The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. A critical opportunity

AbstractThis paper provides a descriptive historical analysis of the planning and writing of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts which occurred from 2009 to 2013. This process involved extensive consultation across a range of stakeholders, including curriculum research, background reading and analysis that preceded the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s writing process. The curriculum itself was underpinned by a range of democratic principles, including the importance of developing a socially just curriculum. This necessitated extensive discussion which interrogated the terms excellence and equity to ensure a high-quality arts education was accessible for all students, regardless of their background. The implementation of these principles is then explored through the perspective of the Drama writing team, including the importance of the subject Drama in developing a sense of inquiry and empathy in students by exploring their own and others’ stories and points of view. The final curriculum document for the Arts, and specifically for Drama exemplifies the importance of these social justice principles in responding to the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) which advocates for equity and excellence in Australian schooling and for all young Australians to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens.

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This time without ‘feeling’: Children’s intuitive theories of art as a logical basis for learning progression in visual arts

Research Conference 2021: Excellent progress for every student: Proceedings and Program ◽

10.37517/978-1-74286-638-3_3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Karen Maras

Keyword(s):

Visual Arts ◽

Epistemological Beliefs ◽

Practical Reasoning ◽

Australian Curriculum ◽

Logical Basis ◽

Empirically Supported ◽

The Arts ◽

Experiential Process ◽

The Subject ◽

K 12

Learning in Visual Arts has traditionally been framed as an experiential process in which feeling and intuition complement the development of aesthetic knowledge. However, while art can be about feelings and processes that develop students’ expressive capacities, the complexity of art understanding and thinking extends beyond this narrow common-sense assumption. I argue that this assumption, which is represented in the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2015), and even more firmly resonates in recent proposals for the revision of this curriculum (ACARA, 2021), obfuscates the conceptual and theoretical bases on which students make progress in art understanding. This paper examines the proposition that art understanding emerges progressively and can be described in conceptual terms, the basis of which can be identified in empirical research on the emergence of children’s intuitive theories of art. This paper examines how selected studies articulate the cognitive grounds on which students’ ontologies of art and epistemological beliefs are represented in their reasoning about art over time. It is argued that an empirically supported conception of learning anchored in students’ cognitive development in art that recognises the theoretical commitments underscoring their conceptual and practical reasoning in visual arts practices K–12 provides a logical basis for articulating progression in the subject.

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The intersections of curriculum development: Music, ICT and Australian music education

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology ◽

10.14742/ajet.987 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jane Southcott ◽

Renée Crawford

Keyword(s):

Music Education ◽

Music Technology ◽

Australian Curriculum ◽

National Review ◽

Information And Computer Technology ◽

Use Of Technology ◽

The Arts ◽

Creative Learning ◽

School Music ◽

Music Classrooms

Recently, in Australia both the National Review of School Music Education and The Australian Curriculum identify the importance of technology in school music education. However, the understanding of music technology, as demonstrated by state and territory curricular guidelines, is limited with technology mostly recognised as a tool. In comparison, contemporary Australian information and computer technology (ICT) curricula appear to have a very different understanding of how technology can enhance learning in the arts, specifically music. Through a comparison of the Australian States and Territories Years 7-10 curricular guidelines this article compares understandings in the two domains - ICT and the arts (particularly music). The different perspectives on the use of technology in music education can be seen as either using technology as a tool to support instruction in drill-like programs or as a platform for collaborative and creative learning that resonates with students in Australian music classrooms.

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Theatre as Research – A Mysterious Mix

eTropic electronic journal of studies in the tropics ◽

10.25120/etropic.15.1.2016.3357 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jocene Vallack

Keyword(s):

Local History ◽

Research Approach ◽

Australian Curriculum ◽

The Arts ◽

Research With Children ◽

Theatre In Education

The Australian Curriculum mandates that Arts will be taught as part of the Foundation to Year 10 program in schools. My background as a Theatre-in-Education performer and as a Drama teacher has informed an approach to doing research with children, which involves making up plays about local stories. Firstly, local folk are interviewed and their anecdotes are recorded as data. The children then analyse and interpret the data, as a group, with the help of their teacher. It is then synthesised into a written play script. I have found this Theatre as Research approach to be a wonderful tool for integrating the teaching of local history with the Arts. It also has potential to strengthen community bonds and enhance inter-generational communication. Once the play has been created, the storytellers are invited as audience members to see their lives played out on stage. The paper will relate examples of how I have performed ethnographic Drama with various secondary and tertiary students to facilitate and present research. It will then offer a step by step approach for doing Theatre as Education.

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In their own voice: The role of the Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts Paper Writers in ensuring equitable access to quality Arts education in Australia

The Australian Educational Researcher ◽

10.1007/s13384-021-00489-x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Margaret Baguley ◽

Martin Kerby ◽

John O’Toole ◽

Margaret S. Barrett ◽

Elizabeth Grierson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Arts Education ◽

Equitable Access ◽

Australian Curriculum ◽

The Arts

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Electron Microscopy in Molecular Biology

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100060027 ◽

1967 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 2-3

Author(s):

Cecil E. Hall

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Molecular Biology ◽

Noise Level ◽

Molecular Structures ◽

Material Structure ◽

The Arts ◽

Shadow Casting ◽

Electron Image ◽

High Degree ◽

Very High

The visualization of organic macromolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, viruses and virus components has reached its high degree of effectiveness owing to refinements and reliability of instruments and to the invention of methods for enhancing the structure of these materials within the electron image. The latter techniques have been most important because what can be seen depends upon the molecular and atomic character of the object as modified which is rarely evident in the pristine material. Structure may thus be displayed by the arts of positive and negative staining, shadow casting, replication and other techniques. Enhancement of contrast, which delineates bounds of isolated macromolecules has been effected progressively over the years as illustrated in Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 by these methods. We now look to the future wondering what other visions are waiting to be seen. The instrument designers will need to exact from the arts of fabrication the performance that theory has prescribed as well as methods for phase and interference contrast with explorations of the potentialities of very high and very low voltages. Chemistry must play an increasingly important part in future progress by providing specific stain molecules of high visibility, substrates of vanishing “noise” level and means for preservation of molecular structures that usually exist in a solvated condition.

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