Associate Professor Brendan Jacobs

Head of Department, STEM Education - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education; School of Education

Phone: +61 02 6773 5967

Secondary Email: eduhod-stem@une.edu.au (Head of Department)

Biography

Associate Professor Brendan Jacobs began his career in education as a primary school teacher working for 17 years in Australia and the United States. Towards the end of this time he published a pioneering multimodal PhD dissertation through the University of Melbourne in 2015. Since entering academia he has published widely in academic journals and spoken at various international conferences about learning and technology and how these two areas can be mutually informative in the emerging area of digital scholarship. Brendan is currently conducting a longitudinal study investigating how project-based learning can promote, sustain and embody an integrated STEM curriculum (www.silo.edu.au).

Qualifications

PhD (Education), The University of Melbourne

Graduate Certificate of Commercialisation of Research, Melbourne Business School

Master of Education (Research), Monash University

Graduate Diploma of Education (Primary), Monash University

Bachelor of Arts, Eastern College Australia

Teaching Areas

STEM

Research Interests

Digital scholarship, Digital pedagogy, STEM integration, Explanatory animation creation, STEM

Research Supervision Experience

HDR experience at principal and associate levels. Unavailable for new HDR students at this time due to the number of current and prospective students.

Publications

Books

Jacobs, B. (2024). Digital scholarship in education: Multimodality as a window into learning. Routledge.

Jacobs, B. (2020). Explanatory animations in the classroom: Student-authored animations as digital pedagogy. Springer.

Journal articles

Jacobs, B. (2022). Improving primary STEM education by integrating the Australian Curriculum. Curriculum Perspectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-022-00163-x

Jacobs, B. (2021). A transdisciplinary protocol for digital scholarship. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 36(1),115-221. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqz087

Cripps Clark, J., Jacobs, B., & MacCallum, J. (2020). Solidarity and community: Collaborative learning in times of crisis. Human Arenas, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-020-00152-4

Jacobs, B., & Usher, A. (2018). Proximity as a window into the zone of proximal development. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 9(1), 2856-2863.

Jacobs, B., & Cripps Clark, J. (2018). Create to critique - Explanatory animation as conceptual consolidation. Teaching Science, 64(1), 26-36.

Jacobs, B., Wright, S., & Reynolds, N. (2017). Reevaluating the concrete - Explanatory animation creation as a digital catalyst for cross-modal cognition. Mind, Culture and Activity, 24(4), 297-310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2017.1294181

Jacobs, B., & Robin, B. (2016). Animating best practice. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11(3), 263-283. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1746847716662554

Conference proceedings

Jacobs, B., & Usher, A. (2017, December). Co-constructing learning in the early years using project-based learning. In London International Conference on Education (LICE): 2017 Conference Proceedings (pp. 466-469). The University of Cambridge.

Conference presentations

Jacobs, B. (2023, October). Introducing Provisional Multimodal Research (PMR): Constructionist principles at the methodological level. FabLearn/Constructionism biennial conference. Teachers College, Columbia University.

Clark, J. & Jacobs, B. (2020, May). Solidarity and community: Immersive learning in times of crisis. The Psychology of Global Crises [Online conference]. The American University of Paris.

Jacobs, B. (2019, December). A transdisciplinary protocol for digital scholarship. Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Annual Conference. Kelvin Grove, QLD: Queensland University of Technology.

Jacobs, B. (2018, December). The future of digital scholarship. Melbourne Polytechnic 2018 Teaching and Learning Conference. Preston, VIC: Melbourne Polytechnic.

Jacobs, B. (2018, December). Designing assessment tasks using the twin concepts in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical psychology. Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Annual Conference. Camperdown, NSW: The University of Sydney.

Jacobs, B. (2018, September). In search of the multimodal thesis. In Eighth Annual Conference of the United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA). Denver, CO. http://www.brendanpauljacobs.com/Jacobs 2018.pdf

Jacobs, B. (2013, June). Storyboard: Primary school children designing and making explanatory animations. Presented at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Graduate Research Conference. Parkville, VIC: The University of Melbourne.

Jacobs, B. (2013, November). Implementing a QUAL-qual methodology using a prism metaphor for the CHAT triangle. Presented at the Contemporary Approaches to Research in Mathematics, Science, Health and Environmental Education Methodology Symposium. Melbourne, VIC: Deakin University.

Memberships

Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Melbourne Business School Alumni Association

Melbourne Graduate School of Education Alumni Association (MGSE)

Monash University Alumni Association

Science Teachers Association of New South Wales (STANSW)

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA)

United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA)

Consultancy Interests

STEM education, STEM integration