Emergency online teaching (EOT) due to COVID19 is different to well-planned online learning. This small-scale qualitative case study explored the impact of EOT upon undergraduate students in a regional university and a metropolitan university in Australia. Each university had some experience in online or distance learning, however, courses in this study were on-campus face-to-face courses in education and performing arts. Differentiating factors considered are location, course of study, year of study and innovations that arose during the EOT period. To assist in the interpretation of findings, this case study utilises the “emergency remote teaching environments'' (ERTE) developed by Whittle, Tiwari, Yan and Williams (2020) as an interpretive lens; and the findings of this study are also compared with the findings in the Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA) November 2020 report. Implications derived from the present case study for consideration in the development of future online learning include technology selected, upskilling tertiary educators and unexpected benefits to students.

No abstract

This paper explores the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts for the Australian Curriculum Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) in facilitating the writing of the foundation Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (2011) paper for the national curriculum, with a particular focus on the discipline area of music. The collaboration between the five arts specialists was underpinned by an acknowledgement that each Australian student was entitled to a high quality arts education involving each of the five arts forms of Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. As it was for the other arts forms, the music curriculum needed to cater simultaneously for music specialists, primary generalist teachers, and secondary teachers across a variety of school contexts. This balancing act was further problematised by that fact that each of the States and Territories adhered to particular approaches to music education that were often incompatible. The researchers have used a Collaborative Autoethnography approach (CAE) to explore the Project Officer's experiences with the arts, particularly music at school, and her later involvement in the arts through her professional career with a focus on the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts. Four themes emerged from the CAE: the impact of schooling experiences; the importance of credibility in the arts; diversity in pedagogical approaches; and the accessibility of a high quality arts education. These themes highlighted the social justice principles of equity and accessibility which underpin the Australian Curriculum: The Arts.

When face-to-face tuition was suspended due to COVID-19 health regulations tertiary drama students engaged in devising and performing drama online. Inspired by Orson Welles' radio play, "The War of the Worlds", and working online with a film director, the students developed a three-episode livestream drama in response to the pandemic. Through the lens of Davis' cyberdrama toolkit, this practitioner reflection relates the collaborative story development process in which the students devised, scripted and self-taped scenes for the three-episode livestream. The implications of this experience are that the eight-week project expanded the students' understanding of performance and, increased their skillset to include 'self-tape' and manipulation of the audience perspective. The livestream reached a far larger audience than would have attended an onstage production at the regional campus. Enforced online learning during the pandemic has enlivened the way we perceive and teach drama.

This paper will explore the key findings identified in the five arts discipline-specific papers which comprise this special theme issue. Each of the participant researchers have situated Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts within the context of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts and what they characterise as its social justice imperatives. A narrative phenomenological approach has been adopted to enable the participant researchers to socially co-construct an analysis of their experiences working with the Australian Curriculum: The Arts including challenges, implications and the future for their respective discipline areas and the Arts overall. The three key themes from these collective voices revealed a quality arts education is an entitlement for every child and young person; the Arts provide important opportunities for children and young people from diverse backgrounds and cultures to demonstrate their learning, express themselves and participate; and arts educators and the Arts industry need to work together to strengthen community understanding about the value of the Arts in education. This process provided important insights into how exposure and engagement with the Arts shape the ways in which children and young people make meaning in their lives, enhance their overall wellbeing, increase their sense of social responsibility and contribute to a socially-just society.