Education Commons^™

Curriculum Renewal: Barriers To Successful Curriculum Change And Suggestions For Improvement, Trudi Cooper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This article examines the practical difficulties encountered when a renewed curriculum is implemented in higher education. Attention has been given in the literature to the importance of coherent curriculum and approaches to curriculum design. Less attention has been paid to whether the renewed curriculum can be faithfully implemented within a given university context and how constraints to implementation change the curriculum design. Practical barriers to implementation arose from several sources. These included: how to ensure that all staff understood and supported the new approaches, in the context of a casualized academic workforce; the need for academics to find sufficient time …

Investigating The Impact Of Naplan On Student, Parent And Teacher Emotional Distress In Independent Schools, Shane Rogers, Lennie Barblett, Ken Robinson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Concerns have been raised about the impact Australia’s national standardised testing, the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), has upon the well-being of students, parents and teachers. To date, research evidence is unclear as to the level and extent of emotional distress experienced by stakeholders during testing. Despite an unclear evidence base, the prevailing view is that NAPLAN has a general negative impact upon stakeholder well-being. In a pilot study that surveyed all stakeholder groups across 11 independent schools in Western Australia, we found evidence of a minimal impact from the testing. We also found evidence for a small positive …

Peer Learning A Pedagogical Approach To Enhance Online Learning: A Qualitative Exploration, Anita Raymond, Elizabeth Jacob, Darren Jacob, Judith Lyons

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Flexible online programs are becoming increasingly popular method of education for students, allowing them to complete programs in their own time and cater for lifestyle differences. A mixture of delivery modes is one way which allows for enhanced learning. Peer learning is another method of learning which is shown to foster collaboration and prepare healthcare students for their future careers. This paper reports on a project to combine peer and online learning to teach pharmacology to nursing students.

Objectives:

To explore undergraduate nursing student opinions of working in peer groups for online learning sessions in a pharmacology course.

Design: …

Chinese Students' Perceptions Of Their Creativity And Their Perceptions Of Western Students' Creativity, Bingxin Wang, Kenneth M. Greenwood

Research outputs 2013

This paper applies the Four C Model of Creativity ('Big-C, little-c, mini-c and Pro-c') to determine Chinese students' perceptions of their own creativity and their perceptions of Western students' creativity. By surveying 100 Chinese students and interviewing 10 of them, this paper discovered that Chinese students generally perceived their creativity to be less than that of Western students. Differences on mini-c and Pro-c were larger in the direction of Western students being superior, and the items that differed in the opposite direction and those which did not differ were part of the subset of little-c items. The perceived superiority of …

Lessons For Teachers: What Lower Secondary School Students Tell Us About Learning A Musical Instrument, Geoffrey Lowe

Research outputs 2012

In this study I set out to investigate why many students drop out from elective instrument programmes, particularly in lower secondary school. I examined the values and beliefs a sample of students in their first year in secondary school attach to learning an instrument, and the impact of the instrument lesson upon these values and beliefs. Forty-eight year 8 students (aged 12-13) from the Perth metropolitan area participated in eight focus groups. The study found that, while participants had strong cognitive and affective reasons for learning, their competence beliefs were fragile, due in part to the dislocation associated with the …

Higher Education And The Challenge Of Growth And Sustainability, Arsalan Ghorbani Sheikhneshin

EDU-COM International Conference

The first part of this paper explains the linkage among higher education, internationalization, development and social justice. The paper argues that universities are institutions that, in all societies, have performed basic functions which result from the particular, combination of cultural and ideological, social and economic, educational and scientific roles that have been assigned to them. They are multi-purpose or multi-product institutions, which contribute to the generation and transmission of ideology, the selection and formation of elites, the social development and educational upgrading of societies, the production and application of knowledge and the training of the highly skilled labour force. This …

The Development Of Community Business Networks Of Sanpapao, Nongyeang And Sunnameng Sub-Districts In Amphoe Sansai, Chiang Mai To Strengthen Sustainability, Preeda Srinaruewan, Jumnien Boonmark, Donragorn Kwankam, Sunnee Thechathakerng

EDU-COM International Conference

The study aimed to probe the characteristics of community, and community businesses and their development through a co-learning process between researchers, communities, and their alliances. The Participatory Action Research (PAR) was used as a tool to analyse response from 80 members of 10 community business groups in Amphoe Sansai, Chiangmai. Participants included professors, students, communities and alliance organizations to participate in identifying issues and their underlying cause in addition to developing and implementing an action plan based on the experience of the participants. The results indicated there was a disconnect between the local wisdom and technology which led to the …

Expanding The Ecological Consciousness Of Social Work Students: Education For Sustainable Practice, Peter Jones

EDU-COM International Conference

Social work has a long tradition of being explicitly concerned with the ‗person-in-environment‘, recognising the need to take account of context when working to address disadvantage and maximise wellbeing. This concern with environment, and indeed with the concept of sustainability has, however, been focused primarily on the social rather than the ecological (Coates 2003; Besthorne & McMillen 2002). At a time when increasing attention is being paid to the importance of promoting education about, and for, sustainability in higher education (Sipos, Battisti & Grimm 2008; Wright 2002; Thomas 2004), the social work profession also needs to begin engaging in a …

Implementation Of Generic Skills In The Curriculum, Sulaiman Yassin, Fauziah Abu Hasan, Wan Amin, Nur Amiruddin

EDU-COM International Conference

In many cultures and countries including Malaysia, the issue of incorporating generic skills into the curriculum taught to students in higher learning institutions has gained momentum in recent years. The raison d'être to inculcate generic skills among students is to enable the country to meet human resource requirements which will be more competitive in the advent of a borderless world. Growing concerns of the employability of graduates and the expansion in the size and diversity of student populations also form the basis to implement the generic skills program in universities. All undergraduate programs offered in public higher learning institutions in …

Engaging The Community In University Teaching: A Cultural Approach To Sustainability Of Effective Learning, Nonofo Losike-Sedimo, Bathsheb Mbongwe

EDU-COM International Conference

This paper revisits levels of education and sustainable development implementation in university teaching. It suggests tapping expertise in local communities as a social responsibility for sustainability of student‘s human development success. Where success is measured by the students‘self-actualization progress. Student success, qualitative growth, or acquired capacities is seen as a prerequisite for sustainable development. We take a reformist point of view of sustainability. We look at issues of human behaviour, cognition and negotiation over preferred futures, under a given social policy and education act. Sustainability here is viewed as an inherently normative concept, rooted in real world problems with very …

Reducing The Effects Of Bullying Among Aboriginal Children Living In Rural Western Australia: Annual Report, Child Health Promotion Research Unit, Edith Cowan University

Research outputs pre 2011

It is unknown how Aboriginal children and adults conceptualize childhood bullying and what school/community intervention programs are appropriate. The Solid Kids, Solid Schools project will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to develop culturally informed and determined understandings of bullying among Aboriginal children. These understandings can then be used to formatively develop a sustainable school and community-based bullying prevention and reduction program with strategies identified by Aboriginal people for use in schools in the Yamaji region or Midwest, Murchison Education District of Western Australia.

According to the funding proposal a Steering Committee was established to provide project …

Explorations In Metacognition: The Design, Development, And Implementation Of An Online Teamwork Tracking Environment, Mark Mcmahon, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

Research shows that both metacognitive and cognitive strategies are needed for successful learning. In this study, an online tool was developed with a view to help students working in teams reflect on their learning strategies through a process of planning, monitoring and evaluation. An evaluation of the tool was administered at the end of the semester that showed the students valued the tool for tracking their teamwork, but weren’t so convinced it help them plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. These results are discussed, and recommendations are made for improvement using a design-based research approach.

Producing Graduates With Essential Generic Skills: A Model For Teaching And Learning, Joseph Luca, Deanna Heal

Research outputs pre 2011

Higher education institutions are under increasing pressure from government, industry and business organizations to equip students with required discipline based skills as well as generic skills. At the same time universities are experiencing cuts in resources and increased competition for student numbers. Within this environment, there is much uncertainty as to how to effectively prepare students for the university/industry nexus. This paper investigates the effectiveness of a teaching and learning model designed with the key aim of helping promote students' employability prospects. The model focuses on providing activities that identify, and help improve students' job-specific and generic skills. In this …

A Self-Assessment Tool To Help Learners Develop Teamwork Skills, Mark Mcmahon, Joseph Luca, Christina John

Research outputs pre 2011

Teamwork skills and the ability to effectively collaborate with peers continue to be hailed as essential skills by employers and higher education funding authorities, and many employers require new graduates to demonstrate these skills as part of the selection criteria. How then can we prepare graduates for this employment market that actively assesses teamwork and other generic skills such as communication, problem solving and leadership skills? This paper outlines the self-assessment component of an on-line learning tool designed to help students develop understandings of themselves and their skill levels. These results are used to help select team roles and provide …

Engaging Diversity At An Australian University: Chinese International Students' Perceptions Of Their Social Experience While Studying In Australia, James Cross

EDU-COM International Conference

Increasing diversity of student populations at Australian universities has raised research attention on how international students are coping with their academic and social life. A research project conducted with Chinese students studying at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia in 2005 revealed various cultural and equity issues which impact on the Chinese international students' academic and social experiences in Australia. This paper focuses on the social aspects of the findings from this study. It was found that most Chinese students reported poor social life and interaction with local and other international students on and off campus. Developing friendship with …

Advertising Practioners’ Educational Prerequisites: Differentiating The Needs Of Creatives From Non Creatives, Katherine Toland Frith, James Chen, Malcolm Chung

EDU-COM International Conference

Singapore‘s advertising industry is one of the clusters identified as an important growth area in the country‘s creative economy. The growth of the media industry, in particular the advertising industry has thus added urgency to call for higher institutions in Singapore to help nurture a pool of creative manpower by providing a well-rounded and comprehensive relevant education on advertising. An effective education policy is therefore a prime instrument in facilitating developments in this industry. A joint research initiative was conducted with the participation of a few advertising companies in Singapore. These included both creative agencies as well as media buying …

Societal Change And Its Impact On Education: Presentations To The Waier Seminar 1980, Bruce Haynes (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.