2024 VATE State Conference

Conference program
Download and read the full conference program here. 

We are excited to return to Deakin University, Burwood for the 2024 VATE State Conference on Thursday, November 21 and Friday, November 22. A section of the conference will also be presented in a hybrid-format incorporating live streaming via Zoom all the keynotes, guest speakers, panels and a small range of workshops. You can find more information about registering to attend the conference in-person on the State Conference event page. You can find more information about registering to attend the conference online on the Hybrid State Conference event page. Interstate delegates who wish to register can contact the VATE Office.

Please note: The Conference registration pages may load slowly due to the large number of workshops on offer.

Keynote speakers

   

Restorying English at the intersection
 

Storytelling is an age-old activity that has been used across millennia to share knowledge; to impart findings; to remember and reminisce; to be human. Phillips and Bunda discuss how stories take many forms with wisdom and experience shared from all ages and backgrounds illustrating the intergenerational qualities of storying. In this keynote, we will explore texts from Indigenous and non-Indigenous storytellers connecting the themes and shared experiences where English sits at the intersection

Larissa McLean Davies is Deputy Dean and Professor of Teacher Education in the Faculty of Education at The University of Melbourne. A leading Australian academic, her research spans the fields of teacher education and professional learning, literacy and English education and literary studies. Her scholarship is concerned with issues of justice, anti-colonial and feminist practices and sustainability as this is manifest in teacher knowledge and curriculum enactment. Larissa leads large teams that work closely with State and Territory Education Departments on these issues, to improve educational experiences for diverse learners. Larissa’s long commitment to Australian writers and writing in education has resulted in invitations to speak at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival, a partnership with the Stella Prize and the opportunity to Chair the Australian Literary Studies Gold Medal in 2023.

Professor Melitta Hogarth is a Kamilaroi woman and is the Director of Ngarrngga, as well as the Associate Dean (Indigenous) and Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne. Melitta’s research interests revolve around the intersection of education, equity, and social justice for Indigenous peoples, which draws on her years of experience as a teacher and a researcher. Prior to entering academia, Professor Hogarth taught for almost 20 years in Queensland, particularly in secondary schools.
   

 

Empowering the youth to seek the truth

 

  

With the overwhelming majority of young people consuming news through social media, distinguishing fact from fiction has never been more challenging — or crucial. Plus, the rise of AI has only amplified the spread of misinformation online. In this keynote, Billi will present an evidence-based portrait of how young people are consuming news on social media today, and how we can all play a role in improving their media literacy to help them become critical consumers. By focusing on real data, insights, and practical tools, the aim will be to empower educators to guide students through the complexities of today's media environment.

Billi FitzSimons is the Editor in Chief of The Daily Aus — Australia’s fastest-growing youth media publisher. Reaching more than a million people a month, The Daily Aus is known for breaking down the news to young people with simplicity, respect and honesty.

As well as leading a newsroom of young journalists, Billi regularly co-hosts The Daily Aus’ podcast and sends out their flagship newsletter to more than 200,000 people every morning.

Billi has interviewed some of Australia’s most senior politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.

She previously worked as a senior news writer at Mamamia, Australia’s biggest women’s media company, where she also hosted their ‘Book Club’ podcast.

 


Guest speakers

     
 

'What can I do for you today?'  Making sense of the promises and threats of AI offloading 

Teaching is traditionally described as a relational activity, involving human-to-human interactions and meaningful linguistic sensemaking. This framing has been recently disrupted by the remarkable ascent of generative artificial intelligence. The ability of 'large language models' to generate human-like text and simulate meaningful communication has inspired a lively debate about the future of teaching. While some welcome the opportunity to profoundly reshape education, others are concerned about the loss of autonomy, the 'hallucinations' (when an AI system produces fake or harmful content), the risks of misinformation, and the unwitting fostering of technological dependency. One key question in this debate concerns the tension between aspects of professional practice which are 'safe to offload' onto a machine, and parts which should instead remain within human purview and safeguarded. In this talk, I will explore this tension from a philosophical and pedagogical perspective. The presentation will draw on my research across several educational contexts in Victoria.

Carlo Perrotta is Associate Professor of Digital Education in the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne. Before joining the FoE in 2023, he held research and teaching posts at Monash University, the University of Leeds, and the UCL-Institute of Education in London.

Carlo’s research has been funded by leading international bodies such as the Australian Research Council, the European Commission, the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and UNESCO. His work has explored various aspects of digital transformation: technology adoption, technology-enhanced practice and critical issues (e.g., ethics and surveillance) associated with the growing role of digitisation in education. He has published in several leading journals at the intersection of education studies and the sociology of new media.  Carlo is currently examining the impact of automation on multiple aspects of education, from pedagogy to policy.
   

 

 

Living Languages | Sovereign Stories

The stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples once existed only in the languages they were spoken in. Now, with the extinction of traditional tongue and the prominence of English words and constructs, where do we leave space for First Nations sovereignty and identity? Bebe Oliver spotlights the strong, Blak leadership in the publishing industry, and explores how celebrating Blak stories in the classroom can empower the community outside of it.

Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator.

As a leading advocate for Aboriginal advancement and self-determination, he is deeply committed to the empowerment and visibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creators. Bebe is the Artistic Director and CEO of Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival, and the Deputy Chair of Magabala Books, demonstrating his drive for literary excellence and cultural representation.

Bebe’s highly celebrated and widely published work explores love, loss, identity, the intersection of Aboriginal and gay existence, and the rich tapestry of place and Country, making him a compelling and transformative voice in contemporary literature.

Bebe’s newest book, if this is the end (Magabala Books, 2024) is regarded as a fearless and honest exploration of identity, and “a queer Blak classic”.
   

 

 

  

Englishing is getting Englished

In Edward Said's 1984 essay ‘Reflections on Exile’, he writes, “In the United States, academic, intellectual and aesthetic thought is what it is today because of refugees from Fascism, Communism and other regimes given to the oppression and expulsion of dissidents”. This is equally applicable to Australia, a colony made up of settler-migrants on stolen land. This workshop interrogates the idea of ‘proper English’ in this context, considering how we can apply different Englishes through the way we write, using our respective voices.

Cher Tan is an essayist, critic and editor living and working on unceded Wurundjeri land (so-called “Melbourne”). She previously lived in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide and Singapore, where she was born and raised. Her work has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Hyperallergic, Kill Your Darlings, Cordite, Gusher magazine, Catapult, The Guardian, Art Guide Australia and The Age, among many others. She is the reviews editor at Meanjin and an editor at LIMINAL magazine. Her debut essay collection, Peripathetic: Notes on (Un)belonging, is out now with NewSouth Publishing.

Panels

P1: Affirming the ‘personal’ in a time of ‘constant overwhelm’

Any curriculum change inevitably courts controversy especially in the translation of theory into practice. And no more so than in Area of Study Two: Crafting and Creating Texts. Doug McCurry, former Senior Research Fellow at  ACER, says it is exciting the way the exam will encourage personal narrative. After years of formulaic writing and what he calls the ‘aridity’ of a writing pedagogy that has dominated curriculum for the past thirty years students will be able to ‘write about what matters to them in the ways they find most amenable

That sense of excitement is there in some of the responses to the mid year VATE survey on how teachers are dealing with the changes: “I love it …feedback from the students has been very positive. We started with Creating Texts and I think it was a wonderful way to start the study, it gave students confidence and I say that reduces my workload significantly as students are not fighting it.’ ‘Some of our students have written the most amazing, thoughtful and insightful pieces, largely resulting from the conversations we have had with them and the thought processes they were encouraged to undertake.’ ‘I’ve enjoyed the creative writing from the students. This has brought me great joy and has given me an insight into them would not have had prior to this area of study. Creative writing is good for body and soul.’  

These responses, however, were not representative of the majority. To riff on the conference theme most teachers found the changes, well, overwhelming, simply adding to their sense of ‘constant overwhelm’. A sound pedagogical  impulse drowning in issues of workload and  attendant administrivia. And even those excited by the change wondered about how realistic it was to expect quality personal writing in exam conditions.

Interwoven through the responses was the question of how students’ increasingly sophisticated use of AI would come into play. Would the need to be on the alert for plagiarism simply add to an already onerous workload or was there potential for AI to enhance the ‘personal’? At last year’s conference the panel on ‘AI, creativity and human agency’ posed a question about AI generated texts’ ‘potential for authenticity, originality and person voice’. One year on how might we answer this question?

Panel chair

Terry Hayes

Panel guests

Doug McCurry, Katharine Corrin (Kyabram P-12 College), Fleur Diamond (Monash University)

P2: ‘Evidence-based practice’: Complexities, challenges, conflict and change

There is a growing expectation that teaching practice is ‘evidence-based’.   This is usually understood to mean that teachers should select approaches or interventions that research shows have a high-level impact on students’ learning outcomes. While a focus on ‘what works’ seems logical and, even to some extent like a simple recipe for success, the reality is more complex.

In this panel discussion, we will hear the voices of teachers/researchers who wish to explore in thought-provoking ways key questions related to a greater focus on evidence in practice. Key discussion prompts include:

  • What counts as ‘research’?  What counts as ‘evidence’?
  • What does ‘evidence-based practice’ look like for teachers of English?
  • What type of research is valued and more likely to be disregarded?
  • Is research evidence in agreement?
  • How do teachers access and digest information about research?
  • Who stands to gain as evidence-based practices are increasingly packaged and sold to schools?
  • How might a focus on the ‘science’ of learning impact on the teaching of English?
  • What is the place of teacher research, knowledge, and agency?
  • What about students? How are they framed in the thinking about evidence-based practice?
  • Where might we be heading with our focus on evidence?

This aims to be an exploratory discussion that will identify key provocations for further examination by VATE.   

Panel chair

Associate Professor Amanda McGraw, Federation University

Panel guests

Prof Joanne O'Mara (Deakin University), Tim Mannix (Xavier College), Dr Katie Richardson (ACER)

P3: Lunch Orders: Newsroom to classroom

Traditional news media has been an omnipresent force and played an important teaching role in the classroom – and in our culture. But does it still?

With the disrupting forces of new media avenues – from social media and podcasts, to newsletters and independent publications – and their impact on the news we consume, there have never been more voices to turn to and more ways to voice our own opinions.

With so much control over what we read and listen to, what does all this choice mean? How do we cut through the noise, discourage misinformation and disinformation, and guide young people to access the full story?

Panel chair

Bec Kavanagh, The Wheeler Centre

Panel guests

Jane Gilmore, Rachel Withers and Osman Faruqi

This panel is supported by The Wheeler Centre
 
 

Writers Talk Writing
     
 

Dr Sian Prior has a multi-faceted career in the arts, education and media. For the last three decades she has been a writer and broadcaster, working in radio, television, print and online. She has been a radio presenter on ABC RN, ABC Classic and 774 ABC Melbourne, and a regular columnist and opinion writer for The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. Her essays have been published in magazines and literary journals and her short fiction in a range of anthologies. In 2014 Sian’s critically-acclaimed first book, ‘Shy: a memoir’, was published by Text Publishing. Her second book, ‘Childless: a story of freedom and longing’ was short-listed for The Age 2022 Book of the Year award. She teaches creative writing at RMIT University and for a range of community groups. Sian also runs her own online writing courses, and mentors individual writers.
     

 

Preeti Maharaj is an English and Humanities teacher as well as an educational consultant. She specialises in the development of curriculum, student voice and agency, instructional practice, literacy and numeracy across curriculum areas.

She is also pursuing her PhD, focusing on how teachers navigate their identities, students’ identities and educational institution identities when engaging with anti-racist practices and policies in schools. This is borne out of the intersections of her lived experiences as a migrant Woman of Colour, a teacher and school leader of two decades.

Preeti finally gave herself permission to explore the creative arts in middle age. Her short story 'A Tangle of Tenses' was published in 'Growing Up Indian in Australia' in 2024. She is also a playwright, an actor and producer. Her ten minute, one woman play 'Ganna Ki Kethi' (Sugarcane Farming) set in a remote part of Fiji, was awarded 'Best Production' by the judges in the West of Melbourne Performing Arts Festival 2024.

Preeti is passionate about students from culturally diverse communities seeing their stories in book lists and being given opportunities to be knowledge makers and creators with agency over their stories and how they are told.

Photo credit: Jess D'Cruze
     
 

Ernest Price lives, writes and teaches on Bunurong land in Hoppers Crossing. He has worked as a Director of English in multiple English KLAs around Victoria. Ernest has written and presented extensively for VATE. He co-authored VATE’s Inside Frameworks guide with Sonia Muir, and was part of the implementation team for VCAA during the rollout of the current Study Design. Ernest’s creative non-fiction has been published by Overland and Queerstories. His debut novel The Pyramid of Needs was published by Affirm Press in 2024.
     
     
     
     

 

Conference Day 1

Thursday 21 November

9.00am - 10.15am:
President's welcome & Keynote Speaker

10.25am - 11.25am:
Workshops (TW1) & Writers Talk Writing (WTW1)

11.50am - 12.40pm:
Guest Speakers

12.50pm - 1.50pm:
Workshops (TW2) & Writers Talk Writing (WTW2)

2.40pm - 3.40pm:
Workshops (TW3)

Conference Day 2

Friday 22 November

9.00am - 10.00am:
Keynote Speaker

10.10am - 11.10am:
Workshops (FW1)

11.35am - 12.35pm:
Panels

12.45pm - 1.45pm:
Workshops (FW2) & Writers Talk Writing (WTW4)

2.35pm - 3.35pm:
Workshops (FW3)