Module 5: Getting to know rural students' lives
Focus: Student learning
Outcomes
- Know about and understand how to develop place-based learning experiences that connect the local and the global.
- Know a range of strategies related to how to work collaboratively with colleagues, school support staff, other professionals and community‐based personnel to enhance student learning and wellbeing in Rural and Regional communities.
Topics
- Place based curriculum
- Funds of knowledge
- Knowledge of learners
- Curriculum integration
Key readings
Duffy, B. & Caro, R. (2007). Bush school [DVD]. SBS-TV and Enhance TV: Neutral Bay, NSW.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics. (n.d). Funds of knowledge: Learning from language minority households. ERIC Digest: Washington, DC. Available from: http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/PDFS/ED367146.pdf
Grant, E. (1998). My land my tracks: A framework for the holistic approach to indigenous studies. Innisfail, QLD: Innisfail and District Education Centre. Available from: http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/indigenous/docs/uncle-ernies-framework.pdf
Nixon, H., B. Comber, et al. (2007). River literacies: researching in contradictory spaces of cross-disciplinarity and normativity. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6(3): 92-111. Available from: http://edlinked.soe.waikato.ac.nz/research/journal/view.php?article=true&id=501&p=1
Shamah, D. & MacTavish, K.A. (2009). Making room for place-based knowledge in rural classrooms. The Rural Educator, 30(2): 1-4. Available from: http://www.ruraleducator.net/archive/30-2/Research%20Brief.pdf
Thomson, P. (2002). Schooling the rustbelt kids: Making the difference in changing times. Allen and Unwin: Crows Nest, NSW.
Thomson, P. & Hall, C. (2008). Opportunities missed and/or thwarted? 'Funds of knowledge' meet the English national curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, 19(2): 87-103.
Key resources
White, S. (2006). What does a rural school look like? Country Teaching [DVD], Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University. Available from: http://vimeo.com/25013478
Activities
Activity
These photos below were taken in a particular small scale rural dairy community in Victoria.
Discuss
- What do these photos tell you about some of the children who come to this school?
- Consider the working lives of the families and what tasks these children may be doing at home?
- How can you investigate the lifeworlds of the students you may teach in rural/regional settings?
- How can this information be used to purposefully build on the students' funds of knowledge in the classroom?
Activity
The 'Australian Farm series' is a collection of 12 small books written by Susan Jackson. As a teacher, Susan found that the books available to her class were particularly 'metro-centric' in their content and terminology. Her books are a wonderful example of how a teacher can create their own resources to better match the learning experiences and build from these experiences using place based pedagogy.
Investigate a particular primary industry and the appropriate terminology and expected tasks of this industry. Create a set of classroom resources that are inclusive of this knowledge for students.
