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In this paper, we present findings from an eighteen-month research project conducted in a remote community school in Western Australia. The data from this project includes documentation pertaining to the practices of educators engaging with Aboriginal Elders and children on Country. The aim of the project was to document the transformative potential of learning on Country for young Aboriginal children (4-8 years). We discuss our findings in the context of Pink Floyd's metaphor of formal education being built and maintained as a Wall in which children are 'just another brick'. We argue that education is an institution that produces and reproduces inequalities for Aboriginal children through conforming and colonial pedagogical practices. To support our analysis and framing of this research we draw on Habermas' knowledge interests (1978) and MacNaughton's curriculum positions (2003). Using this framework, we propose that transformative pedagogies necessitate the school and the community to be 'ready, willing and able' to engage in an approach to learning and teaching that is grounded in 'Country'. We juxtapose the conforming pedagogies of the Wall with the transforming pedagogies represented by Pink Hill, a sacred feature of the landscape alongside the community where the research took place.

Nebulous combinations of face-to-face and online learning are increasingly common across Australian higher education contexts. This paper reports on part of a redesign project of an undergraduate education subject at a regional university. The aim of the redesign was to enhance e-learning and blended learning environments. An approach that maps the evaluation research activities to the design and development cycle of e-learning tools and learning tasks was adopted (Phillips et al., 2012). The research took a participatory format involving ongoing reflective exchange with pre-service teachers with the aim of transforming practice. The article presents the context of e-learning, blended learning and drivers of curriculum renewal in teacher education at a regional institution and discusses the phases of the redesign project which adopted an action research approach. Finally the paper discusses the implications of the redesign for informing future practice and in approaching e-learning and blended learning curriculum design.

This paper explores the work of "becoming exceptional" amongst a group of preservice teachers taking part in the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools program (NETDS). The NETDS program is directed towards mentoring and supporting outstanding preservice teachers to transition into the schools where they can make a significant difference. For us, as teacher educators leading the teaching of our University's NETDS program, the most important questions became ones of self and transformation for the participating preservice teachers. To begin these explorations we make use of concepts provided by Deleuze and Guattari, and expanded upon by Braidotti; the notions of "becoming" and "collective assemblages". These concepts help us explore the work of becoming exceptional within the collective assemblage and space of the NETDS program.

This paper describes and analyses, through the use of case studies, two experiences of transformative learning in an undergraduate arts education unit. Pre-service teachers designed and engaged with arts-based curriculum activities, created their own artwork, participated in a modified production of The Tempest and kept a reflective journal. These activities constituted the data which was analysed using creative frameworks such as case writing, script writing, narrative analysis and found poetry as ways of developing richer understanding of pre-service teachers' self-perceptions and self-awareness as teachers and as potential artists. The stories explored here uncover two different ways of encountering the challenges of learning--resistance and struggle--and highlight the significance of the educator's response to individual student needs, and the value of reflective skills in shifting pre-service teachers' cultural, political and institutional understandings.

This paper highlights a distinctive way to research and present issues within education using metaphor and the qualitative narrative methodology known as auto ethnography. Auto ethnographic writing links the personal to the cultural and is recognised as a methodology that combines the method with the writing of the text, which in turn explicates the personal story, or journey of the writer, within the culture in which the investigation, or experience, takes place. Although auto ethnography has not been common within education its value and the perception of its worth is changing. This paper uses auto ethnography to investigate and relate a personal encounter occurring within a particular educational and social context. It also presents a framework for perceiving the rise in consciousness, facilitated by the use of metaphor, as one moves through the "Landscape of Action" and the "Landscape of Consciousness", to the "Landscape of Transformation".

Transformational learning, according to Mezirow (1981), involves transforming taken-for-granted frames of reference into more discriminating, flexible "habits of mind". In teacher education, transformative learning impacts on the development of students' action theories, self-efficacy and professional attributes. Although considered imperative to reflective practice, not all students take a transformative, "double-loop" approach to learning; reflexive and adaptive learning are also identifiable. This paper discusses the integration of the three learning approaches in the conceptualisation of LEARnT Theory (Jones, 2008), whereby Learning evolves as: Efficacy informs Actions, and Reflection impacts Theory building. LEARnT integrates reflexive, adaptive and transformative approaches. In Reflexive approaches, learning is restricted, action theories remain covert, efficacy remains stable and actions are automated. In Adaptive learning, reflection is "single-loop" in nature; it involves the modification of concepts whilst maintaining existing schema; theories of action, efficacy and behaviours may alter. LEARnT theory provides a challenging paradigm for a larger study into teacher education student learning approaches. (Contains 4 figures.)