Search

This paper reports on a study that explored the user-driven inter-organisational professional learning that teachers from two education systems collectively engaged in via social media. A dedicated Facebook group was established to enable Australian early childhood teachers (sector one) and primary school teachers (sector two) to engage in collaborations that would support children’s transition to school. Using an Activity Theory framework, findings showed that the site was mainly used by early childhood teachers to seek peer support in meeting reporting requirements, and that school teachers rarely posted. As such, the capacity of the Facebook group to support inter-organisational cross-sector collaboration and learning was challenged as determined by the most active participants within the site, while reinforcing the group’s capacity to support ‘just in time’ intra-organisational professional learning. This highlights a need for further research to explore the ways and means by which social media may best facilitate cross-sector collaboration between education systems, such as a more focussed and integrated use of social media during face-to-face cross-sector professional learning.

In Victoria, Australia, the transition from preschool to compulsory school education is impacted by systemic disconnections in organisation, pedagogical thinking and curricula. These disconnections...

The national reform agenda for early childhood education and care across Australia has led to an increased demand for qualified early childhood teachers. In response, universities have developed innovative approaches in delivering early childhood teacher education courses designed to support existing diploma qualified educators to gain their teaching qualifications. One such course at a major Australian University incorporated a flexible multi-modal option of study which included community-based, on line e-learning and face-to-face intensive tutorials. This paper reports on a study examining the outcomes for students undertaking their studies using this course delivery mode. The study sought to examine the students’ perceptions of the efficacy of the teaching and learning approach in meeting their learning needs, and the factors that were most influential in informing these perceptions. The findings indicated that it was the inclusion of contact and a social presence in the online learning environment which was most influential.

Doctor of Education programs are designed to provide a cohort-based approach to doctoral study. Working under current neoliberal conditions that cause social isolation, mistrust and anxiety for educators, we argue that the Doctor of Education classroom can provide a site for collegiality and resistance. In this chapter, an Australian Doctor of Education professor and her current cohort of higher degree research (HDR) colleagues from school, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and university sectors subject their experiences of the neoliberal workplace to theoretically-informed scrutiny. We illustrate the pedagogies of anger, resistance and ultimately hope that become possible in professional doctorate programs. We engage in renewed modes of collaboration and collegiality and prise open the cracks in our institutions to forge activist connections across educational sectors.