Education Commons^™

The Role Of Biographical Characteristics In Preservice Classroom Teachers' School Physical Activity Promotion Attitudes, Collin Webster, Eva Monsma, Heather Erwin

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Recommendations for increasing children’s daily physical activity (PA) call on classroom teachers to assume an activist role at school. This study examined relationships among preservice classroom teachers’ (PCT; n = 247) biographical characteristics, perceptions and attitudes regarding school PA promotion (SPAP). Results indicated participants who completed SPAP-related college coursework and had PA-related teaching/coaching experiences reported higher SPAP competence. Significant relationships were found among BMI, personal PA competence and SPAP competence in the contexts of PE and extracurricular settings. Personal PA competence and SPAP competence at recess and in the classroom predicted 19% of the variance in SPAP attitudes. Experiences in …

From The Web To Writing: The Role Of Collaboration In Providing First Year University Students With The Skills To Succeed, Sarah E. O'Shea, Julie Mundy-Taylor

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In contemporary university environments not only have student populations become more diverse, but also institutions have embraced technological advances to create new facets to the teaching and learning process. The challenges offered by virtual learning as well as the impact of email and e-learning remain largely under-researched both broadly and in relation to first year transition. First year students are now expected to not only acquire the implicit academic discourse in a timely fashion but also master the computing skills so central to contemporary university delivery. Skills central to effective and efficient academic research and writing are often perceived in …

Looking For Clarity Amongst The Challenges Faced By Teachers As They Consider The Role Of Ict In Classroom Literacy Learning Experiences, Jessica Mantei, Lisa K. Kervin

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Primary school teachers today operate within a climate of great change with the rapid infusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into schools with the expectation that these be included within classroom experiences. Many schools purchased computer hardware and software and have provided professional development for teachers with the expectation that the technology will be put to use. Studies show, however, that many teachers continue to feel ill-equipped to use technology to support learning in spite of these in-service opportunities. Further studies identify the classroom teacher as the major factor in determining whether ICT are an important component of daily …

Reuse Of A Role Play For New University Teachers, Sarah Lambert, David Macdonald

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In a paper presented at the 2006 ascilite conference it was stated that thirty six online roleplays were identified in Australian universities, of which 80% were reuse of a Learning Design (Wills & McDougall, 2006). Migrating a proven learning design is not always a simple process (Devonshire, 2006) but as this paper, addressing the conference theme of on-line role play, demonstrates it can be achieved effectively. From a pedagogical perspective, one of the main challenges is associated with the task of realigning the activity to adequately reflect the new context, delivery mode, target audience, learning process and anticipated outcomes (Devonshire, …

The Perception And Production Of Phones And Tones: The Role Of Rigid And Non-Rigid Face And Head Motion, Denis Burnham, Jessica Reynolds, Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, Hani Yehia, Valter Ciocca, Rua Haszard Morris, Harold Hill, Guillaume Vignali, Sandra Bollwerk, Helen Tam, Caroline Jones

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

There is evidence, mostly with phones (consonants & vowels), that visual concomitants of articulation facilitate speech perception. Here the visual concomitants of lexical tone are considered. In tone languages fundamental frequency variations signal lexical meaning. In a word identification experiment with auditory-visual words differing only in tone, Cantonese perceivers performed above chance in a Visual Only condition. A subsequent study showed augmentation of word pair discrimination in noise in an Auditory-Visual compared to an Auditory Only condition for Cantonese, tonal Thai speakers, and even non-tone Australian speakers). The source of this perceptual information was sought in an OPTOTRAK production study …

Being Special In A Meritocracy: The Role Of Special Education In Singapore, Deslea M. Konza, Abi Tan

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

For more than three decades the education system in Singapore, based on the mantra of meritocracy, has been successful in steering the island state towards high achievement. A strong political will has framed the educational policy as an investment for a productive and cohesive society in an internationally competitive context. Education is considered to be a powerful tool by which the integration of culturally different racial groups is facilitated. In the education of children with special needs, Singapore currently shares similar provisions with countries such as the United States, Britain and Australia. Besides special schools, there is provision for inclusion …

Connections, Conjectures And Problem Solving In Primary Mathematics: The Role Of Magic Squares, Mohan Chinnappan

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Problem solving has been given focus in current reform statements and classroom practices of mathematics teaching and learning. Clearly, there is consensus on the value of engaging students in problem-based activities in which the learner will be driven to make more meaning from the apparent disparate concepts and procedures that are taught in the classroom. Research in the area of mathematical problem solving has identified numerous processes and knowledge components that support successful problem-solving attempts by young students. Among these, the need to model or represent a given problem appropriately has been the focus of debate in discussions about problem-solving …

From Classroom Reality To Virtual Classroom: The Role Of Teacher-Created Scripts In The Development Of Classroom Simulation Technology, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian L. Cambourne, Janice B. Turbill, Brian Ferry, John Hedberg, David H. Jonassen, Sarah Puglisi

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper describes a specific kind of teacher narrative (the teacher created script) to support the design of a classroom simulation to be used in pre-service teacher education. We intend to share our experiences in exploring and developing the kind of narrative text which can be developed from a large reservoir of ethnographically generated data collected from the teachers and classrooms we have closely observed and documented over the last two decades. In particular, we explore the role which these narratives play within the development of the kind of classroom simulation we have produced.

Reflection has long been acknowledged as …