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Curtin School of Education Creative Practice Research Hub offers HDR Supervision within the Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy education course streams which culminate in creative thesis examination (e.g., a major visual arts research exhibition; or a major verbatim theatre performance work and exegesis).

Our Higher Degree by Research Community of Practice (CoP) meets online every fortnight to share their work/journey and support one another through the various research journey phases (e.g., literature scoping, proposal development, milestone examinations, ethics applications, data management, arts-based analysis and results framing, conference presentations and creative thesis examination preparation).

Individual supervisory meetings are also regularly undertaken, and together the two initiatives provide excellent support for our HDR Arts-Based Education Research candidates.

Our Curtin Creative Practice Research Hub students share their work and receive feedback on a bi-monthly basis through our seminar series interactions with our partner CoP at ‘Drama for Life’ at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Our Seminar Series/Webinars are intended as an ideas exchange opportunity for HDR candidates involved in creative practice research for education and related purposes.

Two inter-related arts-based themes for inquiry have been framed from which the successful applicant/s will choose:

• An arts-based education study of the impact of expert teacher mentoring on beginning arts teacher’s transition experience; OR
• An arts-based education study of the impact of expert teacher mentoring on beginning arts teacher’s use of inclusion strategies in the classroom.

Status: Open

• Merit Based
• Opens: 07/07/2023Closes: 25/08/2023

Who is this scholarship for?

Early career arts teachers; expert arts teachers; arts-based education research; arts-based research methods; mixed-methods inquiry.

Value

The annual scholarship package (stipend and tuition fees) is approx. $60,000 – $70,000 p.a.

Successful HDR applicants for admission will receive a 100% fee offset for up to 4 years, stipend scholarships at the 2023 RTP rate valued at $32,250 p.a. for up to a maximum of 3 years, with a possible 6 month completion scholarship. Applicants are determined via a competitive selection process and will be notified of the scholarship outcome in November 2023.

To be eligible for this scholarship and stipend, you will need to have completed a Masters level Education Qualification encompassing substantive research training/practice.

Contact Lisa Paris for more information:  lisa.paris@curtin.edu.au

In our final interview, Participant C reiterated the value of demystifying the process and product of Arts Responding in the ATAR course, particularly for CaLD students.

Demystifying the process by revealing the marking key and showing students exemplars to show them how to level up through the criteria was a key strategy employed by this teacher.

The motif of the rabbit is used here again, peering at a mirrored surface ski rted by subsiding mist symbolising the use of exemplars and scaffolding to demystify both process and product in the Arts Responding component of the ATAR course. When asked if she had any advice for early career educators seeking to better support their CaLD learners in the ATAR Visual Arts course, she suggested doing your homework and avoiding assumptions.

As a teacher, she advises seeking out information about the student from career counsellors, getting to know the student and their specific context, and building a relationship with them.

As educators, we are tasked with investigating and finding information, avoiding assumptions by acting on evidence as opposed to preconceived ideas, and using strategies that reveal to our learners exactly what is expected of them, and showing them how to get there.

” … never assume knowledge. So really take the time to understand the unique point that they’re at because none of them are the same.”

Participant C candidly explained that supporting her CaLD students in the ATAR pathway had at times felt like radio silence, “You’re just delivering in formation. And you don’t know what is sinking in”.

When the written pressures of the course set in, she observed many of her CaLD students isolating themselves, becoming reluctant to ask for help, and largely facing barriers of expression despite being motivated and intelligent students. “And often the kids that have English as a Second Language, they’re not really chatty … very quiet … they don’t want to be identified as being different or being slow to pick something up because often, they’re very intelligent.” In this artwork, a lone rabbit silently sits and watches the community of connecting satellites in the distance, accompanied only by a scrambled signal emitted from the satellite beside it.

She shared that it was often only once students completed their first assessment that it became apparent that something was wrong, and often it was too late as many of these students were then streamed into a General pathway leaving the ATAR pathway a ‘gated community’.

Despite these barriers, she stressed the value of the Visual Arts course in providing students with opportunities to express their voice through their art. Moreover, she explained that one size does not fit all, that each CaLD student is unique in their personal strengths and barriers and that teachers should work to get to know these learners as individuals.

When asked about her approach to teaching visual literacy in the ATAR course, Participant C likened her approach to a word game comprised of ‘levelling up’ through the marking key as students master the ‘building blocks’ of arts terminology. Framing Arts Responding as a word game captures the time and performance pressures that characterise the ATAR course.

When it comes to supporting CaLD students in this environment, she recommends using exemplars that demonstrate what ‘levelling up’ looks like. “I like teaching with examples … because rather than telling them I can show them.” This is represented in the lone rabbit, an ongoing character in this participant’s narrative, watching on at the start of the game as the hares ahead progress through the levels, seeing what the performance should look like before they embark on the challenge themselves.

When discussing the artworks selected for study and examination, Participant C reflected on the expectations teachers and examiners have of student maturity and exposure to cu ltu ra I events. “We assume so much knowledge with them that they don’t have … what are we expecting them to know? … As a teacher, we definitely have to keep remembering that they’re so young, and that you have to keep shifting your ideas of history forward. Because they weren’t [necessarily] born when these things happened …. The markers have got their idea of what’s in these kids heads. And actually, what is in these kids heads?”. ‘YOU ARE HERE’ is used in this piece to represent both the beginning of the ATAR journey for Year 11 students and as a reference to the context of the teen psyche in the contemporary era. Use of digitised glitches and a gameplay aesthetic is reflective of the digital world teens inhabit as well as the misinterpretation that can occur when we assume background knowledge of our students in examination settings.

Navigating the teaching of visual literacy and making choices a bout the artworks selected for study in the ATAR Visual Arts course is described by Participant B as a constructive process marked by tension.

Building visual literacy through scaffolding and connection is key. Participant B describes the spiralling complexity she builds upon over the course, making connections between visual arts language and practical learning experiences to support engagement and comprehension. She shares one example of a student mixing pink hues to better understand the language of colour in an artist’s work studied in class.

When selecting artworks for study, there is tension in the choices, balancing the accessibility of the imagery and themes for CaLD students whilst allowing scope for the full range of abilities in the class. If artwork themes are not accessible or universal, “there’s a whole loss of meaning, or that students just don’t have access to”.

The wisdom and experience needed to make these selections is represented in the Elephant balancing on a precarious tightrope. This tension is further strained by the selection of emotionally engaging works that will garner stronger personal responses whilst avoiding works that are too emotionally triggering for students.

Participant B described her journey working with CaLD students in the first interview, retelling fond memories and sharing her understanding of the challenges these learners face. Part of her journey included working with international students who regularly travelled back and forth between Australia and their home country, signified here by migratory flight creatures. She explained that many CaLD students were on a journey not just between the two contexts but on a journey of understanding their place in both cultures.

Language barriers posed a challenge to CaLD learners in the senior secondary course, often inhibiting their ability to truly express their responses to artworks in test conditions. Mountains are used here to represent the barriers these learners experience. Despite these challenges, Participant B advised that teachers should be tapping into what CaLD students already know, their memories and diverse perspectives. Educators can link class content to this background knowledge to allow learners to swing between their two contexts and form more meaningful connections to the content covered in the course.

Joy filled her descriptions of working with past CaLD students, particularly the successes she had shared with them as they completed their schooling journey. The sunset shown here is warm, representative of her warm memories at the end of her journey with these students when they graduated.

Across the three interview cycles, and particularly in the final interview when asked what advice she would offer an early career teacher, Participant B stressed the importance of valuing diversity and the joy she had experienced working with CaLD students over her career.

To support CALO students in the ATAR Visual Arts course, Participant B recommends fostering connection and modelling authentic engagement with diversity. With a background in Anthropology and Sociology, Participant B shares that she has always been curious about different cultures and believes that this has motivated her to learn about diversity in her classroom. She recommends that early career educators adopt a strengths-based approach to teaching CaLD learners “Because their presence and their understanding of their own culture and language is enriching for other students in the room”. An African Grey, renowned for its curiosity symbolises this authentic engagement as it pulls the cord connecting the two smaller birds together and around the globe.

“…and hopefully too if there’s in some way someone else reading, or there’s some sharing of the knowledge that you’re creating, that people couldn’t feel worried about how they go about teaching students with English as a second language, but embrace it and think about what they can learn as well from the students.”