Empower projects

Department of Education International Global Competence Pilot Program – Phase 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Description:
Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne and Dr Miriam Ham from CQUniversity are engaged as the preferred supplier to act as critical friends and researchers for each of the Phases of the Queensland Department of Education International’s (DEi) Global Competence Pilot Program (the Pilot). The aim of the pilot is to design a Global Competence Framework based on the OECD PISA framework and build supporting resources for implementation through a collaborative consultation process with teachers and leaders from Queensland state schools. 
Phase 1 – 11 schools, curriculum design, action projects and workshops.
Phase 2 – 11 schools, workshops, Modules for Dimension 3
Phase 3 – Modules for Global competence and Intercultural understanding.
Phase 4 – assessment of global competence in schools.

Impact: 
The process of collaboration with teachers has assisted the development of their practice, as evidenced by the action projects they have produced. The long-term impacts of the Framework and modules once implemented aims to improve student’s and teacher’s levels of global competence.

Partners:
DEi personal - Meredene Hill, Jacinta Webb
Change Makers
Change Colab – Chantelle Kohn

Project Leads: Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne and Dr Miriam Ham

Embedding and sustaining the education for global citizenship and global competence agenda

Description:
This project, aims to bring together a small group of industry personnel and academics from New Zealand, Queensland, Australia and the UK on a monthly basis to compare the rollout of the global citizenship/global competence agendas in our respective countries, identify opportunities and barriers, and explore how to make the agenda sustainable in mainstream education. Through the collaboration we have explored a range of similarities, differences and learning from each others’ context. The findings of this research as been accepted for joint conference presentation and paper at the Academic Conference for Global Education and Learning (ANGEL) at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2023

Impact: 
The act of sharing the two differing approaches has facilitated a deeper understanding of the enablers and barriers to designing a State or National response to educating for global competence. The results aim to guide other policy designers in their approach to embedding and sustaining policy design at individual, school, state, national and international level.

Partners:
Dr Sarah-Louise Jones  Senior Lecturer in Education  University of Hull
Dr Donella Cobb Senior Lecturer in Education University of Waikato
Carla Rey Vasquez Global Citizens Manager Education New Zealand
Meredene Hill Manager Global Engagement Queensland Department of Education International
Jacinta Webb Director of Global Engagement Queensland Department of Education International
Chantelle Kohn Founder/Director
(Project Manager/RA for this project) CKM Consulting Solutions

Project Leads: Dr Miriam Ham and Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne

Global Education: Developing an uneasy compromise using the Delphi technique

Description:
International organisations such as UNESCO, the Asia Society, the European Commission and the OECD, to name but some, are influencing national education policies through the development of frameworks and directives that explore various formulations of ‘global education’ as an emerging education paradigm. The aim of this study is to engage a series of experts worldwide to explore the various terms, their origins and their use in different international contexts within the field of Teacher Education using a Delphi technique. Whilst realising that this is not a one size fits all, our goals are to locate any common areas of agreement / consensus on what, teacher (formal and non-formal) educators are trying to achieve in their teaching roles irrespective of the definition used.

Impact: 
The findings of the study will provide direction for future use of terminology and their use in educational policy and identify the threats, opportunities, possibilities and trends that have the potential to influence teacher educator abilities to embed the ‘what we are trying to achieve’ in teacher training both in service and in initial training institutions.

International Research Partner:
Dr Sarah Jones, University of Hull

Project Leads: Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne and Dr Miriam Ham

Ceding Control: River Running Rights in Australian Environmental Policy

Description:
In Australia, environmental policy is at a political crossroads, and the impacts of climate change are being felt by the increasingly intense flooding on the Eastern seaboard. In this edited book, we ask the following questions. How ethical is it to trample on the rights of a river? Considering ecosystem services, what are the consequences of disrespecting the rights of rivers for ecological conservation? And at what cost do they come to our construction of cities and towns? How have earlier societies hindered balancing out the anthropogenic impact on the Earth system? And lastly, how can First Nation cultural wisdom further ameliorate the levers of modern environmental policy?
A Reflexive Thematic Analysis will seek to understand usurping environment narratives that are underpinning water policy as a form of truth-telling. The case studies will examine and compare public information of the water allocation plan of the Australian Murray-Darling River system, the formation of the New Zealand Whanganui River property rights, and the renaturation of the Isar River in Munich, Germany. 
The book will include a dialogue led by Australian Indigenous peoples and an exploration of nature-based solutions; an ecology perspective—because flood plains are habitats; creative writing—because art changes minds that change policy; and environmental history and economic geography critiques—because people might want to pay less for house insurance.

Research Partners:
Partners are to be determined by a Request for Chapters process.

Impact: 
The book also suggests changes to the Australian government’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999) - to force and affect rivers’ legal and civil rights. Thus, it will give policy leverage to depopulate a floodplain with land buy-back, to re-create cultural spaces and conservation zones, and to let rivers run their floodplains.

Project Lead: Dr Michael Hewson

SDG:6 and 15

Global Competence Student Learning outcomes: code book application mapping curriculum 

Description:
We are partnering with Global Cities Inc to map the Australian curriculum to their code book of global competence student learning outcomes. In this initial project we are one of three ‘test cases’ of the application of the code book – the other two are with teachers in the USA and Kazakhstan. 
Research Partners: Global Cities inc

Impact: The resultant mapping, tools and exemplars created from this project will assist teachers in their planning and evaluation of students development of global competence. It will also showcase the Australian approach to the inclusion of global competence in curriculum.

Project Lead: Dr Miriam Ham and Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne

SDG: 4

Learning Inclusion in a Digital Age (LIDA). Belonging and Finding a Voice in a changing Europe (2021-2023)

Description:
LIDA works with inclusive learning communities and towards strengthening citizenship at three different levels: 1) Transnational, 2) sector/industry in the partner countries and 3) individually (teachers and students). The most important tools involve creating meeting places, carrying out learning activities, using the potential of digital stories and conducting research and dissemination work. LIDA also aims to promote and highlight good initiatives, best practices, learning resources and R&D results.

Specifically, this project targets SD4 on Health, SDG5 on Inclusive Education in a lifelong learning perspective and SDG11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities

Impact:

The LIDA project builds digital storytelling skills in disadvantaged groups in Europe, along with a public archive of digital stories.

Additionally, the LIDA team, represented with the four book editors Stephen Dobson, Brit Svoen, Gabriella Agrusti and Pip Hardy, is to publish through Springer an open access edited book titled Learning Inclusion in a Digital Age. Belonging and finding a voice in the course of 2023. The book has been accepted for the Springer Nature Sustainable Development Goals series:
“The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature’s inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of society’s greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal.”

Partners

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

Associate Professor Brit Svoen is project manager at Centre for Lifelong Learning, INN University, and member of the research group “Media, Technology and Lifelong Learning”. Her background is in Informatics and Media Education, and she has extensive experience in developing audiovisual learning resources, as well as on-line and campus-based programmes. Before Svoen joined INN University (former Lillehammer University College), she worked for 10 years in the business sector with ICT and multimedia and 5 years as an assistant professor. Brit Svoen is the coordinator for the LIDA research project, and was also coordinator for the previous ReGap and Advenus Erasmus+ project.

Leading Education for Global Citizenship and Global Competence

Description:
Our micro-credential is designed to foster the global competence of educators and develop their understanding of the role of education for global citizenship/global competence in promoting social cohesion and fostering the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes students need to effectively engage in a globalised world. It consists of four modules containing readings, videos and activities that enable reflection and the application of theory to practice.
The modules are shaped by four questions:
1. Why do we need education for global citizenship/global competence?
2. What do we mean by education for global citizenship/global competence?
3. How can educational leaders create the conditions necessary to foster a culture of global citizenship in their context?
4. What signature strategies are available to educators who wish to effectively educate for global citizenship/global competence?

Research Partners:
The micro-credential was designed with Alisa Cleary who was connected with the Global Learning Centre at the time of its creation.

Impact: 
Educators who complete the micro-credential have a deeper understanding of how to foster global competence in their classroom and skills. They will have gained and understanding of why educating for global competence is important and a collection of practical strategies for their practice and how to bring colleagues along the journey with them.

Project Lead:  Dr Miriam Ham and Dr Karena Menzie-Ballantyne