Education Commons^™

A Mixed Research Study Of Pedagogical Approaches And Student Learning In Doctoral- Level Mixed Research Courses, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Rebecca K. Frels, Nancy L. Leech, Kathleen M.T. Collins

Nancy Leech

No abstract provided.

Attracting Top Teaching Talent, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

In some of the world’s highest-performing countries, entry to teaching is now as competitive as courses such as engineering, science, law and medicine.

Meeting The Challenge Of Disciplinary Literacies, Marion Meiers

Marion Meiers

Focused: Why A Teaching Team Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts, Ray Peck

Ray Peck

Ray Peck reports on new research revealing that focused teaching teams assist the mathematics learning of students with Down syndrome.

Can They Teach Each Other? : The Restructuring Of Higher Education And The Rise Of Undergraduate Student “Teachers” In Ontario, Jennifer Massey

Jennifer Massey

Changes to public funding regimes, coupled with transformations in how universities are managed and measured have altered the methods for educating undergraduate students. The growing reliance on teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and increasingly undergraduate peer educators (administering Supplemental Instruction [SI] programs) is promoted as a means to achieve a greater “return on investment” in the delivery of postsecondary education. Neoliberal discourses legitimating this downloading of teaching labour suggest it offers a “win-win” solution to the “problem” of educating growing numbers of undergraduate students. It proposes universities can deliver the same curricula, and achieve the same “outcomes” (primarily measured through grades …

Creative Activities In Mathematics : Problem-Based Maths Investigations For Lower And Middle Primary : Book 1., Derek Holton, Catherine Pearn

Catherine Pearn

Problem-based learning is a powerful alternative to drill-and practice or skills-based learning, especially within maths, but it can be difficult to source rich materials that engage an entire class. The Creative Activities in Mathematics series provides a wealth of investigations and open-ended active learning activities, designed to engage students with mathematics and develop their problem-solving, collaboration and mathematical skills. Book One provides 12 different class activities suitable for students in lower and middle primary school (Foundation to Year 4), along with teaching notes and staged lesson plans. Each activity is a whole-class investigation with open-ended answers that takes a particular …

Technologies, Democracy And Digital Citizenship: Examining Australian Policy Intersections And The Implications For School Leadership, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

There are intersections that can occur between the respective peak Australian school education policy agendas. These policies include the use of technologies in classrooms to improve teaching and learning as promoted through the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians and the Australian Curriculum; and the implementation of professional standards as outlined in the Australian Professional Standard for Principals and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. These policies create expectations of school leaders to bring about change in classrooms and across their schools, often described as bringing about ‘quality teaching’ and ‘school improvement’. These policies indicate that Australian children …

Digital Fluency : Skills Necessary For Learning In The Digital Age, Gerald White

Dr Gerald K. White

This article examines the skills that will be required for the 21st century that will need to be embedded in educational curricula in order achieve them. It begins by considering how communicating between people has changed and current educational responses. A view of 21st century skills follows with an argument for some core subjects that will be necessary. Learning and teaching are then discussed leading to a view about what is needed in order to develop digital fluency in education, for now and the future.

Aligning Practice And Philosophy: Opening Up Options For School Leaders, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

The educational use of digital technologies such as mobile devices, computers, and the Internet are progressively replacing pens, books, and the physical spaces known as libraries. Both online synchronous and asynchronous learning modes are emerging as part of the learning styles used with children physically attending schools. Consequently schools and school districts deploy various sorts of software applications to meet the range of teaching, learning, and management functions they perform. As leaders of schools, principals have heightened responsibilities concerning the philosophical directions of schools, as well as aligning the uses of technologies across all facets of their organizations. Set against …

Student Reactions To Learning With Technologies: Perceptions And Outcomes, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

While the creation and adoption of new technologies has increased in recent years, the educational sector often limits technology use. Despite this, many researchers are convinced of the vital role that technologies can play in learning and teaching. Student Reactions to Learning with Technologies: Perceptions and Outcomes brings together recent research findings about the views and expectations of students when including technologies in their studies. The chapters in this book suggest that the use of technologies in teaching not only makes learning more interesting but also offers possibilities for variations in the learning processes. While this book does not offer …

An Ant's Eye View : Some Pluses And Minuses, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

This article provides a history of adult numeracy teaching, looking back at the rise and development if adult numeracy provision, mainly in Victoria, from the perspective of an ANT (adult numeracy teacher), beginning in the late 1970s. The author then describes what lies on the horizon, what lessons adult educators can learn, and what opportunities might lie ahead for adult numeracy in the next decade or so. The article contains an exposition on the benefits of explicitly recognising and supporting numeracy within the language, literacy and numeracy equation. The author argues that, given the Australian data from ALLS, there is …

What Do Students Say About Learning With Technologies?, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

This paper outlines some of the findings from Australian research which listened to and analysed the views and expectations of students within Australian education and training institutions about learning with technologies. Students in primary and secondary schools, vocational education and training (VET) institutions, international students studying education in universities, pre-service teacher education students and teachers in their first five years of teaching contributed to a national 'student voice' research project based upon their current experiences and views. Data was collected through online surveys and focus groups. The research shows that students and early career educators have access to and use …

Successful Professional Learning, Marion Meiers, Sarah Buckley

Dr Sarah Buckley

This edition is focused on research into teacher learning and professional development. Teacher learning includes not only activities such as conferences and workshops, but also includes participation in many formal and informal learning activities. Recent research has focused, amongst other things, on characteristics of successful professional learning, and on the connections between teachers' professional learning and improvements in student learning. This research has the potential to assist teachers and schools in selecting and planning for professional learning, so that it will maximise the benefits for participants. The first section of this digest presents some research findings on effective professional learning. …

Total Cost Of Ownership & Total Value Of Ownership, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

School leaders are regularly required to make decisions concerning the effective integration of ICT into their schools’ teaching and learning programs. School leaders however, face challenges about the processes to use to inform their decision-making. These challenges include knowing which data to draw upon; how to collect the data and how to analyze it so that meaningful decisions can emerge. As such, this chapter examines some recent activities aimed at using data to inform leadership and management strategies in schools as they pertain to teaching and learning with educational technologies, and focuses in particular on total cost of ownership and …

Selecting Open Source Software For Use In Schools, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

Schools are places where the choices made about computing technologies not only reflect their technical requirements but also reflect the philosophical priorities directing those choices. Schools can deploy a startling range of software (i.e., operating systems, databases, office productivity software, and applications software) for specifc teaching and learning purposes. Applications software deployed in schools must be suitable for use by students who are young and often have limited reading and fine motor skills. Back-end software must be robust enough to handle hundreds and sometimes thousands of users concurrently. One issue that faces schools interested in deploying open source software is …

The Impact Of Eportfolios On Learning, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, Colin Harrison, Charles Crook, Gordon Joyes, Lindsay Davies, Tony Fisher, Richard Pemberton, Angela Smallwood

Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

This report presents the potential impact of e-portfolios on learning and teaching. It is based on case studies of eight projects that are in the early stages of e-portfolio use within the primary, secondary, further education (FE), higher education (HE) and adult and community learning (ACL) sectors. The report is primarily aimed at policy-makers. Harnessing Technology: Transforming Learning and Children’s Services, the e-strategy published by the DfES in 2005, sets a target of providing a ‘personalised online learning space for every learner that can encompass a personal portfolio’; this should be available to every school by 2008 (DfES, 2005). In …

Making The Connections: Theory And Practice Of Mobile Learning In Schools, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

This paper reviews several major theories of learning, and considers what additional theories might explain ‘mobile learning’. It then describes three small projects in Year 6 classes in English schools– where teachers and students used mobile devices over a period of several months–in order to make connections between theory and practice, and to seek new insights for theory from practice. The study found that behaviourist, constructivist and socio-cultural theories influenced teachers’ work, often simultaneously, while there was scant evidence of a symbiotic relationship between people and technology. The paper concludes that even in these early days of mobile learning in …

Engaging Students To Make Mathematics Interesting, Fun, Intriguing, Puzzling And Personally Satisfying, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

The author asserts that making connections with the real world is the best way to engage most students in the middle years of schooling and to potentially provide a mechanism for making mathematics interesting, fun and personally satisfying. Traditionally, in secondary school mathematics classrooms, teachers start by teaching the abstract mathematics skills and processes and then they find some possible applications afterwards. The author believes this should be the other way around.

Learning About Teaching : Using Video, Hilary Hollingsworth

Dr Hilary Hollingsworth

This article describes some Australian research and professional development projects that use classroom video data, and explains some of the positive outcomes, as well as some of the challenges, of these projects. A variety of methodologies have been used to collect, store, retrieve, code, navigate and analyse classroom video data. These include CD-Rom, DVD and web streaming to dedicated software platforms. Video is used to preserve classroom activity so that it can be 'slowed down' to enable detailed examinations of teaching and learning from multiple perspectives, reveal alternatives through comparative analysis, and stimulate discussions about choices related to teaching learning. …

Are There National Patterns Of Teaching? Evidence From The Timss 1999 Video Study, Karen Givvin, James Hiebert, Jennifer Jacobs, Hilary Hollingsworth, Ronald Gallimore

Dr Hilary Hollingsworth

Why do teachers today teach as they do, and why has teaching evolved in the way that it has evolved? In order to improve teaching, it is important to understand why teaching looks the way that it now does and how its general form can be explained. One way to address this question is at the classroom level. In this article we build on ethnographic research by using the 1999 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) video archives. Here we consider two possible explanations for the general patterns that have developed in school teaching. One explanation is that there …

Lesson Study : A Professional Learning Model That Actually Makes A Difference, Hilary Hollingsworth, Delwyn Oliver

Dr Hilary Hollingsworth

Over the past year, a group of mathematics teachers from one Victorian school engaged in a process of professional learning called Lesson Study. In bi-weekly meetings that focused on the development of a single exemplary lesson, they questioned, pondered, discussed, debated, explored, and examined mathematics, and the teaching and learning of mathematics. This paper describes the process and the outcomes of what these teachers consider to be the most powerful professional learning they have experienced.

The Development Of A Single Scale For Mapping Progress In Mathematical Competence, Ross Turner, Gayl O'Connor

Gayl O'Connor

The authors’ intention is to develop a progress map that describes increasing mathematical competence. The main purpose of this chapter is to describe the means by which the research team has been able to use the data from a longitudinal testing program to build and refine a picture of growth in mathematical competence. In this chapter, conceptualisation of the underlying variable to be measured in developing a mathematical progress map is considered, and approaches to its development are discussed. The approach adopted is described and the results of the application of that methodology to the data generated through this research …

From Research To Practice : Using The Timss Video Study Findings To Enhance Australian Mathematics Teaching, Hilary Hollingsworth

Dr Hilary Hollingsworth

The findings of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study have been reported at both international and national levels, however its impact on Australian mathematics teaching has yet to be realised. How can the results of the video study inform teachers' efforts toward excellence in mathematics teaching in Australia? This paper highlights some of the findings and recommendations in the national report, 'Teaching Mathematics in Australia: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study', and anticipates ways that the products of the study might be used for improving teaching and teacher development. The broad purpose of the …

Summing It Up : Mathematics Achievement In Australian Schools In Timss 2002, Nicole Fleming, Sue Thomson

Nicole Wernert

This document analyses and interprets the Australian data collected as part of the TIMSS study for Year 4 and Year 8 students.

The Timss 1999 Video Study And Its Relevance To Australian Mathematics Education Research, Innovation, Networking, And Opportunities., Hilary Hollingsworth

Dr Hilary Hollingsworth

Results from the mathematics portion of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study, comparing videotaped Year 8 mathematics lessons from seven countries, were released in March 2003. This paper presents selected findings from that study, with a focus on those results that might be of particular interest to Australian educators. In addition, the paper considers ways in which the results and products from this study can make a lasting contribution to the field of mathematics education. Three areas are described: the innovation associated with the study's 'video survey' research methodology; the networking possibilities for mathematics educators …

Association Between Intended And Attained Algebra Curriculum In Timss 1998/1999 For Ten Countries, Alla Routitsky, Susan Zammit

Dr Alla Routitsky

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study- Repeat 1998/1999 (TIMSS) assessed the mathematics and science achievement of students in their second year of high school. In addition to achievement tests, extensive information was collected from students and teachers. Of the 38 countries that took part, the overall results in mathematics of eleven countries, including Australia were not statistically different. Following the TIMSS research model, this article examines the association between three levels of curriculum, the intended curriculum, the implemented and the attained curriculum. In particular, this paper compares the achievement in four algebra topics for those students whose teachers reported …

Investigations In Metacognitive Learning Processes With Computers: Learner Based Inquiries, Diane Maschette, Evelyn Bransgrove, S Morris, Richard Johnson, Prue Anderson

Prue Anderson

Current research concerning learning highlights the importance of metacognitive skills in promoting successful learning for both adults and children (Baird, 1989; Flavell, 1981; Rowe, 1988). Several researchers have identified particular strategies for use in developing metacognitive skills in the classroom (Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Swan & White, 1990). Claims have been made for the computer as a useful tool in this process (for example, in developing problem solving skills) however there is relatively little research evidence to support such claims. This study addresses this shortfall, building on the considerable research in metacognition.