title: Development of action competence using Education for Sustainability in a New Zealand school

authors: Arthur, Margaret

subjects: action competence

abstract: This thesis explores whether an intervention carried out with a senior secondary school Environmental Science class was able to develop action competence in Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the students. The concept of action competence was initially proposed by Danish researchers who were dissatisfied with a focus on behavioural change by other researchers in the field. I was particularly interested in using a New Zealand model of action competence in my classroom and examining the role that the culture of the student played in that model. The United Nations literature includes culture as part of Education for Sustainability but international educational research has not to date. In designing the intervention, examined a range of learning theories and matched them with the needs of students in a city in New Zealand with a very multicultural population. Links were also made between The New Zealand Curriculum and Best Evidence Synthesis from the Ministry of Education here in New Zealand. The resulting intervention had a student centered approach and an emphasis on recognising the culture of students that was based around an action competence model developed for New Zealand. The aim was to see if this combination would enable the students in the intervention to make progress towards being action competent during an EfS unit on action –taking. The intervention was carried out with a class of seventeen students who were undertaking an Education for Sustainability Achievement Standard involving taking an action towards becoming more sustainable. I used an action research approach whereby I taught and supported students through the process. I used their log books, reports, journals and informal conversations to provide my research data. This data was analysed using a continuum I developed that was based on the work of a New Zealand team that adapted the concept of action competence for the New Zealand situation. The research findings indicate that the framework developed by the New Zealand team with the addition of starting from the culture of the students can lead to development of student action competence in EfS.

text: Development of action competence using Education for Sustainability in a New Zealand school This thesis explores whether an intervention carried out with a senior secondary school Environmental Science class was able to develop action competence in Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the students. The concept of action competence was initially proposed by Danish researchers who were dissatisfied with a focus on behavioural change by other researchers in the field. I was particularly interested in using a New Zealand model of action competence in my classroom and examining the role that the culture of the student played in that model. The United Nations literature includes culture as part of Education for Sustainability but international educational research has not to date. In designing the intervention, examined a range of learning theories and matched them with the needs of students in a city in New Zealand with a very multicultural population. Links were also made between The New Zealand Curriculum and Best Evidence Synthesis from the Ministry of Education here in New Zealand. The resulting intervention had a student centered approach and an emphasis on recognising the culture of students that was based around an action competence model developed for New Zealand. The aim was to see if this combination would enable the students in the intervention to make progress towards being action competent during an EfS unit on action –taking. The intervention was carried out with a class of seventeen students who were undertaking an Education for Sustainability Achievement Standard involving taking an action towards becoming more sustainable. I used an action research approach whereby I taught and supported students through the process. I used their log books, reports, journals and informal conversations to provide my research data. This data was analysed using a continuum I developed that was based on the work of a New Zealand team that adapted the concept of action competence for the New Zealand situation. The research findings indicate that the framework developed by the New Zealand team with the addition of starting from the culture of the students can lead to development of student action competence in EfS.

year: 2011

title: Pedagogical learnings of Borat for make benefit glorious community of drama teachers: What teachers can learn from Borat about frame, position and power when working in role.

authors: Aitken, Vivienne Jane

subjects: education

abstract: One of the most exciting strategies available to teachers of drama and indeed any learning area is that of ‘teacher-in-role’. When a teacher takes on a fictional role within the socially real classroom, she reframes reality and repositions herself in relation to the children in the class (Aitken, 2007). To ensure that children are as empowered as possible within the transformed relationship – and for significant aesthetic and ethical reasons too – many teachers stress the importance of ‘signalling’ their transition in and out of role and making the ‘frame’ of the drama explicit (O’Toole, 2002; Edmiston, 2003). However, some resort to unsignalled role in the belief that the lesson will be somehow ‘better’ if participants misframe what is happening as real life events rather than as ‘just’ a drama. This paper critiques this attitude by drawing parallels with Baron Cohen’s controversial ‘mockumentary’ Borat, which could be described as a sustained exercise in unsignalled ‘filmmaker-in-role’. While Cohen operates in the medium of film rather than classroom drama, and while his objectives are not pedagogical, the movie highlights crucial questions about ethics, aesthetics and power that resonate for anyone using unsignalled role, including teachers. This paper addresses some of these questions, including: ‘Is it acceptable to manipulate people into ‘misframing’ a fictional role for your own purposes?’ ‘What difference does it make if the objective is educational?’ and ‘What if the unwitting participants are children?’

text: Pedagogical learnings of Borat for make benefit glorious community of drama teachers: What teachers can learn from Borat about frame, position and power when working in role. One of the most exciting strategies available to teachers of drama and indeed any learning area is that of ‘teacher-in-role’. When a teacher takes on a fictional role within the socially real classroom, she reframes reality and repositions herself in relation to the children in the class (Aitken, 2007). To ensure that children are as empowered as possible within the transformed relationship – and for significant aesthetic and ethical reasons too – many teachers stress the importance of ‘signalling’ their transition in and out of role and making the ‘frame’ of the drama explicit (O’Toole, 2002; Edmiston, 2003). However, some resort to unsignalled role in the belief that the lesson will be somehow ‘better’ if participants misframe what is happening as real life events rather than as ‘just’ a drama. This paper critiques this attitude by drawing parallels with Baron Cohen’s controversial ‘mockumentary’ Borat, which could be described as a sustained exercise in unsignalled ‘filmmaker-in-role’. While Cohen operates in the medium of film rather than classroom drama, and while his objectives are not pedagogical, the movie highlights crucial questions about ethics, aesthetics and power that resonate for anyone using unsignalled role, including teachers. This paper addresses some of these questions, including: ‘Is it acceptable to manipulate people into ‘misframing’ a fictional role for your own purposes?’ ‘What difference does it make if the objective is educational?’ and ‘What if the unwitting participants are children?’

year: 2008

title: Conscientisation and Resistance: Experiences from implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations

authors: Lawrence, Dawn Cherie

subjects: culturally responsive pedagogy of relations

abstract: Consciousness of being part of a particular hegemonic force (that is to say,political consciousness) is the first stage towards a further progressive self –conscious in which theory and practice will finally be one. (Hoare & Smith,1971, p. 333)

Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai and Richardson, (2003) state that effective teachers of Māori students “positively and vehemently reject deficit theorizing as a means of explaining Māori students’ educational achievement” (p.95). This fundamental tenet of the Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile (ETP) moves beyond simply refraining from publicly articulating discourses that pathologise Māori students and their whānau (Bishop et al., 2003; Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh, & Teddy. 2007). For many teachers it is a challenging, ongoing transformative process of critical self-reflection, which touches the very core of their own culture and identity.

This thesis contends that by working to discursively position themselves within a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations, teachers develop classroom practices that have been shown to positively affect outcomes for Māori students. It goes on to suggest that such discursive repositioning might be seen as praxis, with the potential to transform the inequities experienced by Māori within mainstream educational settings. With this understanding, the culture and leadership approach of the school context becomes a greater influence on teachers’ capacity to realize their agency within this pedagogy than any characteristic of the individual.

text: Conscientisation and Resistance: Experiences from implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations Consciousness of being part of a particular hegemonic force (that is to say,political consciousness) is the first stage towards a further progressive self –conscious in which theory and practice will finally be one. (Hoare & Smith,1971, p. 333)

Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai and Richardson, (2003) state that effective teachers of Māori students “positively and vehemently reject deficit theorizing as a means of explaining Māori students’ educational achievement” (p.95). This fundamental tenet of the Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile (ETP) moves beyond simply refraining from publicly articulating discourses that pathologise Māori students and their whānau (Bishop et al., 2003; Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh, & Teddy. 2007). For many teachers it is a challenging, ongoing transformative process of critical self-reflection, which touches the very core of their own culture and identity.

This thesis contends that by working to discursively position themselves within a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations, teachers develop classroom practices that have been shown to positively affect outcomes for Māori students. It goes on to suggest that such discursive repositioning might be seen as praxis, with the potential to transform the inequities experienced by Māori within mainstream educational settings. With this understanding, the culture and leadership approach of the school context becomes a greater influence on teachers’ capacity to realize their agency within this pedagogy than any characteristic of the individual.

year: 2014