Dr Charles Kivunja
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of The Professions, School of Education
Qualifications
PhD (UWS) Pedagogy and Leadership, M.Ed.(UWS) Leadership, M.Agric. Econ.(USyd), M.Sc Marketing (UNairobi), B.A. Hons (UMakerere), Dip.Ed. (UMakerere)
Contact
| Email: | ckivunja@une.edu.au |
| Room: | FEHPS Building (E7) 334 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 2005 (or +61 2 6773 2005 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6773 2445 |
| Mobile: | 0412 466 184 |
| Homepage: | http://www.une.edu.au/staff/ckivunja.php |
Charles Kivunja is a member of the Learning and Teaching as well as the Educational Leadership Groups. He conducts lectures and coordinates the units on Teaching for Active Learning and Planning and Assessment for Active Learning in the Bachelor of Teaching/Master of Teaching (Primary) course for pre-service teachers and, as well, coordinates the doctoral leadership unit: Professional Workplace Culture and Learning. He is Course Coordinator for the Master of Teaching (Primary).
Dr Kivunja won the UNE Excellence in Teaching Award for 2009 and the Excellence in Unit Development Award in 2012.
His current research is investigating how to embed social media technologies, particularly Google.+Discussion Circles in Constructionist Pedagogy. Some of his international publications on this topic can be accessed via his publication list below.
He has particular interest in qualitative research methodologies and is the Manager and Coordinator of UNE’s Leximancer qualitative software development project. His recent research has focused on leadership and its impacts on multigrade pedagogy and practice in African and other Developing Countries contexts, including Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Bhutan. His recent work in Uganda and Zambia investigated multigrade stakeholders’ perceptions about multigrade schooling, snippets of which can be viewed at UNE-SOE-African Research Adventure and have been published in the International Journal of Learning (2012-Vol. 18, Issue 11) and in the International Journal of Educational Develoment (2012-Vol.33., No. 2).
In collaboration with national and international colleagues, he is also investigating the efficacy of low-threshold technology, such as solar-powered eTablets on multigrade teaching in rural schools in Uganda.
Publications
Link to Dr Kivunja's publication list.
Affiliations
- Fellow of the Australian Leadership Award (FALA)
- Australian Association for Research in Education
- Australian Council for Educational Research
- Australian Council for Educational Leaders
- Australian College of Educators
Areas of Teaching
- Teaching for Active Learning
- Planning and Assessment for Active Learning
- Educational Leadership and Culture
- Embedding Social Media Technologies into Pedagogy
- Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
Research interests
- Embedding social media technologies into pedagogy
- Impacts of leadership on capacity building for multigrade pedagogy and practice in rural contexts, especially, Africa.
- The role of multigrade pedagogy in achieving education for all children of primary schooling age especially in African countries.
- Multigrade pedagogy as the engine to accelerate Millennium Development Goals for Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Efficacy of low threshold technology, such as solar-powered eTablets and iPads on learning and teaching in multigrade contexts in Africa.
- Impacts of leadership on quality teaching and learning.
- School leadership and management.
- Relationship between structural-cultural dynamics and school
- improvements.
- Structural and cultural dynamics in NSW multi-campus colleges.
- Distance education including online virtual classroom mode of teaching.
- Perspectives on educational leadership.
- Classroom management and pedagogy.
- Leading authentic learning in an inclusive context.
- Educational leadership and enhancing student governance in middle schooling and senior schooling contexts.
- Authentic leadership and organisational behaviour.
- Distributive leadership and leadership for learning.
- Leading educational change.
- Qualitative research methodologies
- The use of Leximancer qualitative software in thematic, conceptual and relational analysis.
- Qualitative and quantitative research methods and design.
Postgraduate research supervision in:
- Educational Leadership
- Learning and Teaching
- Multigrade Pedagogy and strategies
- Qualitative Methodologies.
- Low threshold eLearning.
- Application of social media tools in pedagogy