TCAP hosted symposium: pressing issues in curriculum, assessment and pedagogy

Rebecca Cairns

Photos by M. Nicholas and R.Cairns

A quick search of recent headlines concerning Australian education reveals issues around phonics, NAPLAN, First Nations histories and perspectives, languages education, GenAI and so-called ‘culture wars’ around ‘woke’ curriculum are attracting public and political attention. While this snapshot reflects something of the 2025 educational zeitgeist–a federal election year–I wondered to what extent they reflect the sorts issues that matter to us as researchers and educators.

In June, TCAP hosted a symposium at Deakin Downtown. It brought together academics and graduate researchers from across the School of Education to explore the theme: pressing issues in curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. Our aim was to generate dialogue about perennial and emerging issues and to spotlight related research from across the School. While it showed some intersection with the issues reflected in the headlines, collectively the presentations and discussions spoke back to the sorts of quick fix solutions advocated by politicians and policy makers.

The symposium kicked off with an invigorating keynote from the esteemed, Professor Marie Brennan. For Brennan, pressing issues centre on future human generations and futures for the planet and the many species and ecosystems which create their possibilities. Curriculum research, she suggests, “must be activist and must contribute to opening up action that connects people and place – a space for hope through knowledge work-in-action” and “co-curriculuming.”

Intercut with anecdotes and insights from her own “record of course of life/Curriculum Pro-Vita”,  Brennan (2025) outlined a research agenda that includes:

• problematising dominant national and global narratives embedded in current colonial schooling and other institutions
• identifying and building new stories/(his)stories, and collecting alternative, resistant or counter-hegemonic histories; particularly around First Nations curriculum, past and present
• accumulating, analysing and sharing cases/stories made by practitioners: teachers, students, pre-service teachers, teacher educators and First Nations Elders and communities across sectors
• synthesising past research and its/our errors/omissions for others to build on
• identifying spaces which can/have been able to crack open current dominant assumptions about how Australian Curriculum works – e.g. First Nations knowledges; place-based approaches; multi-age classrooms; thematic-based programs; inter-disciplinary organisation of curriculum; and general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities as key organisers of curriculum

Such a curriculum research agenda would be enacted through teaching as research, curriculum as research, research as curriculum, and curriculum for research.

The keynote concluded by prompting reflection on what we might pledge to future generations given the effects of colonial legacies and current global crises. Drawing on Stein and Andreotti’s (2025)  provocations for repurposing universities in times of social and ecological breakdown, Brennan asked: “If future generations were to reflect on our actions 30 years from now, what actions would they be grateful we took in the context of today’s accelerating social and ecological crises? (Stein and Andreotti, 2025, p.122). The Pledge of Generations articulates how a new compass can help navigate these crises through commitments to intergenerational and multispecies responsibility. Calling attention to these challenges and the pledge is apt coming from Marie Brennan: as an educator and researcher her work epitomises a commitment to fostering intergenerational responsibility and addressing problems that matter. Overall, this keynote struck a balance between provocation and inspiration, stimulating further discussion and connections throughout the symposium.

The lightning talk session fulfilled the purpose of igniting discussion. Michiko Weinmann and Robyn Barallon reported on a publication, currently in press, about the hegemonic positioning of English language learning in adult education policy constellations in Australia. Elizabeth Little’s presentation posed the question: Woke curriculum or future safety? and argued for a “critical gender and power lens across curriculum areas and content.” George Aranda quickly had the audience fired up with his presentation: AI and impacts on teaching, curriculum and assessment.

The final session involved participants circulating around four corner discussion groups. In one corner, Penny Harry led the discussion: Reimagining the primary classroom under mandate. In another, Maria Nicholas explored: Research in schools at a time of intensified gatekeeping. George Aranda continued the conversation on GenAI and the impacts on teaching, curriculum and assessment. In the other corner, I used a controversial departmental definition of ‘controversial materials’ to provoke discussion on creating space for controversy and current issues in classrooms.

Throughout the day, we kept returning to the imperative of collaborative research within and beyond the Deakin School of Education. Strengthening these connections and collaborations will hopefully be an outcome of this symposium. A big thank you to all participants and presenters, especially keynote presenter Marie Brennan, who I will give the last word to here. Writing about curriculum inquiry for the future, Brennan (2022) concludes: “For wider-scale changes to occur, that alters the currently entrenched objectives mode, collaborative curriculum inquiry needs to be built in, shared and supported at scale, if education settings are to be oriented to a changed future and social-planetary crises where students as well as teachers can play an active role.”

Rebecca Cairns is senior lecturer in the Deakin School of Education and a co-convenor of the TCAP research group.