Dr Karen Charman
My main area of research concerns public reflection and representation of place and memory. A focus of this work is a curriculum model I initially designed at Victoria University, ‘Learning and Teaching in Public Spaces’. Students curate exhibitions in social history museums in this curriculum approach. This work has occurred in the Immigration Museum, Melbourne, Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum, Warrnambool and the National Wool Museum, Geelong. The successful adaptation of this curriculum during my time at Deakin University resulted in an OLT grant that has produced a national pedagogical resource for Higher Education, Education, Humanities/Arts and Social Science academics to assist them to collaborate with museums effectively as learning spaces/sites. This resource articulates understandings and principles that will equip universities to engage with museums effectively so that they may involve students in the processes that develop dispositions towards active citizenship through authentic, purposeful learning which has a public use. The success of this project has been recognized through an OLT extension grant. In 2015 this curriculum approach is to be further adapted in partnership with Federation University and M.A.D.E, the University of Texas El Paso and Victoria University Bachelor of Social Pedagogy students. See Learning and Teaching in Public Spaces Project
As an extension of my interest in learning that occurs outside of formal institutions, such as schools and universities, I have developed a conceptual practice called A Memory Space. I have undertaken this approach in Sunshine and Fawkner. A Memory Space is a physical location in each of these respective suburbs where visitors to the space are encouraged to share a memory. Each of the iterations of this concept has resulted in curating an exhibition that reflects these memories. I am currently writing up these projects and theorizing what is occurring when someone shares a memory.
Genevieve (Gen) Blades
PhD (La Trobe University), M.A, Social Ecology (University of Western Sydney), Bachelor of Human Movement Studies (Ed; Hons) (University of Queensland)
Gen has been involved in outdoor and environmental education in schools and the tertiary sector for three decades and is passionate about outdoor learning in various scapes of nature. Her areas of interest, both scholarly and teaching, include environmental values and ethics, environmental eco-pedagogies, cultural responses to Australian land, and sustainability education. Her doctoral study focused on walking as a sensory, embodied practice in nature. This study sought to (re)discover the sensory and affective dimensions of learning in the outdoors as a walking ecopedagogy. Having the twofold purpose of decentring the human and centring nature, the embodied analysis aimed to place the more-than human at the centre in order to demonstrate an environmentally embedded walking practice as ecopedagogy. Gen is interested in exploring ecopedagogies and curriculum as public pedagogies, situated in various social, cultural and natural settings that are not confined to institutionalised education.
Gisela Boetker
MEd (UniMelb), GDipEd (UniMelb), Applied Dip Photog (NMIT), BA Social Science (Monash)
Gisela is currently doing her PhD on the theme of permission in teacher storytelling and art practice.
She is co-founder, along with Rebecca Knaggs of the PERMESSO Collective. PERMESSO originates out of the deep belief that we are all innately creative. Gisela and Rebecca set up large mural canvases in public spaces. Members of public are invited to join in the painting process. The emphasis of PERMESSO is on intuitive expression and process over product.
Gisela teaches in Pedagogy in the Bachelor of Education at Deakin University. She has worked on research projects at The University of Melbourne and Deakin University for the past 10 years.
Dr John Martino
PhD (La Trobe), DipEd (La Trobe), BA (FIT)
Dr John Martino is a CRN Scholar within the Victoria Institute and a Senior Lecturer in College of Education. He has taught in a range of settings and institutions for nearly two decades. He is an active researcher with a special interest in information technology and new media (video games) and their impact on young people and society.
Dr Martino is currently working on a long term project examining the impact of militarization on society, in particular the impact that military themed or oriented video games and emerging digital technologies have on the culture of young people and the broader society.
Professor Maureen Ryan
PhD (UniMelb), MEd (Monash), BEd (Monash), BA (UniMelb), T.P.T.C. (Toorak Teachers’ College)
Maureen Ryan is a Professor in the College of Education at Victoria University and Director, Gallery Sunshine Everywhere. Maureen is committed to collaborative and community focussed teaching and research. In her work she continues to explore aspects of the relationships between education and the community and the partnerships possible. She continues to develop understanding and knowledge round the skills and understanding that people working to create and build partnerships and the particular ways in which arts and activity based projects can enable these things to happen.
Dr Stefan Schutt
PhD Animation & Interactive Media (RMIT) Adv Dip Prof Writing & Editing (RMIT), BA, Eng Lang & Lit (Adel Uni)
Stefan is currently the Research Program Leader, Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing at Victoria University. His research interests revolve around people’s everyday use of digital technologies. He is particularly interested in young people’s use of technology, community uses of technology and the intersection of technology, narrative and identity. Stefan has founded and run projects involving the deployment of virtual worlds, games, augmented reality, mobile phones, tablets and the Internet.
Dr Michael Shiell
PhD (Fed Uni), BVA Hons (UB), BVA/FA (UB)
Michael is an Australian based artist-researcher specialising in Ephemeral Environmental Art. His doctoral research focused on documenting this fleeting art form. In addition to presenting research nationally and internationally he has been creating this form of artwork for over 15 years, including large scale commissioned works since 2002. He has run education programs throughout this time which allow participants to creatively explore and reflect on their connection to the natural world.
Dr Margaret Malloch
Dr Margaret Malloch is Director Research Training in the College of Education, Victoria University. She coordinates postgraduate research programs. Margaret is an immediate Past Chair of the Workplace Learning Special Interest group of the American Educational Research Association and a Link Convenor for the Vocational Education and Training Network of the European Educational Research Association. A key publication is as lead editor of the SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning (2011, 2013)
WIth Professor Maureen Ryan and Dr Dorothy Bottrell, Margaret is undertaking a pilot research project: Living and Learning in the West which aims to explore the public pedagogies of the western suburbs and how this may link with the University Town project.
Dr Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly is a graphic designer whose experience includes working in the advertising industry, design industry and successfully running her own design studio. Since 2010, Kelly as served as Course Coordinator and senior lecturer at Deakin University in Visual Communication Design.
In 2013, Kelly was awarded her PhD examining Cross-Cultural Visual Communication Design exploring issues surrounding identity creation and representation in a cross-cultural context. Her passion for a global understanding of design extends into her teaching practice and continues to be explored in research projects and design opportunities domestically and internationally. Her current interests investigate the intersection of design, museums and public pedagogies.
Associate Professor Mary Dixon
PhD. (UniMelb), MEd (UniMelb), GDipEd (UniMelb), DipT (State College of Victoria)
I am an experienced researcher in the field of pedagogy with a national and international profile. I have worked in Australia, Singapore and Thailand. Recent projects include evaluations of IBO curriculum, school redesign in Victoria and the Australian Primary History Curriculum. I have a particular interest in arts based teaching and research. My work centres on the relationship between community, space and knowledge in learning.
Recent projects and reports related to Public Pedagogies:
Australian Research Council Linkage Moments in time: investigating a national history curriculum in primary classrooms 2011-2015, Lead Chief InvestigatorA/Prof M Dixon
Innovative Learning Environments Research Study 2012
Keeping Connected: Young people, identity and schooling 2010
Dr Erika Hepple
PhD (Griffith University), Master of Arts in Linguistics (TESOL) (University of Surrey)
Her research interests include: the internationalisation of higher education; intercultural communication and intercultural learning; international teacher education; internationalisation-at-home; intercultural education through study abroad; issues of culture, identity and language; and second language learning and pedagogy. These are themes she has investigated in her PhD and in subsequent research studies. In addition to her work in teacher education, she has also taught English as a second/foreign language to diverse learners in U.K., Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
Adjunct Professor Anne Hickling-Hudson
PhD (University of Queensland), MA (University of Hong Kong), MEd (University of The West Indies), GDMedia (Aust Film,T.V. & Radio Sch.), DipEd (University of The West Indies), BA (University of The West Indies)
Anne Hickling-Hudson is a pioneer in using postcolonial theory as a technique of comparative education. Her research focus is on analysing educational policy and national development, teacher education and the intercultural curriculum, and internationalism/ international mobility in higher education. She has been awarded both international and national fellowships, including a Rockefeller Fellowship and an Australian postdoctoral fellowship, to study and publish on the cultural politics of education in developing countries, including higher education in Cuba. Research grants that she has won include two large Australian Research Council (ARC) grants to work collaboratively on researching education to counter HIV and AIDS in Papua New Guinea, and a grant from the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) to collaborate with three other Australian universities and several state museums and libraries for involving student teachers in an initiative entitled Learning and Teaching in Public Spaces.
She has been deeply involved in socio-educational reform, curriculum design and the education of teachers in decolonising societies, particularly in the Caribbean and Australia. In the 1980s, she worked with the late Paulo Freire to prepare teachers in the Caribbean for educational change. In Australia she has designed and implemented university courses to prepare educators for teaching and researching international education, and has helped to promote Indigenous studies in teacher education.
Anne plays a national and international role in promoting and facilitating education research and exchange in the profession, having been a past President (2001-2004) of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), of the British Association of International and Comparative education (BAICE), of the Australia and New Zealand Comparative and International Education Society (ANZCIES), and of the Australian Association for Caribbean Studies (AACS) (2009-2011). She has also been a member of other influential professional associations including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) of which she was chair of the Postcolonial Education SIG, and the USA-based Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) of which she was a Board member.
Dr Sarah Tartakover
PhD (VicMelb), MA Prelim (UniMelb), BEd (Melbourne State College)
Sarah currently teaches in the Masters of Teaching at VU. Prior to joining VU, Sarah spent many years working in a range of educational settings, most extensively in the adult community education sector where she taught English as an Additional Language (EAL) to recently arrived migrants. During this time she was involved in making several short films and creating a range of online resources for low literacy learners. She also presented a Latin American radio program on PBS-FM and coordinated a national radio training program which delivered training to ethnic broadcasters.
These experiences, coupled with her work in teacher education at VU, led Sarah to undertake an arts-based PhD which examined a range of issues around pre-service teachers’ knowledge and understanding of cultural identity, racism, diversity and the implications of these understandings on their teaching practice. She created a film Classroom Conversations around Culture, and an accompanying exegesis – Cultural Perspectives in School Communities: An Exploration and Representation of Cultural Identity in Pre-Service Teachers. The narratives of the pre-service teacher participants involved in this research offer important voices to consider when reflecting on ways to strengthen teacher education programs which promote inclusion and social justice.
Debbie Qadri
BA Fine Art TAS, BA Arts VU, Grad Dip Ed Deakin, MA Arts RMIT, PhD Candidate VU
Debbie Qadri works as an artist in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. She makes collaborative artworks with communities and schools, mainly ceramic murals. Her current research interest is about Communities making their own Permanent Public Art and she is undertaking a PhD at Victoria University in the School of Education. Debbie also has a personal art practice and exhibits and publishes under the name of Debbie Harman.
Dr. Nalin Sharda
B. Tech, PhD. (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)
Nalin’s current research interests and related publications include applications of the Internet and multimedia systems to enhance communications. Nalin has developed a number of conceptual models for integrating the art, science and technology of multimedia systems, including: Multimedia Design and Planning Pyramid (MUDPY) – a metadesign framework for multimedia systems design; and Movement Oriented Design (MOD) – a new paradigm for designing the temporal aspect of multimedia systems. Nalin has led joint research projects with The University of Melbourne, RMIT University, Defence Science and Technology Organization, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Centre for Advanced Computing. His research collaborators include Florida Atlantic University, USA; Santa Clara University, USA; Jyapee University of Information Technology, India; Aachen University of Technology, Germany, and many other academic institutions and the ICT industries in Australia and abroad. Presently he teaches and leads research in Multimedia and Internet Communications at the School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Victoria University.
Dr. Tracey Ollis
Dr. Tracey Ollis is Lecturer and Course Director in the Master of Applied Learning & Teaching at Deakin University. Tracey has published both nationally and internationally in the area of adult education. Her research expertise is in the areas of social justice and human rights education, adult education, informal learning in activism, NGO’s and social movements. She is co-founder of the Popular Education Network Australia (PENA), a group of teachers, academics, community educators and activists with an interest in the intersection between social justice and education. She is a member of the Australian Council of Deans Education Vocational Education Group (ACDEVEG), and a board member of Adult Learning Australia.