Textiles help teachers have fun

Thursday, September 4, 2014

On-campus experience tailor-made for creative students

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Kim Ninness is about to cut up her wedding dress. “It’s time to put it on show again,” says the married mother of two. The dress is now draped over a table in the refurbished textiles classroom on Avondale College of Higher Education’s Lake Macquarie campus. Kim is a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) student completing the unit, Creative Textiles, which she describes as about “having fun, letting loose and coming up with grand ideas.” The experience is encouraging her to think differently. “As a teacher, you need that. Kids love fun when they’re learning. If we can learn how to teach in a fun way, that’s tops for me, that’s the best.”

Annali Baxter and Kim Ninness with their textiles lecturer Gail Ormsby

Annali Baxter and Kim Ninness with their textiles lecturer Gail Ormsby. Avondale is one of only a handful of higher education providers offering an on-campus textiles experience for secondary education students. Credit: Jared Poland.

Kim’s a learning support officer at Kurri Kurri Public School and at the St Peter’s campus of All Saints College in Maitland. She’s fallen in love with teaching and came to Avondale to further her education because “I just needed more, I wanted more.”

An Avondale graduate Kim met while working at Maitland High School encouraged her to study at Avondale. The flexibility of the course—Kim has studied several units by distance—and the small classes have helped make the experience more enjoyable. “The lecturer in my first class had all the time in the world for you. That was the best learning experience I’d ever had.”

Avondale is one of only a handful of higher education providers offering an on-campus textiles experience for secondary education students. According to strand convenor Dr Robyn Pearce, the college’s technology and applied studies specialisation allows students to tailor the course around their interest in textiles without having to focus as heavily on industrial technology.

Lecturer Gail Ormsby says the skills are useful away from the classroom, too. “Students should be able to mend a hem or sew on a button,” says Gail. “We’re too quickly becoming a throwaway society, but in economically tough times, knowing how to fix and recreate garments makes good sense.”

Gail has been introducing more academic rigour in textiles at Avondale. She and graduate Brianna Cameron have co-authored a paper about the application of multiple intelligences in Year 7 textile classes. The paper is published in the most recent issue of the TEACH Journal of Christian Education. Brianna based the research on her experience as a high school student “who often did not have teachers understand how to teach me and enable me to reach my full potential.” Once established, Brianna plans to rewrite some of the programs for the school in which she teaches to ensure they acknowledge a range of multiple intelligences. “I’m passionate about adapting my teaching to the different ways my students learn.”