Papers by Peter Charles Taylor
Sustainability
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), cult... more According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), culture provides the transformative dimension for ensuring the development process of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As one of the key drivers in the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, culture ensures a people-centered and context-relevant approach that cuts across a range of policy areas and, thus, in the context of quality education promotes the development of human resources for cultural and environmental sustainability. It is in this context that we report on a study aimed at developing students’ cultural identity and supporting the younger generation in preserving their cultural heritage, whilst learning chemistry concepts at the same time. The culturally responsive transformative teaching (CRTT) model served as a theoretical framework for the research to engage students in culture-based, high school chemistry learning by u...
Proceedings of International Conference on Social Science, Political Science, and Humanities (ICoSPOLHUM)
This paper discusses about (a) the urgent global problem of unsustainable development of the Eart... more This paper discusses about (a) the urgent global problem of unsustainable development of the Earth’s natural systems, and (b) a promising way forward in the form of a transformative educational perspective that integrates STEM education and Arts education. I illustrated how this transformative STEAM curricular and pedagogical perspective is currently being implemented by educators in universities and schools across Indonesia, Nepal, Hong Kong, Southern Africa, Philippines and Australia. A detailed account can be found in two recently published books that provide insightful accounts of both the theory and practice of transformative learning and STEAM education for sustainable development This paper provides a synopsis of the main ideas.
Sustainability
This paper reports the results of a study on the implementation of the Ethical Dilemma STEAM Teac... more This paper reports the results of a study on the implementation of the Ethical Dilemma STEAM Teaching Model in secondary schools in Jakarta, Indonesia. This interdisciplinary curriculum approach employed ‘ethical dilemma story pedagogy’ in a STEAM education project designed to engage students in values-based chemistry learning. Drawing on the arts, specially written ethical dilemma stories posing real-world environmental problems engaged students in exploring their value systems. Students reflected on the pros and cons of ethical dilemmas related to the everyday use of artificial fertilizers, disposal of used cooking oil and detergent waste, and environmental pollution caused by plastic waste. The purpose of the study was to investigate the potential of the Ethical Dilemma STEAM Teaching Model to empower Indonesian secondary school students with both chemistry knowledge and transdisciplinary capabilities for resolving environmental problems. The researchers conducted an interpretive...
In recent years the popularity of qualitative research in science education has increased dramati... more In recent years the popularity of qualitative research in science education has increased dramatically. This is an evolving field in which new forms, such as critical autobiographical research, are emerging. This form of research focuses on the researcher’s own life-history, involves writing in the narrative first person voice, and can give unique insights into the social and cultural forces shaping his/her own practice. Autobiographical research can be part of a multi-method participant-observation study, helping the researcher to deal with his/her own biases prior to interpreting and representing the perspectives of other participants. Autobiographical research also can form the whole inquiry, especially in cultural research, thereby enabling science educators to become cultural researchers and reveal hidden cultural forces influencing the social structures of schooling, the curriculum and their own pedagogies. Autobiographical writing, which is part of the inquiry process, commen...
Issues in Educational Research, 2017
Stimulated by my encounter with the strange term ‘hegemony’ – a dominant ideology that is largely... more Stimulated by my encounter with the strange term ‘hegemony’ – a dominant ideology that is largely invisible to its adherents - I (first author) recently ‘returned’ to my experiences of being in a secondary school chemistry class. Drawing on contemporary educational research paradigms, I designed an arts - based critical auto/ethnographic methodology. The research was governed by quality standards of transferability, trustworthiness, verisimilitude, crystallisation, polyvocality, pedagogical thoughtfulness, critical reflexivity and envisioning. In this research I identified six aspects of cultural hegemony that had negatively impacted my chemistry education experiences: teacher domination, curriculum content, perfectionism, competitive assessment, traditional teaching methods and poor classroom environment. An outcome of this professional self - study research is a vision for transforming chemistry education: (i) using recycled materials to create ‘green chemistry’ teaching and learn...
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2021
The paper clarified the developing lesson plan of fertilizer dilemma story for integrated knowled... more The paper clarified the developing lesson plan of fertilizer dilemma story for integrated knowledge practicing through lesson study. Through the PD program using lesson study, the theoretical framework of dilemma story was adopted to reference of the developing lesson plan. Methodology regarded paradigm. Participants included primary school teachers as team teachers, supervisors, expertise university lecturer, and school director. The primary school teachers as team teachers include a science teacher, a mathematics teacher, a technology teacher, and an art teacher in Nongsonghong district, Khon Kaen, Thailand. The developing lesson plan of fertilizer dilemma story for integrated knowledge practicing through lesson study will be interpreted through document analysis and participant observation. The innovation lesson plan of fertilizer dilemma story for integrated knowledge practicing could be summarized through the outcomes of lesson study design – plan, see, and reflect. The results...
Undead Theories, 2006
Computer mediated communication-including web pages, email and web-based bulletin boards-was used... more Computer mediated communication-including web pages, email and web-based bulletin boards-was used to support the development of a cooperative learning community among students in a web-based distance education unit for practicing science and mathematics educators. The students lived in several Australian states and a number of Pacific Rim countries. They reported increased satisfaction with their studies, decreased feelings of isolation, and better support for their learning processes. This article describes the iterative processes of research and design involved in developing and refining the unit, which was based in a social constructivist/constructionist conception of teaching and learning, between 1997 and 1999. Issues and implications for others planning to develop web-based teaching units, including the time and energy commitment involved, and the challenges of credibly assessing online participation, are also considered.
AIP Conference Proceedings, 2018
Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 2016
The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 confronted Australia and its neighbours directly for the first... more The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 confronted Australia and its neighbours directly for the first time with the dangers of violent extremism. Since then, the Bali Peace Park Association (BPPA), consisting of former victims, their families and other interested parties, has been lobbying for the creation of the 'Bali Peace Park' to be built on one of the bombing sites. Peace parks have been conceived as community-driven projects against violent extremism, and the planned Bali Peace Park embodies this principle. In 2012, BPPA initiated "Beyond Bali", an ambitious and highly relevant curriculum development project, and secured funding from the Australian Attorney General's Department. Drawing on the expertise of a counterterrorism expert, two university education experts and the first-hand experiences of victims and their families, the Beyond Bali curriculum package was created. Beyond Bali covers a range of topics and activities, including social science studies and ethical dilemma learning, is suitable for Years 8 and 9 students studying the Australian Curriculum, and is available for free from BPPA: . In this paper we position Beyond Bali as a transformative education resource within the fields of peace and global education and argue that it embodies UNESCO's learning to be principle.
Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 2015
Schools willing to implement education for sustainability (EfS) commonly find themselves confront... more Schools willing to implement education for sustainability (EfS) commonly find themselves confronted with curricula, school grounds and buildings and teaching practices that do not lend themselves easily to best practice EfS. In this article, we present what we learned about some of the challenges confronted daily by the staff of a purpose-built sustainability primary school situated in a ‘green’ suburb in Western Australia. Over the period of a year, we regularly engaged with the staff of the school through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and classroom observations as part of an interpretive ethnographic study. We identified three key themes—policy infrastructure, physical infrastructure and pedagogical infrastructure—that serve as both affordances and counter-affordances to best practice EfS. Given the paradoxical interplay of the affordances and counter-affordances shaping the school’s implementation of EfS, we suggest that overcoming these paradoxes requires no less than a t...
Science & Technology Education Library
For over two decades, science education has been a site of struggle between adherents of the appa... more For over two decades, science education has been a site of struggle between adherents of the apparently antithetical epistemologies of objectivism and constructivism; recently, proponents of personal and social constructivism have locked horns. However, at the beginning of the 21 st Century, we feel that it is timely for science education to enter an age of pluralism, of tolerance for multiple and competing ways of knowing, in which no one way is ultimately privileged; to exercise humility about the authority of our cherished ways of knowing the world around us. In the interest of creating greater equity of access amongst students to a much richer encounter with science, a new mode of pedagogical reasoning is needed. From the perspective of constructive postmodernism, we propose dialectical thinking as a way of generating unity-indiversity, and metaphor as a key referent for overcoming the obstacle of literalism which tends to reinforce fundamentalist notions of difference. We illustrate the viability of an integral perspective on science teaching with a brief account of an inquiry into the scientific literacy of a class of junior high school students, from which emerged a 3-metaphor framework. Mindful of the limitations of this framework, we argue for science education researchers to join us in conceptualizing more powerful and compelling integral metaphors for promoting worldwide epistemological pluralism and cultural diversity.
Encyclopedia of Science Education, 2015
How can we prepare science teachers with professional knowledge and skills for ensuring that teac... more How can we prepare science teachers with professional knowledge and skills for ensuring that teaching and curricula meet the global challenges of the 21 st Century, amongst which learning to live sustainably on Planet Earth is one of our most pressing concerns? Education for environmental, cultural and economic sustainability has been a key focus of the United Nations for the past decade, underpinned by the Brundtland Report's advocacy of an 'intergenerational conscience' which recognises that meeting the needs of the present should not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (UNWCED 1987). The recent 'Rio+20' United Nations conference on sustainable development ratified this view. But implementing education for sustainability is no easy task especially in science education. It involves much more than the traditional delivery and acquisition of objective scientific knowledge and skills. The Australian Government (DEWHA 2010) adopted a definition of education for sustainability to guide curriculum designers nationwide that emphasises development of higher--level abilities essential to becoming an effective citizen and change agent.
Arising from the first author's ongoing doctoral research, this paper enunciates a set of emergin... more Arising from the first author's ongoing doctoral research, this paper enunciates a set of emerging theoretical perspectives in mathematics and science education, such as ecological consciousness, multidimensional nature of mathematics, alternative-inclusive logics and curriculum metaphor in order for overcoming the problem of culturally de-contextualised mathematics education faced by Nepali students due to the hegemonic nature of mathematics as a body of pure knowledge. Finally, we propose a vision for curriculum policy that helps promote culturally contextualised mathematics education, an approach that allows us to incorporate local-cultural practices into mathematics curricula of Nepal.
Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 2010
Accessible via www.ethnologue.com (verified on 19/06/09). 2 The West is a metaphor deriving from ... more Accessible via www.ethnologue.com (verified on 19/06/09). 2 The West is a metaphor deriving from the historic perception of cultural separation of the Occident and the Orient. This separation has often been used to consider the Occident as superior to the Orient. Historically, the Orient is regarded as exotic, abnormal and irrational, whereas the West is depicted as normal, rational and natural .
Reflective Practice, 2014
Rahmawati, Y. and Taylor, P.C. (2015) Moments of critical realisation and appreciation: A transfo... more Rahmawati, Y. and Taylor, P.C. (2015) Moments of critical realisation and appreciation: A transformative chemistry teacher reflects. Reflective Practice, 16 (1). pp. 31-42.
Reflective Practice, 2005
In this article we portray an inquiry into the problematic impact of the Chinese National Examina... more In this article we portray an inquiry into the problematic impact of the Chinese National Examination system on Chinese chemistry teaching and learning. The inquiry was conducted as a soulful autoethnography, illuminating the first-hand experiences of a Chinese chemistry teacher struggling to reconcile contradictions between his humanistic ideals (of 'loose' teaching) and the technical forces (of 'strict' teaching) prevailing in his professional culture. This narrative inquiry yielded a mix of short stories and reflective commentary. In this article, selected stories present vignettes of the teacher's enactment of the national chemistry curriculum at critical periods early in his career. The article demonstrates the value of adopting soulful autoethnogaphy as a form of professional development, illustrating how multiple modes of inquiry can open up spaces for practical moral reflection (phronesis), soulful attunement (poesis) and contemplative thinking (theoria) which, taken together contribute to a loving praxis of transformative education. Consistent with the narrative representational form of the research, this article has a diachronic storied structure which mirrors the process of the inquiry.
We would like to be clear that we are not 'philosophical postmodernists' in the sense t... more We would like to be clear that we are not 'philosophical postmodernists' in the sense that postmodernism is concerned exclusively (obsessively perhaps) with deconstructing 'grand narratives', whether they be injurious, benign or beneficial. Our standpoint is akin to Donald Polkinghorne's (1992) notion of 'constructive postmodernism'which values pluralism over universalism but avoids the philosophical 'game'of espousing moral relativism. We are first and foremost educators whose theorising is grounded in our practice (as teacher ...
The purpose of this session is to discuss the results of a study which investigated students'... more The purpose of this session is to discuss the results of a study which investigated students' development of higher-level thinking skills in a computerised learning environment which was designed to facilitate an inquiry-based approach to learning. The session will focus on the social interactions and the influence of teachers' epistemologies on the development of students' higher-level thinking skills. In the class where the teacher implemented a constructivist-oriented approach to teaching that emphasised both the personal and social ...
Andrew, a Curtin University doctoral student under Peter's supervision, has been involved in... more Andrew, a Curtin University doctoral student under Peter's supervision, has been involved in designing an interactive multimedia program for teaching Special Relativity to undergraduate Physics students. After 18 months of design, the program was trialled at Eastern States University in November 2000. However, the design process was not straightforward or unproblematic.
Teaching in the disciplines/learning in context: Proceedings of the 8th annual teaching learning forum, University of Western Australia, Feb 1, 1999
A postgraduate unit offered by Curtin's Science and Mathematics Education Centre (SMEC), des... more A postgraduate unit offered by Curtin's Science and Mathematics Education Centre (SMEC), designed for the professional development of practising teachers, was developed in accordance with the referent of social constructivism. Two years ago, web-based modes of communication, including email and an online discussion room, were introduced to supplement existing'paper and mail'distance education materials in order to facilitate richer student-tutor and student-student social interactions.
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Papers by Peter Charles Taylor