FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND SOCIAL WORK

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

03 DEAN’S WELCOME

04 OUR FACULTY05 Key facts

07 OUR PEOPLE07 Tony Loughland08 Helen Sham-Ho10 Wayne Cotton 13 Lesley Harbon 14 Shaista Bibi 17 John Hobson 18 Katrina Thorpe21 Helen Proctor 22 Libby Gleeson 25 Murat Dizdar 26 Robyn Ewing 29 Louisa Peralta 30 Alexander Wharton

32 OUR PARTNERSHIPS 32 Centre for Research on Computer

Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo Centre)

33 PHILANTHROPY

CONTENTS

Cover image: Dr Helen Proctor, Faculty of Education and Social Work

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DEAN’S WELCOME

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I am proud and delighted to introduce you to the inaugural edition of Making a Difference, through which we recognise staff and alumni of the Faculty of Education and Social Work and their world-class teaching and research.

The Faculty of Education and Social Work is a diverse and internationally renowned community committed to the theoretical and applied pursuit of equity and social development through enquiry-driven teaching and learning. We foster both research and professional partnerships.

We are rightly proud of our history and outstanding reputation as a centre of excellence and source of outstanding teacher education and social work, professional development and lifelong learning.

We are also proud of our international renown for quality leadership in teaching, scholarship and research. We are home to high-calibre students, graduates and researchers, and we take great interest and pride in the achievements of our alumni and colleagues.

I invite you to discover and be inspired by the journeys of our featured academics and alumni, and hope they encourage you to make a difference through supporting education and human services.

Associate Professor Fran Waugh Acting Dean, Faculty of Education and Social Work

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OUR FACULTY

Ranked in the top eight education faculties for research, in the 2013 QS World University Rankings, we have a demonstrable record of achievement.

We have a track-record of consistent success in research including competitive grants from the Australian Research Council (one our recipients is a Laureate fellow), the National Health and Medical Research Council, and various other federal departments and other funding bodies.

The faculty’s research projects cover a wide range of areas including comparative and international education; maximising the potential of Australia’s language resources; links between ethnicity, socioeconomic status and social networks and childhood obesity; analysing and improving integrated cumulative learning in classrooms; and the development of epistemic fluency in higher education.

The faculty supervises more than 200 higher degree by research students at any one time, and each of these students contributes to our vibrant culture and networks.

We support the Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (known as the CoCo Centre), a national research centre in the learning sciences led by Laureate Fellow Peter Goodyear. We are also exploring the fields of comparative education, and the history and sociology of education, including the internationally renowned work of Professor Raewyn Connell.

Strategic partnerships with the community sector, Departments of Education, Family and Community Services, and education providers are crucial. The Dean’s advisory board plays a vital role in high-level representation and communication with these stakeholders. So too do our researchers through projects and partnerships in policy evaluation, as well as work placements for our students.

Over the past five years, the Faculty Research Office has brought together stakeholders to engage with our research projects through workshops, seminars and roundtables. These activities are vital in building and maintaining connections with external collaborators and funders.

The Faculty of Education and Social Work is home to world-class researchers, leading practitioners, and cutting-edge policy advocates.

The faculty is building international relationships with China and India. We have several scholars specialising in research on India, and our work with China is developing from teaching and exchange relationships to a suite of invited research projects with Beijing Normal University (BNU).

BNU hosts China’s centre for national assessments in education and has established an Australia-China Educational Research Centre.

We have also been successful in engagements with industry and community partners; we have contracted with the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations on early childhood education delivery in remote Australia; we are involved in two projects with the NSW Department of Education and Communities on climate science education and one on growth in community languages education.

Other research funding partners include Catholic Care NSW, the Catholic Education Office, the Australia Council for the Arts, and the NSW Department of Housing.

KEY FACTS

3187 student enrolments, which include:

– 256 doctorate and master’s (research) students

– 873 postgraduate (coursework) students

– 172 international doctorate and master’s (research and coursework) students

– Ranked eighth in the QS World University Rankings (2014) for Education.

An integral part of becoming a teacher is immersing oneself in professional experience – that is to say, the experience of teaching in a real-life classroom. And Dr Tony Loughland, Co-Director of Professional Experience at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, is the one who makes it happen.

Tony Loughland and Co-Director Kathy Rushton arrange about 2000 student placements for professional experience a year. Simply put, they provide opportunities for future teachers to become well-rounded professionals.

Loughland feels there is nothing more crucial to the success of students’ professional experience in partner schools than collaboration. “Collaboration is the glue that puts everything together,” he says. “You must be able to work with other people. This leads to the idea that the collective is bigger than the individual. For everything that we endeavour to do in the University, we should have more collective action.”

In addition to the 25 school partnerships currently in place, Loughland aims to create 25 more over the next three years. “It is our goal to keep strengthening these relationships,” he says.

Many graduates of the faculty gain their professional edge in disadvantaged schools. “There’s an issue that pervades the Australian social landscape, and that’s our equity gap,” Loughland says.

“There is a lot of a concern about closing the gap of inequality in schools. It’s a social class issue that we’ve got to address, and we do this by developing strong partnerships with schools in suburbs with low socioeconomic populations in Sydney.

“Social justice and inclusion are very much on the faculty’s agenda. Our graduates are far more likely to get a job at Rooty Hill, Macquarie Fields or Auburn than they are at Newtown. It’s part of our mission: we want the best and brightest students to go to the areas that need the extra assistance.”

Alongside the creation of robust school partnerships, Loughland is the head of a professional experience and learning research network that aims to integrate scientific measures in a bid to address areas for improvement in professional experience and learning. To be driven in equal measure by scientific curiosity and efficiency, this research group promises to challenge itself by asking: “Is what we’re doing working? What might we do better? What other ways might we look at the situation?”

As Loughland says: “It’s our responsibility to support graduates to become confident in their ability to communicate, to express themselves and who can work in a group. Graduates who can collaborate.”

All this and more could be achieved at the University of Sydney, which Loughland describes as a “bastion of rationality” that has led him from his early days as a construction worker onto a path towards social development for all.

“To me, the University is the Enlightenment,” he muses. “When I come here, I hear the bells going. I see the sandstone, and I hear people talking about ideas. I think to myself, this is the Enlightenment, the empowering of people with ideas – ideas that are based on empiricism and evidence. These are rational arguments, not the kind that are based on mythology or on ideas you pick up on the street”.

COLLECTIVE ACTION COLLABORATING TO CLOSE THE GAP

7OUR PEOPLE TONY LOUGHLAND

At the heart of the Hon. Helen Sham-Ho’s maiden speech to the New South Wales Parliament in 1988 lies the maxim by ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tse that characterises her professional life: 千里之行，始於足下 (“The journey of a thousand miles must start with a single step”).

Australia’s first Chinese-born parliamentarian traces her passion and triumphs in social work and politics to her childhood in Hong Kong. Sham-Ho arrived in Australia in 1961 with aspirations to help build a more equal, multicultural nation. She undertook a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma in Social Work at the University of Sydney, where she excelled.

“I wanted to do social work to help others,” Sham-Ho says. “I have a sense of satisfaction in helping others. It’s very rewarding. My life has revolved around the Chinese saying: 多善增福, 多寿; that is to say, ‘If you do a lot of charity, you will increase your prosperity and longevity’. The reason is, being charitable creates happiness and if you’re happy all the time, you’ll live longer too.”

For more than two decades, Sham-Ho helped the vulnerable, the disadvantaged, and the oppressed through her social work in various hospitals, including Ryde Hospital. She also fulfilled various community roles including foundation president of the Ryde Family Support Service.

Sham-Ho made history in 1988 when she became the first Chinese-born member of parliament: a first for the Liberal Party and a first for Australia.

She was vocal in her advocacy of multiculturalism, social justice, and equality for all. She urged the community and her party to fight racism, and pushed for financial compensation for all people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rather than only for those who had medically acquired HIV.

Sham-Ho became an independent in 1998, and was still driven by her training as a social worker to influence policy and legislation to bring equality and prosperity to Australia.

Sham-Ho has always worked to improve the conditions of Australian communities, notwithstanding the challenges associated with being a Chinese-born woman. She worked hard to combat the entrenched prejudices that migrants of non-English speaking backgrounds faced. She also initiated the Non-English Speaking Background Women’s Consultative Committee, which advised the NSW government on issues and policy.

“Women are often overlooked,” Sham-Ho says. “When I was member of parliament, people would ask me how I’m juggling work with family. Nobody would ask the men about why they aren’t at home to do the housework. My response to these people is: ‘Have you ever asked a man about doing the housework?’”

Another of Sham-Ho’s concerns is reconciliation and Indigenous rights. As a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, she was instrumental in giving a voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and in forging better relations between them and other Australians. In 2000, she helped to organise “Corroboree 2000”, celebrating the launch of the Australian Declaration towards Reconciliation. About 500,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of the reconciliation process, with Sham-Ho leading the trek.

Sham-Ho retired from parliament in 2003, but continues her community involvement through fundraising and the University of Sydney, to which she is grateful for her education in social work. “Social work is a living course – we deal with human issues,” Sham-Ho says. “Understanding is the key word for mutual respect to grow.”

FIRST AMONG EQUALSPOLITICIAN WHO FOUGHT FOR EQUALITY

8 OUR PEOPLE HELEN SHAM-HO

Raised in rural New Zealand and a traveller at heart, Dr Wayne Cotton, Director of the Study Abroad program within the Faculty of Education and Social Work, is set to translate his wanderlust into opportunities for students.

His vision is for the Study Abroad program is to shape students into “holistic and global citizens by letting them experience what I experienced”.

The program has two central aims: sending students abroad as part of their degree; and providing a suite of subjects within the faculty for incoming exchange students.

“These units of study would not only give incoming students an introduction to education and how the Australian system works, but also a chance to experience some of the wonderful things about Australia,” Cotton says.

Feedback from Study Abroad scholarship recipients is resoundingly positive. Often they discover that their experience is meaningful far beyond the pleasures of sightseeing in a foreign country.

From tropical Maldives to snow-covered Umeå in Sweden, students discover the program’s experiential learning aspect enriches their studies.

“You can rote learn something in 24 hours and remember it for an exam,” Cotton says. “But when you learn through experience, it stays for life.”

Developing memorable friendships is a salient feature of the Study Abroad experience.

“I get students to send back photos of their experiences,” Cotton says. “In the first couple of weeks, I get photos of historical buildings, a shop, maybe a beach. Weeks later, there would be a change – the photos that come through next show evidence of new friendships they had not expected. After all, you don’t really tell someone, ‘I’m going to go overseas to make myself a new best friend’.”

Cotton says it is vital that future teachers understand that everyone is unique, a mindset that Study Abroad nurtures and sharpens. Insights into other countries and cultures go hand in hand with an education degree.

“If you look down at the class roll, you’ll see straight away just how diverse the Australian population is and how diverse students’ backgrounds are, so a greater understanding of even two or three of these cultures will make you aware that not everybody is the same as you,” Cotton says. “It’s not until students travel away for work in another environment that they truly understand this and apply it to their own teaching.”

Cotton praises the faculty for having a “real family atmosphere and a sense of belonging”.

“I love hearing the passion in the Study Abroad students, seeing in their faces how much the experience has affected them,” he adds. “That’s pretty special to me.”

EXPANDING HORIZONSSTUDY ABROAD HAS SURPRISING BENEFITS

10 OUR PEOPLE WAYNE COTTON

Associate Professor Lesley Harbon specialises in teaching and researching languages education at the Faculty of Education and Social Work.

Harbon’s latest co-published work, Language Teachers’ Narratives of Practice, continues the rich line of enquiry into teacher education by focusing on personal stories: 18 chapters explore the narratives of passionate language teachers as they celebrate their personal and professional experiences in teaching. The richness and breadth of their accounts are a testament to the diversity of languages education in Australia.

“We told our story, our own personal narratives and how we came to develop our passion through teaching languages,” Harbon says. “Languages for me have this magical, mystical ability to code and recode meaning in my life.”

As a child growing up in the monocultural, monolingual northern outskirts of Sydney, Harbon tried to immerse herself in as many experiences of “otherness” as possible, and eventually threw herself into Indonesian studies in high school. This was to be the start of an enduring love affair with the Indonesian language and culture. For Harbon, languages have unlocked a new identity, one that she is proud to adopt and uphold.

“I know I definitely have another identity in my Indonesian than who I am in my first language, English,” Harbon says. “I like the softer tones and pragmatics of the very Javanese parts of the Indonesian language, which has a passive voice. First person pronouns like ‘I’ come to the back of sentences in Indonesian. The humility in placing the ‘other’ first and me second shows a more refined character, and I like that aspect very much. It fascinates me.”

Harbon believes the University of Sydney has a rich array of courses suited to developing the skills of budding language teachers. The staff at the faculty, she says, do their very best to provide opportunities for undergraduate students.

These opportunities include participating in the internationalisation process that is fast shaping the landscape of teacher education. Along with intercultural competency, internationalisation is identified as one of the central pillars of universities worldwide.

“Internationalisation invents itself in many ways here,” Harbon says. “It could be embedded in the international case studies examined by students. It could be represented by international students coming in to the University, or by students going abroad.”

The faculty encourages short, intensive outbound programs that immerse students in language and cultural experiences. Over the past 10 years, students in the program have visited various destinations, including Sweden, the Maldives, China, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Thailand and South Korea.

With her colleague Kate Smyth, Harbon will lead two short-term international outbound pre-service teacher programs to China and Indonesia later this year.

“Having that international language and culture experience helps pre-service teachers to interact in new social contexts, to make meaning of the process of internationalisation, and to change their thinking,” she says.

“If we think we’re going to get through life without needing to understand people who have different heritages and backgrounds to our own, then we’re sadly mistaken.”

SPEAK FREELY‘MAGICAL’ POWER IN LANGUAGES

13OUR PEOPLE LESLEY HARBON

Shaista Bibi is on a mission. Backed by the Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo), Bibi hopes the education sector will make the most of technological advances.

A PhD candidate with the Faculty of Education and Social Work, Bibi is researching teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge in design and classroom decisions – which dovetails with her broader area of interest: teachers’ technological knowledge.

“In this age, technology is being used in all kinds of sectors like medicine, banking and communications,” Bibi says. “So why not integrate technology into teaching? After all, as teachers we are shaping future doctors, scientists, engineers, bankers, and more.”

Bibi regards technology as a liberating force, an agent of intellectual freedom that extends the learning capacities of school students and teachers alike.

Researchers have differing opinions as to which aspect of teachers’ knowledge is the most important to use and refine. Bibi surmises that the complexity of the teaching profession requires a broader mode of analysis that extends beyond the three elementary parameters (technology, pedagogy and content).

“Some researchers say that content knowledge is the most important – for example, an English teacher needs to have a good idea of his or her subject area, English,” Bibi says. “Other researchers say pedagogy is more important – that is, can a teacher who doesn’t know how to teach be a good teacher even if he or she has good knowledge of the subject?”

Bibi is investigating the merits and importance of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge.

She finds that there is more to teachers’ knowledge than these three components. Teachers’ knowledge of design – whether designing lesson plans or educational technology – is another area that should be explored, she says.

Prior to undertaking a PhD with the faculty, Bibi was a lecturer at the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where she helped her students become proficient with technology. She was also involved in implementing a standard curriculum for training pre-service teachers all over Pakistan.

“Classroom context is yet another key factor in determining the kinds of knowledge teachers need,” Bibi says. “As contexts vary with each lesson or classroom, it is unrealistic to prescribe a general technology-pedagogy-content requirement. For example, the tools used to teach pre-service teachers are different from those used in the school classroom.”

So Bibi is exploring how different contexts affect the learning experiences of pre-service teachers. She uses an array of methods and strategies such as group planning sessions, interviews and ‘think aloud’ sessions (in which participants vocalise their thought processes) to collect data.

Bibi is thankful for the support of the CoCo community and enjoys the collaborative spirit. “CoCo gives opportunities to all students to showcase the research we are doing,” she says. “In team meetings, seminars and doctoral colloquia, professors, lecturers, research associates and other students provide feedback and advice.

“It is our role as teachers to help our students with their professional learning and to enrich them with technological experiences. After all, technology is freedom.”

TECH THE HALLSTECHNOLOGY LIBERATES TEACHING

14 OUR PEOPLE SHAISTA BIBI

“As a kid, I wondered a lot about language. What are the mechanics of it? Why does a listener understand me when I open my mouth and make noises? How does that work?”

John Hobson’s mission to unravel the workings of linguistics led him to the University of Sydney, where he has been convenor of the Master of Indigenous Languages Education since 2006. This master’s degree equips Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers with the skills and qualifications to teach Indigenous languages.

“I always had a fascination with Aboriginal people – the original occupants of Australia,” Hobson says. “As a child, I was highly aware that my own culture lacked the same kind of belonging to the country.”

“People often ask ‘Why would anyone want to learn an Aboriginal language?’” Hobson laments.

However, the benefits and sociocultural importance of learning an Aboriginal language justify the effort. Hobson agrees with research and studies which claim that learning any language brings cognitive and social benefits to the learner.

“All Australians should learn a local Aboriginal language if possible,” he says. “Reconciliation would be so much stronger if people had the basis to understand one another. There has been less disquiet between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with the introduction of an Indigenous language into the curriculum. Students take an interest in each other’s cultural background. It elevates Aboriginal students to experts, as their culture is suddenly seen as academically valued.”

Despite a fading focus on Aboriginal linguistics research in some NSW universities, Hobson believes there has been a commensurate rise in interest in the teaching of Aboriginal languages.

This traces back to the release of the Aboriginal Languages K-10 syllabus in NSW in 2004 that has strengthened support for Aboriginal language programs in schools.

The University of Sydney – the only university in Australia that offers a degree in teaching Indigenous languages – is globally recognised for its successes and the excellence of its graduates, so much so that the languages program has been used as a model by overseas institutions. It is also looking to expand its offerings in this field.

Hobson is enthusiastic about investigating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s expectations of the Indigenous languages revival process in NSW. His ‘Mind the Gap: Expectations for Aboriginal Language Revival in NSW’ project aims to assess and boost its effectiveness.

“One piece of information that has been missing from the revival movement is the clear identification of what the Indigenous community expects of language revival.”

“I want to look at whether the focus on school-based programs is likely to deliver the outcomes people want and what other strategies might be useful. For example, should we also be looking at language in the home, before children are old enough for school, providing greater language learning opportunities for adults, and supporting the development of other social settings where the languages can be used productively?”

That aside, Hobson speaks the Aboriginal languages Pitjantjatjara, Arrernte, “and fragments of several others”. Uniting the practice of teaching with linguistics throughout his career has kept him “thoroughly addicted”, he says.

WALKING THE TALKREVIVING ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES

17OUR PEOPLE JOHN HOBSON

Katrina Thorpe taught in secondary schools and was a staff trainer at the Department of Employment, Education, and Training before joining the University as a lecturer at the Koori Centre.

Thorpe has a deep appreciation of the formative influence of the classroom. “The classroom is the place where we’re going to start to create change,” she says. “In a classroom, there is an exchange of dialogue and perspectives. It’s where the narratives of our experiences are at play, are shared and, sometimes, they are challenged.”

For this very reason, Thorpe is researching for her PhD thesis entitled ‘Narratives of professional learning and identity formation: The influence of life histories and Indigenous studies education on becoming a teacher’.

Thorpe is a descendant of the Worimi people of Port Stephens, NSW. She says that in her years of primary and secondary schooling, the classroom was riddled with insidious preconceptions of Aboriginal people. “Sometimes teachers would say negative things about Aboriginal people, not realising that my heritage was Aboriginal,” she remembers. “Back then, I felt like a ‘fly on the wall’ as I listened in to these candid conversations.”

By interviewing both Indigenous and non- Indigenous students who are in their final year of study, Thorpe hopes to unlock their thoughts and experiences of the mandatory inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in their teaching degree. They will be asked to reflect on their prior learning and assumptions before they started University as well as their current understandings of Indigenous education.

The findings will be used to better understand if their recent experiences have made a difference to their professional identity.

Through these interviews, Thorpe hopes to get a clearer idea of whether Indigenous studies has produced a change in students’ attitudes and commitment to Aboriginal education and, if so, how.

“By asking students to reflect on their learning, I hope to find out whether Indigenous studies has made a difference to the kind of teacher they want to be. I want to better understand how we could make the learning process better for students – particularly in terms of enabling genuine interest and engagement.”

Thorpe is sympathetic to the plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who have experienced racism and is determined to encourage a spirit of inclusivity in the classroom. She helps students create “a space where Aboriginal knowledge is shared and respected” while also enabling students to “bring their diverse perspectives about Indigenous issues into the classroom so that they can be examined and, if needed, challenged with respectful dialogue”.

Thorpe is pleased with the faculty’s culture of encouraging innovation in teaching and learning. “What we’re trying to do is map out and create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander space and identity within the faculty so that Indigenous participation is everyday business”.

SPIRIT OF INCLUSIVITYCHANGE STARTS IN THE CLASSROOM

18 OUR PEOPLE KATRINA THORPE

Dr Helen Proctor is an education historian who uses historical concepts and methods to shed light on the complexities of contemporary Australian schooling. Historical knowledge, she argues, can be powerful. “Understanding the history of the policies, practices and relationships surrounding schools provides a very useful set of tools for making sense of the present. History helps us to understand how we arrived at where we are, and how we might want to proceed into the future.

“What is the nature of our school system? How have schools shaped families and social life? How did we get here? How should we move forward?” These are some of the big questions Proctor seeks to answer.

Her recent publications include, A History of Australian Schooling, a book co-written with Associate Professor Craig Campbell, and Controversies in Education, co-edited with Dr Patrick Brownlee and Professor Peter Freebody.

A History of Australian Schooling took more than five years to write and is the first comprehensive history of schooling in Australia published since 1980, embracing all states and territories and covering more than two centuries.

Controversies in Education examines Australia as a test case for globally popular ‘neoliberal’ schooling reform strategies including mass standardised testing, choice and competition.

Proctor’s current research encompasses histories of the ‘good’ educational parent from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, and a historical and sociological study of the recent rise of private academic coaching colleges for school students (with Dr Arathi Sriprakash). Both of these projects draw attention to the importance of parents as educational stakeholders, and to the intricate and sometimes troubled relationships between parents and schools.

A collaborative project with Dr Kellie Burns entitled ‘Making the healthy school student’, examines the historical involvement of schools in the implementation of public health policy from the early 1900s to the 1970s. “One of my particular interests lies in the way that schools have acted to shape the social and cultural world,” Proctor says. “Schools have always had ambitions beyond the simple teaching of reading and writing. For example, school teachers have been intimately involved in the promotion of cleanliness and hygiene, the containment or prevention of contagious illnesses and the policing of sexuality. And the schoolchild has often been thought of as a pathway into households and families.”

Proctor’s projects span some diverse aspects of education in Australia, but there is a thread that draws them together: the certainty that schools are important and influential social institutions. “The better we understand their history,” she argues, “the better equipped we will be to strengthen and encourage their best practices in the present, and into the future.”

PAST MEETS FUTUREHISTORY INFORMS REFORM

21OUR PEOPLE HELEN PROCTOR

Readers of Libby Gleeson’s books often find themselves slipping into the lives of the characters she so passionately brings to life. From a cyclone survivor in Red, to a young Afghan refugee in Mahtab’s Story, Gleeson, a children’s book author, can transport her audiences to different and exciting worlds with the stroke of a pen.

Writing fascinates Gleeson. As a child she read widely and believed that “making the books would be as much fun as reading them”, she says. Graduating from the University in 1974 with a Diploma of Education and an honours degree in history, her interest in writing deepened.

No matter how busy she is working on her next story, Gleeson finds time to participate in the education landscape. She holds an Adjunct Professorship at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, through which she presents seminars to Master of Education students that centre on Australian creative writing and children’s literature.

“I am and have always been fascinated by literature and by language,” Gleeson says. “Making and exploring ideas and seeing if you could make it work as a story – I love that. Story fascinates me. We tell stories all the time, whether it’s just gossip of what you did in the day, or whether it’s a beautifully fashioned romantic tale. I just love living a life where my main task is telling stories.”

Gleeson’s passion for writing children’s books is not without its challenges. “Different issues arise with each book. I think a lot of writers have this experience. When you’ve written your first book, you think you can write. But really, you can just write that book. Each book presents a trial, its own problem, or issues that need to be addressed.”

Sometimes challenges transform into opportunities or revelations. In tackling the difficulties of writing her first novel, Eleanor, Elizabeth, Gleeson eventually discovered that contemporary writing requires simplicity but also complexity.

As Director of the Public Education Foundation, Gleeson holds strong opinions on the needs of public education and school funding to be changed so that no child is left behind. To her, it is in everybody’s interest to provide equality of opportunity to all students. Education, she says, facilitates social mobility and allows young people to realise their dreams.

“I am a firm believer, an absolutely convinced believer that we have mucked up our education system by creating a three-tiered system with government support going more to some of the larger private schools,” she says. “Why the [federal] government does not implement the Gonski system, I do not know.”

Gleeson believes the Faculty of Education and Social Work is doing well to provide teacher education and opportunities for its students. Initiatives such as the Artists in Residence program bring budding writers closer to practitioners in the areas of writing, painting, theatre production, and more.

Asked why she chose the University of Sydney, Gleeson says: “I never considered a university other than Sydney. My father was a graduate, there were residential colleges so a country kid like me would have somewhere to live, on site. Then there was the romance of the history and the sandstone buildings.”

FACT IN FICTIONSTORIES ENCOURAGE STUDENTS

22 OUR PEOPLE LIBBY GLEESON

Murat Dizdar knows he is lucky. As one of four Executive Directors for Public Schools in NSW, he oversees the work of principal network directors and educational services provision. Dizdar is in “a very privileged role” in which he works with directors, principals, community and a range of stakeholders and educators who are committed to public education in NSW.

Through strategic direction and collaboration with school leaders and those who support them both professionally and in their communities, he contributes daily to providing the best learning and development opportunities for 750,000 students across about 2200 public schools.

Coming from a disadvantaged background, Dizdar understands the power of a good public education – it was his ticket to a brighter future. Believing teaching to be his calling and wanting to follow in the footsteps of the great teachers he had at Summer Hill Public School and Fort Street High School in Sydney’s inner-west, Dizdar enrolled in a Bachelor of Education at the University of Sydney from 1993 to 1996.

“I had lecturers and tutors grounded in the sense of what was occurring in the educational landscape at the time,” Dizdar says. “They were strong developers of future teachers. Any student who walks into the Faculty of Education and Social Work would be part of an inspiring culture of the power and positive impact that education can yield for our young people. The faculty seeks to develop effective teachers who also have a strong affinity with public education.”

Dizdar praises the faculty’s extensive network of school partnerships. The faculty strongly supports effective practicum placement and contributing to the professional development of staff in public schools were prac students are placed. This can be a ‘win-win’ relationship.

Dizdar has a strong message for students who plan on becoming teachers: “Chase what you’re committed to,” he says. “Never underestimate the impact you can have on a young life, both in a positive and negative sense, and make sure you avoid the negative at all costs. Bring warmth to your daily practice and never underestimate the powerful leveller that public education is.”

Following his studies with the faculty, Dizdar commenced his career as a teacher at Ashcroft High School in Sydney’s southwest. “I never looked back,” he says. “I took a lot of satisfaction from watching students improve and grow in my classrooms.”

Today, Dizdar is at the forefront of public education, helping to cultivate young minds for a life of personal and academic excellence.

“I am most appreciative of the enormous role played by public education in providing opportunity, growth and levelling the playing field for those students with potential, from challenging and disadvantaged backgrounds,” Dizdar says. “I’m enormously proud of the fact that our public education system in NSW caters for the differences between individual students. We value and respect diversity and inclusivity and we open our doors across more than 2000 schools each day, ensuring that we are ready for all learners.”

LEVEL PLAYING FIELDVALUE DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY

25OUR PEOPLE MURAT DIZDAR

As Pro-Dean and Professor of Teacher Education and the Arts with the Faculty of Education and Social Work, Professor Robyn Ewing guides both pre-service and postgraduate teachers in the areas of curriculum and teaching and learning, particularly English, literacy and drama.

There is no learning tool quite like the arts, especially drama, Ewing says. “I’m passionate about the role the arts should play across all areas of education. Research shows unequivocally that quality arts experiences improve our social and emotional wellbeing and this in turn enables us to do our best academically.”

It is Ewing’s hope that innovative teaching programs such as school drama, a partnership between the Sydney Theatre Company and the Faculty of Education and Social Work, will boost teacher confidence and expertise in embedding drama with literature into their teaching. Spearheaded by Ewing, the project aims is to enhance English and literacy outcomes for primary-school students by investing in teacher professional learning.

“Participating teachers report that they developed an understanding of the value of drama not just in English and literacy, but across the primary curriculum,” Ewing says.

“My particular research has been around the use of drama with quality literature to encourage deep learning and understanding. First of all, it’s important to help teachers understand the importance of imaginative and creative texts to improve literacy. And how to use a whole range of drama strategies borrowed from theatre but adapted for the classroom to help one go beyond the surface meaning of texts and understand their deeper meaning.

“Drama can really help students walk in someone else’s shoes and develop multiple perspectives on life’s big questions.”

Ewing’s long-time ambition to embed creativity in teaching and learning also emerges through her role as Vice-President of the Sydney Story Factory board. Located in Redfern, the factory aims to develop young people’s creativity and imagination through the opportunity to write creatively. Its programs target marginalised youth, as well as those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-English speaking backgrounds.

“Just like any profession, teaching has to be responsive to the way society is changing,” Ewing says. “We’re a very diverse society. We have children from all kinds of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. As teachers, we have to be confident about creating an inclusive classroom community where learners feel safe to take risks and develop their creativity and imagination. The rate of change in our society is escalating every year. Children who come into school this year will work in areas that haven’t been developed yet and they will have to be flexible problem solvers, confident about who they are and with empathy to understand others.”

Teaching is about facilitating creative confidence, flexibility and problem solving, rather than filling students’ heads with knowledge that could be outdated in the future, Ewing says. It’s about understanding how to learn.

“I think we teach who we are,” she says. “I don’t think you can give a teacher a recipe for how to be a good teacher or how to create and develop relationships. It’s so much a part of who we are as people. We need to see ourselves as lifelong learners too, learning alongside our students.”

DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE USING CREATIVITY TO IMPROVE LITERACY

26 OUR PEOPLE ROBYN EWING

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” is Dr Louisa Peralta’s maxim. A Lecturer in Physical Education and Professional Practice at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, Peralta believes that knowledge and its practice, especially in health and physical education, are vital ingredients for developing the “whole child” or the “whole person”.

Aside from teaching future health and physical educators, Peralta is involved in a major project with funding from the Australian Research Council. Adolescent Motivation in Physical Education Lessons is the project led by a researcher at the Australian Catholic University. It comprises a team of researchers from the University of Sydney, the University of Newcastle and the University of Western Sydney, as well as other international researchers.

As part of this project, Peralta has devised a professional learning plan for physical educators to reflect upon the pedagogies they use and the subsequent motivation and physical activity levels of their students. She presents strategies and principles that the teachers implement, reflect upon and discuss in a bid to improve students’ physical activity levels and motivation.

Peralta and the team of researchers are using this project to analyse trends in students’ motivation and physical activity levels in physical education. Sixteen high schools in low-socioeconomic areas in western Sydney are participating.

“I’m interested in knowing whether students actually use [health and PE] learning outside of school,” Peralta says. “On a weekend, will they choose to be more active rather than sedentary, by asking their family or friends for a walk or cycle by the lake? Are they using what they learned in physical education to improve their own health and those in their immediate surroundings?”

With the findings from this three-year project, Peralta and the other researchers plan to “make a positive change to teaching practices that would have a positive impact on students’ learning in physical education”. Together they would inform physical educators on how best to motivate students to increase their physical activity levels and to become “whole” citizens.

Nevertheless, the vision of transforming Australia into a nation of “whole” children has had its challenges. According to Peralta, research has identified that cultural minorities or low-socioeconomic groups are most at risk of ill health due to lower levels of engagement in physical activity.

“We feel empowered by designing and implementing programs with the main target groups,” Peralta says. “We feel that we are making a difference. Still, there are challenges associated with working with communities, schools and teachers. For example, there are many competing agendas in schools, and teachers are working in intensified environments and crowded curriculums. We have to take the schools’ external influences into account too.”

Despite these hurdles, Peralta is “passionate about making positive health changes” in the groups of students she is working with – after all, that’s where she can make “the biggest change”. She believes that quality health and physical education empowers all who receive it.

“The physical self is as important as the intellectual or cognitive self,” she says. “With the two working together, we can make positive changes to the health of individuals and groups.”

ACTION-PACKED DEVELOPING THE PHYSICAL SELF

29OUR PEOPLE LOUISA PERALTA

For English teacher Alexander Wharton, nothing is quite as rewarding as seeing his students grow through learning. An educator and one of the Heads of House at William Clarke College at Kellyville in north-west Sydney, Wharton enriches his students’ learning experience by helping them become the best they can be – every day.

Using a mix of literature and student feedback, Wharton, a Faculty of Education and Social Work alumnus, teaches Years 7-12 students to engage with a wide variety of texts such as Blade Runner, Frankenstein, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Maus.

“I’m constantly learning about myself, about my own subject area, and about the kids I’m teaching,” he says. “I’m always looking for tools and new ways to channel ideas.”

Wharton embraces innovation and interactivity in the classroom. For him, it is important to have students who understand and appreciate both printed literature and multimedia.

“The decoding skills they learn at school lay the foundation for them to build their skills of communication,” he says. “Literacy comes down to being able to decode text at a level that would enable students to become well-rounded members and individuals of our society. Still, there’s a lot of work to be done to close the gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literacy and how far behind a lot of these students are in our schools.”

Beyond William Clarke College, Wharton is affiliated with a number of teaching associations. He is a committee member of the English Teachers Association, where he analyses and responds to issues relating to English teachers, curriculum and assessments in NSW.

Wharton’s commitment to education does not stop there. Not only is he also a committee member of the Australian College of Educators, he was recently elected as a Counsellor on the Quality Teaching Council of the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards. It is here that he helps to shape teacher accreditation policy and procedures. “Education is absolutely my hobby,” Wharton says.

His great and sustained affinity for education, however, lies in his history with the Faculty of Education and Social Work. “The cohort I was with was a step above the rest because we had and still have the top lecturers in Australia teaching us,” Wharton says. “I often think of how significantly the faculty has shaped me.”

Today, Wharton represents the voice of faculty alumni through the Alumni Council, creating opportunities for mentoring, partnership, and development.

For him, the council is about giving back to the student community and investing in the talents of the alumni. “It is such an honour to be voted in by my peers,” he says. “At the Alumni Council, we acknowledge that we have many gifted and talented alumni. We recognise the need to keep on serving and keeping those connections. Education and social work are such caring professions. It is only natural that we want to give back to society.”

Wharton knows his future is bright – he is following his passion after all. Among the peaks of his mountainous agenda is his ambition to become a headmaster or minister for education one day. “Since I have such a passion for teaching, it is only natural that I want to serve others and share my enthusiasm for education,” he says.

CLASS ACTLITERATURE LEADS TO DEEPER LEARNING

30 OUR PEOPLE ALEXANDER WHARTON

OUR PARTNERSHIPS

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Our strong partnerships include:

– Australia Council for the Arts – Sydney Theatre Company – Bell Shakespeare – Sydney Opera House – Sydney Story Factory – Museum of Contemporary Art – Arts Special Interest Group – Australian Association for Research in Education – Centre for Arts-Informed Research and Teaching

The faculty has strong partnerships with the University’s arts disciplines and the Centre for Arts-Informed Research and Teaching will also foster more collaboration with Sydney College of the Arts, the Conservatorium of Music, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

In 2011 the faculty established an Artist-in-Residence program to offer students, staff, alumni and friends, honoraries and partner organisations opportunities to engage with creative practitioners in the areas of writing, painting, screenwriting, script writing, illustration and theatre production, and to relate this, to their teaching practice and research.

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON COMPUTER SUPPORTED LEARNING AND COGNITION

The CoCo Centre aims to contribute to research in the field of the learning sciences to discover how learning technologies and pedagogical approaches can enhance formal and informal learning.

CoCo provides an active, supportive home for PhD students to help them develop as researchers and connect them with the national and international research community. This includes a weekly seminar series, a monthly methodology workshop and a bi-weekly reading group. All activities are open to anyone interested in learning technologies.

Internal initiatives launched for the development opportunities open to PhD students include three PhD colloquiums a year with feedback from staff and other students. We incorporate a brief presentation from a member of the team into the start of each CoCo weekly meeting as a way of sharing information about current research.

CoCo staff and PhD students play an active role in the University’s Sciences and Technologies of Learning (STL) network (blogs.usyd.edu.au/stl).

This network was established in 2012 and involves researchers from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, the Institute for Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, and the Workplace Education and Development Group in Medicine.

The faculty has a strong network of global and domestic collaborators and partners that span academia, school systems, corporate and arts companies and organisations.

PHILANTHROPYAN INVESTMENT IN SUCCESS

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A central ingredient of the Faculty of Education and Social Work’s success is the generous support from alumni and others for scholarships and research.

In providing world-class education, social work and policy studies programs, private philanthropy – contributed by alumni, friends, and current and former staff – plays a vital role in our success. Every gift makes a positive difference not only to our research and teaching, but also to how we contribute to the community.

Major donations transform and enrich our teaching and research.

In 2013, an anonymous donor provided $5 million to create a Teacher Enrichment Academy for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teachers – a multidisciplinary collaboration to strengthen the confidence of mathematics and science teachers in schools Australia-wide.

Scholarships enable promising students of all backgrounds to attend our University. Alumna Denise Playoust’s generous pledge in 2013 of an endowed scholarship aims to do just that. Established in honour of her parents, the James and Moya Kilgannon Scholarship will enable students to pursue undergraduate education studies. The Brennan Family Foundation’s Elizabeth Brennan Scholarship also aims to attract the best and brightest to pursue postgraduate study in early childhood education.

Alumna and social work pioneer Kathleen Hamilton’s donation aims to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social workers with a wealth of field experience the opportunity to undertake the Master of Social Work (Qualifying).

These are just a few of the stories that make up the rich fabric of our donor community. We are grateful for the generosity of individuals and organisations who give annually to support students and help us enrich the diverse range of programs we offer.

Your support contributes to the development of professionals and leaders committed to social justice and making a positive difference in the lives of children, families and communities.

To find out more about gifting to the Faculty of Education and Social Work, please contact:

Abel Orellana Associate Director Development T (02) 8627 8822 E abel.orellana@sydney.edu.au

sydney.edu.au/education

Produced by Marketing and Communications, the University of Sydney, June 2014. The University reserves the right to make alterations to any information contained within this publication without notice. 14/3544

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FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND SOCIAL WORK