Digital Commons Network^™

A Descriptive Study Of The Personality, Attitudes, And Overseas Experience Of Seventh-Day Adventist College Students Who Served As Short-Term Volunteer Missionaries, Donna Habenicht

Donna Habenicht

Problem. During the last ten years there has been a surge of Interest among college students in short-term volunteer missionary service. It was the purpose of the present study to describe the personality, attitudes, and overseas experience of a group of 150 Seventh-day Adventist college students who served as short-term volunteer missionaries (student missionaries) during the 1975-76 school year. Method The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Form A), a series of semantic differential rating scales for selected religious, mission, cultural, and personal concepts, and a two-part questlonnaire were used to describe the personality, attitudes, and overseas experience of the student missionaries. …

Assuring The Quality Of Future Victorian Teachers : Acer Response To Det Discussion Paper: Working Together To Shape Teacher Education In Victoria, Lawrence Ingvarson

Dr Lawrence Ingvarson (Consultant)

ACER’s response to the August 2016 discussion paper on teacher education titled, 'Working Together To Shape Teacher Education in Victoria' released by James Merlino, the Minister for Education and Training in Victoria. This response addresses focus areas including: Raising the quality and status of teaching: a profession of choice Ensuring high quality pathways into the profession Improving course quality Developing Early Career Teachers

Applying An Alternative Mathematics Pedagogy For Students With Weak Mathematics: Meta-Analysis Of Alternative Pedagogies, Warren Lake, Margie Wallin, Geoff Woolcott, Wendy Boyd, Alan Foster, Christos Markopoulos, Bill E. Boyd

Dr Wendy Boyd

Student mathematics performance and the need for work-ready graduates to be mathematics-competent is a core issue for many universities. While both student and teacher are responsible for learning outcomes, there is a need to explicitly acknowledge the weak mathematics foundation of many university students. A systematic literature review was undertaken of identified innovations and/or interventions that may lead to improvement in student outcomes for university mathematics-based units of study. The review revealed the importance of understanding the foundations of student performance in higher education mathematics learning, especially in first year. Pre-university mathematics skills were identified as significant in student retention …

Effects Of Management-Development Practices On Hospitality Management Graduates' Job Satisfaction And Intention To Stay, Edwin Torres, Howard Adler

Edwin Torres

Companies have long recognized the importance of training and developing their managers to prepare them for their short- and long-term careers. Formal management-development programs and other less formal means of management development abound in the hospitality industry. Therefore, one may ask whether the entry-level managers for whom these programs are designed perceive them to be effective. The present study explores management-development practices, procedures, and techniques, and their effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment

Wellbeing In Schools: Research Project: Improving Approaches To Wellbeing In Schools: What Role Does Recognition Play? Final Report: Volume One, Anne Graham, R Fitzgerald, Mary Ann Powell, Nigel Thomas, Donnah L. Anderson, Nadine E. White, Catharine A. Simmons

Nadine E White

Volume One of the Final Report for t he Australian Research Council Linkage Project ‘Improving approaches to wellbeing in schools: What role does recognition play?’.

Threshold Concepts About Online Teaching: Progress Report On A Five Year Project, Kevin P. Gosselin, Maria T. Northcote, Daniel Reynaud, Peter W. Kilgour, Malcolm Anderson, Chris Boddey

Maria Northcote

The burgeoning expansion of online education has presented the challenges of articulating an appropriate pedagogy for online education (Stevens, 2003; Runnels et al., 2006; Gosselin, 2009) while also contending with perceived and real deficits in lecturer competence (Shephard, 2007). Conceptually, the identified areas of concern are viewed as troublesome knowledge (Perkins, 1999), or knowledge that is counter intuitive to traditional teaching face to face teaching. To meet the emerging difficulties of new modes of distance teaching, researchers have focused on transformative learning using threshold concepts, or new portals, that allow understanding of concepts through new modes of thinking (Meyer & …

Underachieving Gifted Students: Two Case Studies, Hannah Bennett-Rappell, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Almost half of all gifted students do not achieve according to their exceptional potential. Though significant research has investigated identifying characteristics of underachieving gifted students, current research is yet to fully employ the established theoretical knowledge to determine practical strategies for the reversal and remediation of underachievement in gifted students. This study utilised a specifically designed Creative Writing Program and adopted a part-time withdrawal strategy to explore the impact of particular teaching strategies on reversing the underachievement of two gifted students. Through the two case studies, qualitative data were gathered from multiple sources and perspectives. These data were analysed using …

The Lived Experience Of Online Educators: Insights From Construction Management, William Sher, Anthony Williams, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Academics in higher education institutions often experience the conflicting demands of teaching, research and administration. With the growth of online education these staff are frequently required to design, develop, teach, facilitate and, in some cases, administer online courses. Cumulatively these additional tasks challenge academics, not only in terms of the personal professional development but also in accommodating the range of tasks expected of them. This paper reports the findings of a study which investigated the lived experience of construction management academics teaching at universities in Australia. The study adopted a lived experience research approach that enabled the lives of construction …

The Impact Of Integrated Movement-Based Activities On Primary School Aged Students In The Classroom, Melissa Nalder, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Movement-based activities can have benefits for children from informal early childhood settings to more formal education contexts in primary schools. Integrated movement-based activities (IMBAs) are activities involving physical movement that are used to teach subjects other than physical education in the primary school curriculum. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact that IMBAs have on primary school aged students. The study was conducted in lower and upper primary classrooms. The data was collected from the perspectives of students, teachers and a researcher using self-reflection journals, numeracy tests, self-rating scales of concentration levels, teacher interviews and researcher observations …

The Researcher's Little Helper: The Design Of An Enabling Online Resource For Postgraduate Students And Their Supervisors, Maria T. Northcote, Anthony Williams

Maria Northcote

The question of how to support postgraduate students and their supervisors, especially neophyte supervisors, is a challenge faced by many higher education institutions. This paper outlines the early stages of a research study which incorporated a design-based research methodology to inform the planning and development of an online, self-paced resource for postgraduate students and their supervisors. Once the needs of these two groups were identified through regular focus groups, the findings from these collaborations, along with literature review findings, informed the structural framework of an online resource known as The Researcher's Little Helper.

Supporting Construction Management Education: Examining The Impact Of Leadership, Management And Staff Development, Willy Sher, Anthony Williams, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Universities in Australia face a range of challenges as they renew curricula. Several of these arise from the federal government’s compliance monitoring entities which focus on academic standards and quality assurance. In addition, the sector is experiencing increased emphasis on research performance and postgraduate education. Against this backdrop, this paper examines academic leadership, management and staff development, and considers the implications of these processes on construction management higher education. This paper draws on data gathered from surveys, interviews and focus groups with leaders in construction-related academic disciplines across Australia, and provides a critical review of their attitudes and concerns. The …

Role-Playing As A Tool To Facilitate Learning, Self Reflection And Social Awareness In Teacher Education, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Maria T. Northcote, Marion Shields

Maria Northcote

Meaningful learning in the tertiary sector benefits from the inclusion of a variety of teaching and learning techniques including active learning. Role-plays are one type of active and participatory learning activity that creates interaction between students and a simulated scenario. This reality can serve to open the minds of participants to issues they need to be able to deal with in their chosen careers. This paper reports role-plays in four different learning applications: the first was in a multicultural education class and simulated a microcosm of society where students took on the roles of minority groups. The second reports on …

Pre-Service Teachers' Reflections On Critical Incidents In Their Professional Teaching Experiences, Peter W. Kilgour, Maria T. Northcote, Wendi Herman

Maria Northcote

Pre-service teachers typically engage in a series of professional development experiences throughout their teacher education courses. These periods of learning enable them to develop as reflective practitioners under the mentorship of experienced school teachers. After these periods of intense learning, sometimes characterised by pedagogic epiphanies, they frequently report extreme experiences of success or failure which influence perceptions of their future teaching career. This study aimed to capture final year pre-service teachers' reflections of critical incidents in their past professional experience by especially focusing on their worst lesson experience. The qualitative research approach incorporated elements of critical incident research design from …

Lighting Up And Transforming Online Courses: Letting The Teacher’S Personality Shine, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Affective aspects of learning have been shown to influence cognitive aspects of learning (Russo & Benson, 2005; Salmon, 2004) and online educators are increasingly aware of the role played by emotions in online learning. To encourage a well-rounded online learning experience for students, online course designers have long been encouraged to provide students with opportunities to express their own personality and identity (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). Such design features have been linked with improved learning outcomes and decreased attrition rates (McInnerney & Roberts, 2004). However, a comparable discussion about the value of teacher personality in online courses has yet to …

From Small To Large Hits: Spreading The Online Message To Academic And Administrative Staff Via Strategically-Targeted Development Activities, Maria T. Northcote, Gail Huon

Maria Northcote

This paper reports on how a university is implementing a capacity-building academic staff development program using a three-pronged approach that draws on adult learning, social learning and capacity-building literature. This approach was designed to enable staff to provide engaging and pedagogically sound online experiences for the students at the University of Newcastle, NSW Australia. Data have been gathered throughout the implementation of this program to evaluate its impact and to inform future refinements of the program. The paper concludes with reflections from staff facilitating the program about the challenges, successes and future of the program.

Engaging In Deep Cultural Learning Through The Intersection Of Multiple Contexts, Maria T. Northcote, Peter W. Kilgour, Daniel Reynaud, Phil Fitzsimmons

Maria Northcote

The type of learning that takes place in teacher education courses typically results in pre-service teachers developing a mixture of knowledge, skills and values that enable them to become effective teachers in schools in the future. During their journey to become qualified teachers, pre-service teachers typically engage in coursework and experiential-based learning.

By engaging in coursework experiences, an overseas practicum and an overseas study tour, students experienced a range of reflection-promoting activities and contexts during which they broadened and deepened their understanding of cultures other than their own.

Using a cross-case analysis approach, the data gathered in these three cases …

Development Of An Evidence-Based Professional Learning Program Informed By Online Teachers' Self-Efficacy And Threshold Concepts, Kevin P. Gosselin, Maria T. Northcote, Daniel Reynaud, Peter W. Kilgour, Malcolm Anderson, Chris Boddey

Maria Northcote

As online education continues to expand across varied educational sectors, so does the demand for professional development programs to guide academic teaching staff through the processes of developing their capacities to design and teach online courses. To meet these challenges at one higher education institution, a mixed methods research study was implemented to identify the professional learning needs of academic teaching staff for the purposes of developing a tailor-made professional development program. The principles of self-efficacy and threshold concepts were used to inform the design of the study. Data were systematically gathered from the participants to determine self-efficacy, concerns, and …

Devising Strategies For Enhancing Quality Staff Development In Embedding Ict In Teaching And Learning, Charles Juwah, Maria T. Northcote

Maria Northcote

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have huge potential and can add value to the quality of university teaching and learning. However, to fully exploit the potential of these innovative technologies, it is imperative that teaching staff are well informed about how to embed ICT in the curriculum in a way that is underpinned by sound pedagogy. Professional development programmes can enable staff to acquire appropriate skills to effectively facilitate technology-supported learning.The teaching staff from The Robert Gordon University and Edith Cowan University, are facing similar staff development challenges. Both universities provide online and distance education courses to their local and …

Does The Type Of Assessment Feedback I Give Make A Difference?: The Impact Of Qualitative And Quantitative Assessment Feedback, Maria T. Northcote, Anthony Williams, Phil Fitzsimmons, Peter W. Kilgour

Maria Northcote

Feedback provided to postgraduate students about their assessment tasks influences the way in which they reflect on their learning and themselves personally. In particular, the nature of the feedback and the way in which its dissemination is sequenced and timed can further impact how students incorporate, or don't incorporate, assessment advice into their future learning, a process referred to by Duncan (2007) as "feed-forward". Despite the value placed on assessment feedback by academic teaching staff, it often has minimal impact on students' learning (Sadler, 2010).

Past research into the impact of qualitative and quantitative feedback on student learning established that …

Bumpy Moments And Joyful Breakthroughs: The Place Of Threshold Concepts In Academic Staff Development Programs About Online Learning And Teaching, Maria T. Northcote, Daniel Reynaud, Peter Beamish, Tony Martin, Kevin P. Gosselin

Maria Northcote

In this article the authors address the situation in higher education of academic staff facing what they conceptualise as “bumpy moments and joyful breakthroughs” as they work through the process of becoming teachers in online learning environments. The article comes from a research project, which gathered and analysed data from systematic observations and questionnaires. The authors base their study on the known fact that while many academics have grounded experience in on-campus teaching and learning situations they do not necessarily have the skills required today for extending learning through on-line environments. The authors discover that when academics start teaching in …

Wellbeing In Schools: Research Project: Improving Approaches To Wellbeing In Schools: What Role Does Recognition Play? Final Report: Volume Two, Anne Graham, Robyn Fitzgerald, Mary Ann Powell, Nigel Thomas, Donnah L. Anderson, Nadine E. White, Catharine A. Simmons

Nadine E White

Volume Two of the Final Report for the Australian Research Council Linkage Project ‘Improving approaches to wellbeing in schools: What role does recognition play?’ This Volume is to be read in conjunction with Volumes One, Three and Four of the Final Report.

Wellbeing In Schools: Research Project: Improving Approaches To Wellbeing In Schools: What Role Does Recognition Play? Final Report: Volume Three, Anne Graham, Robyn Fitzgerald, Mary Ann Powell, Nigel Thomas, Donnah L. Anderson, Nadine E. White, Catharine A. Simmons

Nadine E White

No abstract provided.

Why Mathematics Education Is Important For Australia's Future, Gregory S. C. Hine

Gregory S.C. Hine

No abstract provided.

Referendums Education In The United States: Reform Or Assimilation?, Francisco Ramos

Franciso Ramos

The antibilingüe movement that is spreading across the United States has become one of the most controversial in the debate on the education of linguistic minorities issues. Ron Unz, the California millionaire who has managed to eliminate bilingual programs in California and Arizona and trying to do the same today in Colorado and Massachusetts, is a clear example of assimilationist movement, which argues that immigrants should give up their languages and vernacular cultures to integrate into American society. This article summarizes the history of bilingualism in the United States, focusing on decisions that have affected the education of minority students, …

“Why Do We Do This?” Reflections Of A Two-Way Immersion School Principal On The Roles Of Parents, Teachers, And Her Own, In The Program, Franciso Ramos

Franciso Ramos

The present article offers the reflections of the principal of the longest-running two-way immersion school in Southern California on some of the key factors positively impacting the program, namely parental involvement, teacher commitment, and principal support. Additionally, it includes some of the critical challenges she must continuously face as part of her job, i.e., scarcity of qualified and minority language proficient teachers, lack of funding and adequate materials in the minority language, as well as the impact of federal and state education laws on the autonomy of the program. She also gave some recommendations, based on her professional experience, for …

Iea International Civic And Citizenship Education Study 2016 Assessment Framework, Wolfram Schulz, John Ainley, Julian Fraillon, Bruno Losito, Gabriella Agrusti

Julian Fraillon

The purpose of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is to investigate the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries in the second decade of the 21th century. ICCS 2016 is a continuation of this study, which was initiated in 2009. The development of a framework for ICCS 2016 needed to take account of recent developments and ongoing challenges. The international project team identified areas related to civics and citizenship education, which had either gained more attention in recent years or were regarded as relevant, but which …

Investigating The Development Of Adolescent Leadership Potential: A Longitudinal Case Study, Gregory S. C. Hine

Gregory S.C. Hine

Are There Any Winners In High-Stakes Testing? A Qualitative Case Study Exploring Student, Parent And Teacher Attitudes Towards Naplan Numeracy Tests In Years 3 And 5, Gregory S. C. Hine

Gregory S.C. Hine

Archetypal Energies As The Creative Urges Behind The Evolution Of Humanistic Psychology And Positive Psychology (Archetypal_Energies_As_The_Creative_Urge.Pdf), Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

Creative Tension: Turn The Challenges Of Learning Together Into Opportunities, Christina L. Dobbs, Jacy Ippolito, Megin Charner-Laird

Jacy Ippolito