Table of contents
Day One, December 1, 2024.
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Matt Bower shares some thoughts on AI
The recent generation of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence is having a disruptive impact on education. Students can use any number of tools, such as ChatGPT, to help them complete any text based assignment tasks. But there are also a wide range of multimedia tools that can help them create images, videos, music, presentations and more. We need to fundamentally rethink our priorities when it comes to teaching – what should education be about?
Teachers at educational institutions understand they do need to change their work and they have understood that since the beginning of generative artificial intelligence, marked by ChatGPT. Most agree that they need to make major changes to what they teach, the way they teach and how they assess. But most teachers do not feel well-supported to make the requisite changes to their teaching, assessment and supportive practices.
Educational institutions are understandably striving to uphold academic integrity to ensure that students are using generative AI in ways that help them learn, rather than having AI supplant that learning. But there is an increasing acceptance that any student who wants to hide the fact that they’ve used generative AI can normally do so.
One of the key messages is that we really need to work with students on dispositional aspects of learning, to help them understand that they will have greater benefits from their education if they use AI as a learning machine rather than an answer machine – that learning still needs to take place in the mind and you can’t have anyone else do your laps for you. AI has the potential to be a wonderful mindtool and amplifier of creativity, but we must ensure that students are motivated and know how to use AI well, rather than as a way to bypass their learning.
There’s an urgent need for research along a number of dimensions. How do students interact with these technologies inside and outside of classrooms? How we can effectively help students develop their AI literacies so they can engage with AI in ethical, critical, safe and productive ways. How should we need to rethink assessment to ensure that we are assessing humans and not artificial intelligence? How can teachers be best supported to navigate through this major educational transition? And how do we support educational leaders and the system as a whole to rethink policy and professional learning?
There are a number of ways that we can also use AI to help us conduct research. The way to do this ethically is an evolving area but we need to consider how we can use AI to expedite some of the more tedious and menial aspects of the research process, for instance, cleaning and coding of data to help accelerate our research progress in the education field. It’s an exciting time in educational research, and as always with technology, the benefits we derive will depend on how we use it.
Matt Bower is a professor or educational technology in the School of Education at Macquarie University. His work focuses on how contemporary and emerging technologies can be used to enhance learning.
Thanks to Steph Wescott and Ben Zunica for the images.
Gamilaroi woman Michelle Bishop speaks passionately about Reclaiming Research
By Ren Perkins
Michelle started off by proving an intimate and emotional Acknowledgement of Dharug
Country. In acknowledging Country and Ancestors, Michelle mentioned it was because of
them she was here.
Images below thanks to Ren Perkins, Naomi Barnes and Ben Zunica
In reclaiming the research space, Michelle spoke to Indigenous sovereignty in research. As
Michelle stated, “ education has been occurring here on so-called Australia for tens of
thousands of years”. This was emphasised by the words of Torres Strait Islander scholar,
Prof Martin Nakata, curriculum did not arrive by boat and pedagogy did not arrive by boat.
Also in reference to Nakata, Michelle stated that the education system in Australia was
designed by the colonisers for the colonisers. As Michelle said, the state of the schooling
system is not broken, it is working as intended. That is to promote the hierarchy of race,
individualism and meritocracy.
Michelle shared that research demonstrates that schools can be sites of harm for many
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In fact, schools can re-traumatize, re-
marginalise and create experiences of racism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
students. As Michelle said, “There is evidence of how our kids are suffering”. Michelle
shared a traumatic experience where she witnessed first hand how an Aboriginal student
was treated by a senior school staff member. Michelle recalled the student was told, “ Well
what are we going to do with you, now we can’t use corporal punishment?”
Talking Indigenous research, Michelle asked the audience what they knew about Indigenous
research. This was to try and shift the focus of being the subject and object of research. As
Michelle stated categorically, “Nothing about us, without us!” To assist researchers, Michelle
outlined the AIATSIS research code of ethics, which is underlined by integrity and acting in
the right spirit.
The theme of AARE2024 is education in a changing world. Michelle posed the question to all
of us: What is our collective responsibility? For Michelle, her responsibility is towards
Ancestors, young people and future generations.
Michelle underlines this with three questions:
How to make schools safe®?
How to step outside colonial-controlled schooling?
How to assert our knowledge systems as rigorous and valid?
Michelle presented the Kin & Country Framework (Bishop & Tynan, 2024).
To finish, Michelle left us with the thought-provoking question, “How can we become good
Ancestors?”
Lightning Talks – thanks again to Steph Wescott who wrote about this session
Lighting Talks A
Following a brilliant talk from Dr Michelle Bishop, we reconvened for the pre-conference lighting talks – three minutes to tell us about your research and two minutes for questions. Rapid-fire, no slides. This post provides a brief overview of the talks presented in one of two lightning talk sessions.
Alice Elwell (Deakin University)
Knowing differently means feeling differently: affect in the critical English classroom
Alice tells us she’s writing about ‘vibes’ (or, the affective intensities that occur in the classroom when teachers are using critical literacies). In the English classroom, Alice explains that when big topics are engaged with, ‘big’ things happen. These vibes are pedagogies, shaping what happens and what can be known. When you do this, what do people feel in the classroom? Alice introduces us to a set of metaphors she has designed to work through her data, leaving us ready to think and feel powerfully in our own work and classrooms. Alice is also wearing very cool earrings, so make sure you say hi to her today.
Stef Rozitis (University of South Australia)
“People need to know that we are doing important work here”: Early childhood educators in their own words
Stef’s research explores how do gendered of maternalistic discourses shape the identities of early childhood educators. Arguing that maternalism persists in the work of policy and in people’s perceptions of early childhood work, and using post-qualitative inquiry to find multiples meanings and resonances, Stef’s found the participants used multiple discourses to speak about their roles. Stef’s participants distanced from maternalism but also slid into at times, evoked discourses of care and care ethics, market discourses, complex discourses around value of the work, and discourses of being skilled and experienced workers.
Stephanie Milford (Edith Cowen University)
Parental Mediation in the Digital Age: Insights from My Research
Stephanie’s research explores the parental mediation of device use among children. She says that oarents’ roles are made difficult by conflicting messages they receive about children’s screen time; that there are both benefits and harms. But what should they do about it? Parents must navigate these complexities, but Stephanie is interested in what informs their choices. Her research found that both micro and macro factors influenced parents’ decisions, and that parent self-efficacy played an important role. Findings highlighted the need for clear, consistent and non-judgemental support for parent decision-making.
Giorgia Scuderi (Aarhus University)
Crafting Creative Ways of Conducting Qualitative Research on Young People’s Analogue-Digital Relations
Giorgia shares that her PhD focusses on how gender is negotiated by young people and their parents, using ethnographic research in both Italy and Denmark. Giorgia also used workshop-based focus groups but encountered ethical problems around attempting to use relational approaches in her research. Giorgia is keen to chat through ethical barries others encounter in their research while she’s here at AARE! Giorgia also invokes ‘vibes’, which is beginning to emerge as a key theme of this session. She is also jetlagged as she travelled here from Italy; perhaps someone should buy her a drink this week!
Tracey Sanderson (University of the Sunshine Coast)
Supporting parents to promote a passion for reading
Tracey begins by telling us to get comfy while she tells us a story. This story is about a literature-loving teacher whose work aims to inspire a love of reading in her students and to develop a culture of reading in her classroom. At this point the audience begins to suspect that this story is about Tracey, but this remains unconfirmed. Tracey reminds us that if we want to know what kinds of support parents need to support reading in their homes, we need to ask them. Her research found that the stories of reading exist within families, not in textbooks. The story ends unexpectedly with our heroine working to develop an app to store resources and provide support to families looking to develop a love of reading in their children.
Ben Archer (James Cook University)
The Impact of Opportunity – Educational Access and Career Outcomes in Regional, Remote and Rural Australia
Ben wants to know what young people make the career choices they do. He tells us about his son, who was born vision impaired, and how that led him to consider a regional lifestyle for his family. However, the closest specialist was in Sydney, which led Ben to consider the skill shortage in regional places. This led him to his PhD journey, which traces students from year 7 to the time that young people make pivotal career decisions. He is looking at the ‘missing piece’, which he says is career advice. ‘What’s happening?’ he asks. He found that in year 7, students look at anything beyond rugby league player or TikTok influencer as ‘hard to get’; in particular, careers that require university entrance. Unfortunately, Ben is ‘stuck in ethics hell’, and is hoping to make progress and begin to conduct his work in schools.
Amy Kaukau (Te Wananga Aronui O Tamaki Makau Rau – Auckland University of Technology)
Exploring Mātauranga Māori in Bicultural Physical Education: A Tool Based Approach for Teacher Development
Amy is exploring bicultural experiences in physical education. Her ‘why’, she explains, is found within her family and her work as a teacher; she began to see the world from her children’s perspective and wanted to understand education from a Mātauranga Māoriperspective. She says that there is a need to understand the ‘how’ and ‘what’ in relation to what we incorporate into our curriculum and teaching programs. Amy’s research design is participatory action, and she believes in the transformational work that can take place in this space. Māori data sovereignty is important to her work, and participatory action research allows her to ensure that this is protected. In Amy’s research, she worked with knowledge leaders in Mātauranga Māori to design a tool that helps incorporateMātauranga Māoriknowledge into PE experiences, which has been shared with 4 teachers in their work. Amy hopes that she can develop something tangible at the end of the research that can be used for bicultural education.
And that concludes this session of lightning talks. Be sure to catch these researchers’ other papers throughout the week!
So what? What matters when it comes to research
Ben Zunica was at the panel discussion which offered perspectives on getting published.
Panellists were: Helen Watt, Stewart Riddle, Susanne Gannon and Stephanie Wescott.
Here’s a brief summary.
This was a session designed to help early career researchers and postgraduates with getting published. It included tips on how to get published and what to do to make your articles more attractive.
Should it be quantity or quality? Our panellists agreed that quality mattered. Stewart Riddle spoke from his perspective as editor of the Australian Educational Researcher. He said that abstracts were crucial – more important than you think.
“Everything comes down to your abstract – it’s like an advertisement for your paper. If you stuff up the abstract, the editor will just desk reject. The abstract sells the paper to the team.”
He recommended signing up to be a reviewer for a journal as a good strategy for becoming a successful academic writer.
“You read other people’s work, read and provide feedback. Sign up to be a reviewer.”
Susanne Gannon talked about what made a good article – and how that provides inspiration for your own writing. Stephanie Wescott talked about how she began her career and had been published often. She had also engaged with the media. She said it was important to publish thorough and reliable work.
It’s not about getting clicks, it’s about publishing good work.
Helen Watt talked about the dos and don’ts of academic publishing and how to get onto the trajectory of getting published in the educational space. Her top twos – you need to have something important to say. That’s like the “so what?” mechanism. Publishing is not all about writing. Good writing will not save bad work. Networks and communities matter – not just to disseminate but to interact and join in the conversation.
Bad work will follow you. Don’t do it.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. Be clear about your point of departure about what is known and join the conversation.
There was also further discussion about the implications of AI and publishing, following on from Matt Bower’s at today’s keynote.