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Associate Professor Michael Anderson

BA(Macquarie), DipEd(UTAS), MA(Hons)(UOW), PhD(Sydney), GCert(Sydney)

Associate Professor, Drama Teaching and Learning

Associate Dean for Strategic Communications

Email:

Phone: +61 2 9351 7810

Fax: +61 2 9351 4580

Building.Room: A35.808

Research interests

Learning sciences; psychology of education

  • Learning technologies and new media

Research on teaching and learning

  • Creative and performing arts

Keywords

Drama, arts, teachers, students film, youth culture


Professional biography

Dr Michael Anderson is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Strategic Communications in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney. His research and teaching concentrates on how arts educators begin, evolve and achieve growth in their careers and how students engage with arts and technology to learn and create in arts education. This work has evolved into a program of research and publication that engages with arts classrooms directly. His recent publications explore how aesthetic education is changing in the 21st Century. These publications include Masterclass in Drama Education (Continuum, UK), Teaching the Screen, Film Education for Generation Next (with Miranda Jefferson), Drama with Digital Technology (with John Carroll and David Cameron, Continuum, 2009) and Real Players: Drama, Education and Technology (with John Carroll and David Cameron Trentham, 2006). The research reported in these books uncovers innovative linkages between drama education and theatre for young people that could significantly improve learning outcomes for students in the arts. Michael was a drama a teacher and Creative Arts Consultant with the NSW Department of Education and holds senior positions in drama curriculum development and assessment with the NSW Board of Studies.

Currently Michael is Chief Investigator in two Australian Research Council major Grants, Theatrespace (2007-2011) and The Role of Arts Education in Academic Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement 2009-2011. TheatreSpace (also known as Accessing the Cultural Conversation brings together Chief Investigators from Melbourne, Sydney and Griffith Universities and a wide number of industry partners, including the The Australia Council, The Sydney Opera House, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Theatre Company, QPAC, Victorian Arts centre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts NSW, Arena Theatre, Malthouse and Arts Victoria. Michael is a regular contributor to the electronic and print media on education, popular culture and technology. Michael runs workshops on how academics can get their message out in diverse forms of media. He is currently developing books on innovative approaches to research in and with communities.


Awards

  • 2008 Vice Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Teaching. The University of Sydney.

  • 2007 Teaching Excellence Award. Faculty of Education and Social Work.

  • 2005 Thomas T Roberts Educational Fellowship. The University of Sydney.

  • 2005 Ewing Postdoctoral Schloarship. The University of Sydney.

  • 2003 Quality Teaching Award. Australian College of Educators,

  • 2003 Distinguished Dissertation Award. American Association of Theatre Educators.

     


Professional and community roles

  • Member, Academic Board, The University of Sydney


Current projects

  • The Role of Arts Education in Academic Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement. $344,000 from Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Grant) and the Australia Council for the Arts with Faculty of Education and Social Work (University of Sydney) colleagues (A. Martin & R. Gibson) investigating the role of arts education in school students’ academic motivation, engagement, and achievement (LP0989687: The Role of Arts Education in Academic Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement).
  • TheatreSpace is a four-year research project investigating the responses of young people (14 – 30 years of age) to professionally-funded theatre in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The research aims to discover what attracts, engages and sustains young people’s current and future theatre attendance and what factors might exclude them. What factors promote, deter or exclude young people’s engagement with theatre in Australia? ARC Linkage (LP0776532): Accessing the Cultural Conversation ($482 000, 2006-2011).
  • Young Mob Program assessment: In partnership with the University of Auckland, applied theatre processes were used as the basis of a research report on the progress and future plans for Young Mob, a programme for Indigenous young leaders in Sydney, Australia.

Current research students

Project title Degree Research student
Discourse analysis of drama syllabus and support documents PhD Valerie Johnson
Directing young people: a case study of effective practice PhD Anne Babington
Teachers’ perceptions of change in the Arts curriculum in Australia. PhD Linda Lorenza
Democratic values in drama education. PhD Constantine Loucopoulos
Censorship and the drama curriculum: a study of the censoring of texts for study and performance in secondary Christian schools in New South Wales. PhD John David Montgomery
Unfinished business - creating performance through two-way learning. PhD Linden Wilkinson
Teaching the aesthetic: playwriting pedagogy in NSW Schools. PhD Paul Gardiner
The role of the arts in academic engagement and motivation PhD Caitlin Munday
The role of intercultural understanding in the drama classroom PhD Mathew Clausen
"The Journey" How site-specific, community theatre can be used as a catalyst for change within an educational framework PhD Sharon McCutcheon

Selected publications

Books

Book chapters

  • Anderson, M. (2011). Drama Education, Ethnomethodology, and 'Industrious Chatter'. In Markauskaite, L., Freebody, P. & Irwin, J. (Ed.), Methodological Choice and Design: Scholarship, Policy and Practice in Social and Educational Research (pp. 93–100), New York: Springer.
  • Clausen, M; Anderson, M . (2010). Crossing Borders: Reading Indigenous playtexts in White classrooms . In J. Manuel & S. Brindley. (Ed.), Teenagers and Reading: Literary Heritage, Cultural Contexts and Contemporary Reading Practices. Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
  • Cameron, D and Anderson, M. (2009). Potential to reality: drama, technology and education. In Anderson, M; Carroll, J; Cameron, D (Ed.), Drama Education with Digital Technology (pp. 6–19), London: Continuum.
  • Jefferson, M and Anderson, M. (2009). Enter the matrix: the relationship between drama and film . In Anderson, M; Carroll, J; Cameron, D (Eds) (Ed.), Drama Education with Digital Technology (pp. 184–201), London: Continuum.
  • Manuel, J; Anderson, M. (2008). Assessing Drama in English. In , Drama and English Teaching: Imagination, Action and Engagement (pp. 201–221), Melbourne: OUP.
  • Anderson, M. (2008). Performances, Technology and Emerging Opportunities for Drama in English. In , Drama and English Teaching Imagination, Action and Engagement (pp. 11–25), Melbourne: OUP.
  • Anderson, M. (2008). Technology, Drama and English Teaching. In Anderson M, Hughes J, Manuel J (Ed.), Drama and English teaching: Imagination, action and engagement (pp. 161–174), Melbourne: OUP.

Journal articles

  • Martin, A.J. Anderson, M., & Adams, R-J. (in press). What determines young people’s engagement with performing arts events?. Leisure Sciences..
  • Anderson, M and Donelan, K. (2009). Drama in schools: meeting the research challenges of the twenty-first century. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance , 14(2), 165–171.
  • Gibson, R and Anderson, M. (2008). Touching the Void: Arts Education in Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 28(1), 103–112.
  • Anderson, M, Wilkinson, L. (2007). A resurgence of verbatim theatre: authenticity, empathy and transformation. Australasian Drama Studies, 50, 153–169.
  • Anderson, M. (2007). Making theatre from data: Lessons for performative ethnography from verbatim theatre. NJ-Drama Australia Journal, 31(1), 79–91.
  • Anderson, M. & Georgakis, S. (2006). The Bacchae at Bondi: Greek Drama in Australian Education and Culture. Education & Theatre Journal, 6, 27–34.
  • Anderson, M. (2005). New stages: Challenges for teaching the aesthetics of drama online. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 39(4), 120–132.

Conference papers

  • Anderson, M. (2006). What is a Drama Teacher? Some Stories from Praxis. In LA McCammon & D McLauchlan Universal Mosaic of Drama and Theatre: The IDEA 2004 Dialogues (pp. 99–108). Ottawa, Canada, 1-5 July, 2004.
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