repositioning teachers and learners in senior science for 21st century learning

authors: Trask, Suzanne Adele

subjects: assessment

abstract: This thesis explores how the turn towards ‘21st century learning’ might influence senior secondary science education in the context of high stakes summative assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand. Significant in the set of assumptions and ideals associated with 21st century learning is the expectation that learning is more personalised to address and allow for diverse student needs and interests. However, in the reality of classroom life, a question remains as to if and how 21st century ideals might translate into practice.
A social constructionist theoretical orientation directed attention to the way 21st century learning as a discourse constructs certain conditions of possibility for teaching and learning. In turn, these conditions were viewed as shaping different possibilities for teacher and student positions and identities. 
Four macro-level elements of curriculum, assessment, physical spaces, and digital technologies were used to frame an examination of the ways in which the discourse of 21st century learning might play out in senior secondary science. Interpretations of science as a key learning area in the New Zealand curriculum (NZC) and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) as the New Zealand secondary school exit qualification provided the contexts for elements of curriculum and assessment. Research was conducted in schools designed as open, shared, flexible learning spaces (FLS), incorporating wired and wireless technologies. This provided the context for the elements of physical space and digital technologies. 
The research was designed in two phases. In phase one, three case studies were undertaken to ask: What does senior secondary science learning look like in FLS schools when teachers and students are focussed on NCEA assessment? In phase two, three cycles of collaborative action research were undertaken over eight months with one teacher and her year 12 science class to explore: What could senior science learning look like? Qualitative data generated from interview and participant observation in both phases was analysed using thematic analysis to understand what science learning looked like or could look like. Social constructionist ideas of discourse, positioning, and identity were used to theorise and explore the overarching research question of how the discourse of 21st century learning might influence notions of senior secondary science to reposition teachers and learners of science.
Findings show how the multifaceted identities taken up by teachers and students were shaped by the pedagogical possibilities created and available within the dynamic interplay between the four elements. Teachers and students could be seen to be positioned by and to position themselves within discourses of 21st century learning as personalisation and choice, and traditional science schooling, in action and tension. Some aspects of NCEA assessment acted to strengthen the traditional science schooling discourse which foregrounds science as knowledge-based and supports identities of teacher-expert as transmitters of knowledge. Other aspects of NCEA provided openings in line with science as inquiry as advocated in the NZC. Some aspects of FLS environments did not support some teachers’ view of traditionally effective approaches to science teaching and practical work. However, the affordances of digital technologies and the fluidity and social flow of flexible spaces enhanced possibilities for many forms of learning choices. Flexible spaces supported team teaching of larger groups and collaboration of teachers across science disciplines. 
Teachers responded to these openings by scaffolding different types of learning choices for diverse senior students in what, why, where, how, and with whom to learn, at different levels of openness in science inquiry. However, some students did not take up the full scope of the opportunities offered, especially where these were in tension with students’ ideas of how best to be successful in terms of achieving credits in NCEA. Findings reinforce the importance of the teacher’s role in scaffolding student autonomy to make choices and to achieve in student-directed inquiries. Overall, and in spite of the challenges and tensions that teachers and students faced, this research identifies opportunities for broadening the definition of ‘good’ science teacher and learner to include the offering and uptake of a range of learning choices in senior science inquiry as part of high stakes assessment. 
This research contributes insights in the form of situated stories of the struggles and achievements of teachers and students: what was happening and what did happen as they were positioned and as they acted to reposition themselves to take on different science teacher and learner identities in contexts of high stakes NCEA assessment in 21st century FLS environments. A range of implications for learning space design, curriculum and assessment policy, and directions for further research into science inquiry and digital pedagogies are outlined.

text: Repositioning teachers and learners in senior science for 21st century learning This thesis explores how the turn towards ‘21st century learning’ might influence senior secondary science education in the context of high stakes summative assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand. Significant in the set of assumptions and ideals associated with 21st century learning is the expectation that learning is more personalised to address and allow for diverse student needs and interests. However, in the reality of classroom life, a question remains as to if and how 21st century ideals might translate into practice.
A social constructionist theoretical orientation directed attention to the way 21st century learning as a discourse constructs certain conditions of possibility for teaching and learning. In turn, these conditions were viewed as shaping different possibilities for teacher and student positions and identities. 
Four macro-level elements of curriculum, assessment, physical spaces, and digital technologies were used to frame an examination of the ways in which the discourse of 21st century learning might play out in senior secondary science. Interpretations of science as a key learning area in the New Zealand curriculum (NZC) and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) as the New Zealand secondary school exit qualification provided the contexts for elements of curriculum and assessment. Research was conducted in schools designed as open, shared, flexible learning spaces (FLS), incorporating wired and wireless technologies. This provided the context for the elements of physical space and digital technologies. 
The research was designed in two phases. In phase one, three case studies were undertaken to ask: What does senior secondary science learning look like in FLS schools when teachers and students are focussed on NCEA assessment? In phase two, three cycles of collaborative action research were undertaken over eight months with one teacher and her year 12 science class to explore: What could senior science learning look like? Qualitative data generated from interview and participant observation in both phases was analysed using thematic analysis to understand what science learning looked like or could look like. Social constructionist ideas of discourse, positioning, and identity were used to theorise and explore the overarching research question of how the discourse of 21st century learning might influence notions of senior secondary science to reposition teachers and learners of science.
Findings show how the multifaceted identities taken up by teachers and students were shaped by the pedagogical possibilities created and available within the dynamic interplay between the four elements. Teachers and students could be seen to be positioned by and to position themselves within discourses of 21st century learning as personalisation and choice, and traditional science schooling, in action and tension. Some aspects of NCEA assessment acted to strengthen the traditional science schooling discourse which foregrounds science as knowledge-based and supports identities of teacher-expert as transmitters of knowledge. Other aspects of NCEA provided openings in line with science as inquiry as advocated in the NZC. Some aspects of FLS environments did not support some teachers’ view of traditionally effective approaches to science teaching and practical work. However, the affordances of digital technologies and the fluidity and social flow of flexible spaces enhanced possibilities for many forms of learning choices. Flexible spaces supported team teaching of larger groups and collaboration of teachers across science disciplines. 
Teachers responded to these openings by scaffolding different types of learning choices for diverse senior students in what, why, where, how, and with whom to learn, at different levels of openness in science inquiry. However, some students did not take up the full scope of the opportunities offered, especially where these were in tension with students’ ideas of how best to be successful in terms of achieving credits in NCEA. Findings reinforce the importance of the teacher’s role in scaffolding student autonomy to make choices and to achieve in student-directed inquiries. Overall, and in spite of the challenges and tensions that teachers and students faced, this research identifies opportunities for broadening the definition of ‘good’ science teacher and learner to include the offering and uptake of a range of learning choices in senior science inquiry as part of high stakes assessment. 
This research contributes insights in the form of situated stories of the struggles and achievements of teachers and students: what was happening and what did happen as they were positioned and as they acted to reposition themselves to take on different science teacher and learner identities in contexts of high stakes NCEA assessment in 21st century FLS environments. A range of implications for learning space design, curriculum and assessment policy, and directions for further research into science inquiry and digital pedagogies are outlined.

year: 2019

title: Communicating towards justice in ‘The Subaltern Voice’ (TSV)

authors: Humphries, Maria

subjects: subaltern

abstract: We write with a voice of the marginalised in mind, as both marginalised women scholars writing from a critical perspective on human organisation and as privileged human beings with concern for those more dangerously excluded from The Master’s House. The voice we raise does not plead for assimilation into circumstances as they are. It calls for radical change. Our ideas originate in research with Māori women accountants employed in organisations expressing commitment to Māori involvement. From that research we learned that aspiring to bicultural ways of being in a context prematurely deemed post-colonial is fraught with risks of co-option and unintentional collusion. Accordingly we are committed to further exposing neo-colonialism and to experiment with The Subaltern Voice (TSV) as a heuristic for this work. Asking what might be said in TSV that is different from what can be said in more commonly heard voices calling for inclusion has brought us to new thoughts about our own engagement with ‘The Empire’. Not only as it continues to colonise Māori locally and indigenous peoples globally, but from the myriad of places we take our positions to speak, sometimes ‘from the margins’ and other times from within the relative comforts of The Master’s House.

text: Communicating towards justice in ‘The Subaltern Voice’ (TSV) We write with a voice of the marginalised in mind, as both marginalised women scholars writing from a critical perspective on human organisation and as privileged human beings with concern for those more dangerously excluded from The Master’s House. The voice we raise does not plead for assimilation into circumstances as they are. It calls for radical change. Our ideas originate in research with Māori women accountants employed in organisations expressing commitment to Māori involvement. From that research we learned that aspiring to bicultural ways of being in a context prematurely deemed post-colonial is fraught with risks of co-option and unintentional collusion. Accordingly we are committed to further exposing neo-colonialism and to experiment with The Subaltern Voice (TSV) as a heuristic for this work. Asking what might be said in TSV that is different from what can be said in more commonly heard voices calling for inclusion has brought us to new thoughts about our own engagement with ‘The Empire’. Not only as it continues to colonise Māori locally and indigenous peoples globally, but from the myriad of places we take our positions to speak, sometimes ‘from the margins’ and other times from within the relative comforts of The Master’s House.

year: 2009