Education Commons^™

We Know Best : A Critique Of Youth Research Directions, Judith Laverty

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper looks at the problematising of young people in relation to existing literature on health and the portrayal of young people experiencing homelessness. It reviews this literature with the view to understanding interconnections between research agendas and the positioning of young people as a problem group within society, based on adult and institutional definitions.

Blended Learning: An Asian Tale, John G. Hedberg, Geraldine Lefoe

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Over the past few years increasing online learning is part of the normal educational experience of students. This paper examines the changes faced by two universities in different countries as they move to blend traditional face-to-face learning activities with those online. In particular, it reviews lessons that can be drawn for others moving into blended learning environments for successful implementation.

Don't Just Listen- Do Something! Lessons Learned About Governance From The Growing Up In Cities Project, Louise Chawla, Natasha Blanchet-Cohen, Nilda Corsco, David Driskell, Jill Kruger, Karen A. Malone, Robin Moore, Barry Percy-Smith

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Eight practitioners in the Growing Up in Cities project of UNESCO reflect on what they have learned in terms of how to move government officials and leaders of civil society to view children and youth as partners in creating livable cities. They describe their experience in participatory action research with children and youth, how they achieved successful outcomes, what they learned from mistakes, and strategies that they would apply if they were beginning a new initiative to ensure that city officials, community leaders and donors integrate young people into decision-making. The conclusion summarizes the group’s shared wisdom regarding how to …

Inviting Dissent: Classroom Practices For Nurturing Communities Of Readers In The Early School Years, Pauline J. Harris, Barbra Mckenzie

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In the context of the early school years, this paper examines established classroom practices that focus on engaging young readers with texts. The lens used for this exploration is provided by transtextuality theory that accounts for ways in which texts build networks of meaning for readers to negotiate. Transtextuality theory originated in and serves literary criticism. However, this paper demonstrates how this theory provides teachers and researchers with tools for interrogating classroom practices that seek to develop young readers as meaning makers. Examples of teaching strategies and learning experiences are shared. These examples sometimes see dissent over interpretation arise among …

Incorporating Real Experience Into The Development Of A Classroom-Based Simulation, Brian Ferry, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian L. Cambourne, Janice B. Turbill, John Hedberg, David Jonassen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper reports on the design of an on-line simulation that enhanced preservice teacher practicum experience in the important area of literacy teaching. Research with more than 200 users of the simulation showed that it developed pre-service teacher understanding of complex classroom situations associated with the teaching of literacy by giving them the opportunity to slow down or accelerate classroom events, revisit and reflect on critical decision points and replay events in the light of new understandings. This gave preservice teachers time to think critically about complex teaching situations which relied on the teacher’s ability to tune into children’s experiences, …

Factors Influencing The Employment Experience And Aspirations Of A Cohort Of Beginning Teachers: Two Years On, Ted Booth, Jennifer Runge

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Contemporary beginning teachers have a diverse mix of ages and prior experiences and many are seeking teaching work beyond their own state in a rapidly changing national and international market. The purpose of this longitudinal study is to investigate the employment experience and changing aspirations of a cohort of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) who entered the teaching workforce in 2003 in a ‘tight teaching labour market’. The case study commenced with a sample of 174 beginning teachers from a regional Australian university. The purpose of this paper is to report on their employment experiences two years on and changes in …

Children's Mappings Of Part-Whole Construct Of Fractions, Mohan Chinnappan

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The representation of part-whole relations that are embodied in fractional numbers continues to be a problematic area of learning for many children. In this study I examine this problem with a ten-year old child by analyzing his mappings between the language of fractions, area models and symbols. The visual mode ls in this study were built and modified with computer manipulatives called Javabars. Results of analysis showed that the participant experienced difficulty in mapping symbo lic representation of selected fractions to the area analogs.

Prospective Teacher's Representation Of Multiplication, Mohan Chinnappan

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The use of ICT-based resources in order to provide effective learning environments in which children could explore concepts such as multiplication has received considerable attention. This approach is based on the assumption that teachers who are already teaching and those who are being trained to become teachers, draw on a well-developed knowledge of the multiplicative process, and could exploit the ICT appropriately. The aim of the study reported here was to examine the quality of content and pedagogical content knowledge of multiplication developed by a group of prospective elementary mathematics teachers in the context of an ICT-based software. Analysis of …

Productive Pedagogies, Literacy And The Development Of Numeracy, Mohan Chinnappan

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Debates about children’s understanding of mathematics has focused on how children make use of school mathematics in their every day lives. The notion of numeracy has been gaining increasing currency is recent curriculum reforms that support the need for mathematics and mathematics teaching to pay attention to involving children in the learning of mathematics in ways that will make sense to each child. Children’s everyday life abounds with mathematics objects and concepts. An awareness .of the mathematics in the environment is a function of students’ ability to interpret the relevance of both the formal and informal mathematics they have been …

Operationalizing Nine Design Elements Of Authentic Learning Environments In A Classroom-Based On-Line Simulation, Brian Ferry, Lisa K. Kervin, John Hedberg, Janice B. Turbill, Brian L. Cambourne, David H. Jonassen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Herrington, Oliver and Reeves (2003) assert that many researchers and teachers now accept that well designed multimedia environments provide an alternative to real-life settings without sacrificing the authentic context. Further, researchers report that recent educational software advances have demonstrated that it is feasible to create a motivational simulation that supports pre-service teachers by providing them with tools that allow them to view the effects of their decisions within a virtual classroom context (Aldrich, 2004) However, limited research has been reported on the use of authentic simulations in pre-service teacher education.

This paper describes the on-line simulation that we developed to …

The Challenges And Dilemmas Of The Global Business Of Teaching English In South East Asia, Peter M. Kell

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a discussion of the nature and character of the markets in English Language and the way in which English language and teaching is characterised by a series of markets in which there is strong and vibrant competition between a diversity of providers attempting to secure a share of growing international market in programs, products, methodologies, teacher training, teacher recruitment and placement. This paper explores aspects of the nature of this competition with particular reference to South East Asia and highlights the dilemmas and challenges that emerge from the development of a multileveled and trans-national market in English …

The Post September 11th Politics Of Globalism,Localism And The Malaysian State, Peter M. Kell

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores a series of key dilemmas associated with the nation-state project in Malaysia and the threats to this project posed by elements of the neo-liberal globalisation in the post- September 11“’ period (S11). This post S11 period created a series of opportunities and dilemmas for the Malaysian state and was also characterised by a series of tensions as domestic political developments clashed with ambitions towards embracing neo-liberal globalisation. Political struggles featured attempts by the government parties to balance the tensions and between longstanding developmental modernist policies designed to position Malaysia and a simultaneous process of maintaining a commitment …

Supporting The Development Of Pedagogically Sound Learning Environments Using Learning Designs And Learning Objects, Shirley Agostinho, Susan J. Bennett, Lori Lockyer, Barry M. Harper, Jason Lukasiak

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In a climate where Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming mainstream within the higher education sector, academics are faced with the ongoing challenge of incorporating World Wide Web and Internet technology within their teaching practices. Coupled with a “quality” agenda, academics will be required to examine their instructional strategies and to offer high quality learning opportunities. Reuse, in the form of sharing learning resources and modelling expert practice are seen as strategies to help academics in this change process. Whilst online repositories of learning resources (learning objects) are flourishing, what is lacking are tools to support academics to design …

Why Teachers Are Reluctant To Use New Technologies: Supporting Teachers' Action Learning Within A Web Environment, Garry Hoban, Anthony J. Herrington

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Action learning involves a small group (6-8 people) who meet regularly to share reflections and discuss ideas that they try out in practice. Key to the process of action learning is the sharing of personally relevant issues or problems in relation to the action being attempted. In this study a web environment was designed to support the sharing of strategies by teachers which also included a discussion space to provide feedback on the strategies attempted. One web environment was designed for an action learning team in a high school and another for a group in an elementary school. It was …

Students Talking About Home-School Communication: Can Technology Support This Process?, Lisa K. Kervin

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores the use of technology to support communication about student learning and classroom experiences between home and school contexts. An examination of literature addressing home-school partnerships along with current thinking about the integration of this with Learning Technologies is presented. Research centred on the use of a mobile telephone as a tool to facilitate this process will be discussed. The power this ‘new’ technology brings to the students is discussed with reference to subsequent constraints. However, it is argued that students overwhelmingly perceive this tool as a valuable resource in stimulating and encouraging dialogue between the contexts and …

You Expect Me To Remember What? : Knowledge Retention In Computer-Based Training With Adult Learners, Doug Reid, D Michele Jacobsen, Larry Katz

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The goal of this investigation was to evaluate the impact of training and the effectiveness of different types of knowledge retention activities delivered by computer-based training (CBT) programs. This study focused on a computer-based learning system called the Profound Learning Delivery System (2005) (PLS). PLS is an application designed to improve knowledge retention in adult learners undertaking CBT. This study used a pretest-posttest experimental design to compare adult learners’ knowledge of Microsoft Outlook (Outlook, 1997) before and after a CBT session. Participants were trained using two different computer-based instructional programs: a commercially available software program matched for comparison purposes, and …

Exploring Culture Through The Voices Of Children, Pauline Lysaght, Ian M. Brown, Roslyn S. Westbrook

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

What happens when disposable cameras, accompanied by requests for photographs of everyday experiences, are given to children in a number of different cultures? This paper explores the photographic images and text that children from five different countries have contributed to an innovative research project called Voices of Children: Exploring Childhood and Culture through Visual Literacy. Their photographs and words reflect the various personal and cultural dimensions of their lives, providing a basis for exploring the diversity of their experiences across a range of contexts. Global trends in education include rapid technological and cultural shifts evidenced by the move from traditional …

Understanding And Teaching Students With Asperger's Syndrome As Individuals, Deslea M. Konza

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Students diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome are being reported with increasing frequency in classrooms throughout the Western world (Barnhill, 2001; Safran, 2001), yet many teachers have limited understanding of the condition, or of appropriate strategies for the successful inclusion of students with this diagnosis. There are now increasing calls for teachers to become aware of the nature of this Syndrome, and of strategies to facilitate the learning of students with this diagnosis in regular classrooms (Myles, 1998; Attwood, 1998). While it is imperative that teachers acquire broad information about the condition, this does not preclude the need to be closely attuned …

Interactive Television: Educational Use In The New Millenium, Jann Roberts, Janice A. Herrington

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Interactive television (ITV) has a great deal of potential for facilitating interactive, collaborative, constructivist, situated, and authentic learning. Many teachers, however, are not familiar with the features of ITV, or how it could impact on teaching and learning in Australia. Inherent in its adoption, there are a number of issues which need to be addressed, including the lack of research into current generation ITV, the lack of availability of pedagogically sound, research-driven guidelines for ITV use, and the existing attitudes towards ITV. This paper describes some of the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the use of ITV in the classrooms …

Keeping The Conversation Going: Creating A Whole School Approach To Spelling, Lisa K. Kervin, Kathy Mckenzie

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

How to best teach spelling across primary classrooms has been an issue of debate for many schools and in fact, many teachers for some time. How consistent spelling practice can he best incorporated into school policy and implemented into classroom literacy experiences has resulted in much confusion and debate, and has proven to be a difficult challenge for many primary school educators. This paper describes how one school developed a whole school approach to spelling, devised supporting documentation and supported staff to develop and implement teaching and learning experiences across the grades consistent with these. The process that was engaged …

From Surviving To Thriving: The Use Of Information And Communication Technology In An Induction Program For Early Career Teachers In Personal Development, Health And Physical Education, Douglas Hearne, Gregg S. Rowland, Amy L. Webb

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a discussion of a project with both face-to-face and online components designed to support early career teachers from the key learning area of Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) across three teacher employing authorities in New South Wales, Australia. The project was initiated in 2004 by the Australian Council for Health Physical Education and Recreation, NSW (ACHPER) in conjunction with the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme. Supporting all aspects of the project is the BEST:PDHPE (Beginning and Establishing Successful Teachers) website that has been developed to provide resources and communication tools. Research associated with the project …

The Use Of Embedded Tools And Support Materials Within A Classroom Simulation To Support Quality Teaching, Janice B. Turbill, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian Ferry, Brian L. Cambourne, John Hedberg, David Jonassen, Sarah Puglisi

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper focuses on the use of embedded tools and support materials within a web-based simulated classroom environment. The developed simulation prototype allows the user to adopt the role of a Kindergarten teacher where they have to “teach” a typical literacy episode that we have called “days of the week”. During this episode the user is asked to make decisions about the organisation of the classroom, management of the classroom, and the teaching and learning experiences to be offered.

A key component of this on-line simulation is the incorporation of an embedded tool, referred to as a thinking space, at …

The Best Site On The Internet: An Online Resource For Beginning And Establishing Successful Teachers, Anthony J. Herrington, Janice A. Herrington, Lisa K. Kervin

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Beginning teachers face enormous challenges in their first year of teaching. High attrition rates of teachers within the first five years attest to the difficulties inherent in commencing professional life as a teacher. This paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a website designed to relieve many of the problems of professional isolation encountered by beginning teachers. The website allows new teachers, and preservice teachers on school practice, to communicate with each other and expert teacher mentors through discussion boards, and provides access to a range of resources including lesson plans, annotated lists of useful websites, weblogs, wikis and …

Mindful Classrooms: A Synthesis Of Research On Multiple Intelligences Theory In Cross-Cultural Contexts, Wilhelmina J. Vialle

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The scene is a primary school in regional Australia that has a large proportion of students from non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB). In one of these culturally diverse classrooms, I observed the following exchange at the beginning of a blustery Thursday with the students gathered together on the front mat. The teacher was quizzing her Grade 1 class on the days of the week. She held up flashcards and the children were asked to read the day. When she held up ‘Thursday’, she drew attention to the ‘ur’ sound and asked which other day also included the ‘ur’ sound. After a few …

Inducting Pre-Service Teachers Into Reflective Inquiry And Research Methods: Contested Curriculum And Pedagogical Spaces, Ted Booth

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The location of research methods within the pre-service teacher education curriculum has been a contentious debate within the writer's Faculty of Education for many years. Concurrently the scope and sequence of the major concepts and skills to be taught in inquiry and research methods and the related pedagogy has also been contentious. This paper attempts to chart some of the dimensions and contentions within these spaces, and links this critique to a discussion about changes in the structure and implementation of new four year Bachelor of Primary Education at the University of Wollongong. A self-study methodology is utilised in conjunction …

Exploring Our Connections And Relationships With Place And/Or Nature, Tonia L. Gray

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Over the past 10-15 years, I have witnessed the delivery and Outdoor Education and Experiential Learning in Australia and New Zealand to take a different tangent. Typically, facilitators of Outdoor Education and Experiential Learning have operated ‘in a bubble’ unaware or immune to the impact of nature upon human psyche and being. They have primarily been dislocated from nature, taking photographs of our outdoor experiences, but oblivious to the soulful text of the land. As Winton (2003, p.266) poignantly states ‘aborigines sometimes question the “European” urge to climb high and look out across land from a bluff or peak. I …

Hanging Out In The School Ground : A Reflective Look At Researching Children's Environmental Learning, Paul Tranter, Karen A. Malone

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The authors take a reflective journey to explore the research methodology utilised in a multi-method, multi-site research study of children’s environmental learning in schoolgrounds in Australia. Informed by an extensive literature review and dialogue with researchers around the world, the study constructed a research design and procedure that could be utilized by practitioner researchers and academic researchers as the foundation for further research on children’s learning in schoolgrounds. This paper has the specific task of sharing our research story and lessons learnt as a conversation to those who intend to conduct future research with children on schoolground greening projects.

Secondary School Success For Students With Asperger's Syndrome, Deslea M. Konza

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Many students approach the transition to secondary school with feelings of both excitement and apprehension, but it is excitement that usually prevails. For students with Asperger's Syndrome, however, those aspects of secondary school that most students anticipate with great enthusiasm, such as being in a new and larger environment, having different teachers and increased subject choices, and meeting new people, are sources of great anxiety. Despite the increasing numbers of students being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (Safran, 2002), many teachers have limited understanding of the condition, or of appropriate strategies for the successful inclusion of students with this diagnosis (Williams, …

Burnout In Adventure Therapy: Bush-Fire As A Catalyst For Change And Soul Work: An Australian Perspective, Tonia Gray, Carole Birrell

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

As a background to the exploration of burnout as a psychological notion, it seemed appropriate to place it in a broader context. Both authors have at various stages, experienced symptoms of burnout, hence they were naturally drawn together by the need to understand this phenomenon more deeply. The bushfire metaphor seemed to link this naturally occurring event to the psychology of burnout. Rather than examining burnout from merely a pathological perspective, it was decided to look at it as a natural phenomenon that could perhaps unearth soulful qualities. In the tradition of Moore (1992; xiii), “soul lies midway between understanding …

The Present Socio-Economic-Political Culture & The Myth Of English As An Access To Social Equality In Post-Colonial Sri Lanka, Sudharma Wickramasuriya

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates the myth of the English language as a means of access to equality in the post-colonial era in the present socio-economic-political climate in Sri Lanka. This is a literature-oriented research study based on the current state of the English language and the role of English language education, in facilitating the process of poverty reduction and the promotion of equality in Sri Lanka. The researcher attempts to clarify the opinions, biases, presuppositions and interpretations of the existing socio-economic and political culture in relation to English as a language of opportunities and equality. The analysis of the data reveals …