DrKatrina MacDonald

I believe the core purpose of education is to support students (of all ages) to ‘live well in a world worth living in’ (Kemmis et al., 2014). My teaching draws on relational pedagogies, feeling-thinking praxis (Santos & Soler, 2021), and is grounded in building meaningful relationships, fostering rigorous discussion, and challenging students’ perspectives through pedagogies of deliberative conversations. 

My core teaching is in E725 - Master of Education (Leadership and Learning)

ECM720 - Educational context policy and leadership in challenging times

ECM721 - Evidence, analysis and evaluation for educational improvement 
ECM723 - Leading and managing innovation change and improvement

I supervise students who are pursuing a research pathway or practice pathway within the Masters degrees. These units are:

EDX707 - Independent Research Project for Professional Practice

EDX703/4 - Research Paper A and B

I have supervised the following Masters research pathway projects:

•        Leading from within: A self-study on authentic collaborative practice in early childhood education
•        Effective Support for School Principals
•        Disadvantaging the already disadvantaged: The real impact of the teacher shortage crisis on already hard-to-staff schools
•        Examining the enabling and constraining factors of Middle Leader relational capabilities in International Primary School settings.
•        Principals Motivations for staying in the job: An Australian Study
•        Understanding the lived experience of first career graduate teachers employed in fixed-term contracts in Victorian Independent Secondary Schools
•       “Could I do this for another 10 years?”: primary school principal perceptions on leading schools during and beyond COVID-19: A case study
•        How does the media discourse of teachers effect the lived experience of new and returning teachers?
•        “Beyond the Chalkboard”: Supporting Graduate Teachers for Long-Term Success 
•        Pandemic Perspectives: Exploring the Motivations of Undergraduate Nursing Students in the Age of COVID-19.  (Published as Ghimire, A., &  MacDonald, K. (2025). Beyond altruism: Exploring the diverse motivations of undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education in Practice, 82,  104234)