'Create a better online you': Designing online learning resources to develop undergraduate social media skills

‘Create a Better Online You’ (CBOY) is an emerging initiative from QUT Library. CBOY focusses on developing the social media skills of undergraduates at QUT. While many students will have encountered ‘cybersafety’ training in primary or secondary school, a comprehensive environmental scan revealed little in the way of social media resources targeted at undergraduates. In particular, there was little to no focus on the ways in which social media could be used strategically to develop a positive online reputation and enhance chances of employability post tertiary education. The resources created as part of CBOY are the result of a literature review, environmental scan, and discussions with staff and students at QUT. Following the comprehensive environmental scan, it appears that CBOY represents one of the first free, openly accessible, interactive resources targeting the social media skills of undergraduates.

STEM learning through engineering design: fourth-grade students' investigations in aerospace

Background: Internationally, there is a growing concern for developing STEM education to prepare students for a scientifically and technologically advanced society. Despite educational bodies lobbying for an increased focus on STEM, there is limited research on how engineering might be incorporated especially in the elementary school curriculum. A framework of five comprehensive core engineering design processes (problem scoping, idea generation, design and construction, design evaluation, redesign), adapted from the literature on design thinking in young children, served as a basis for the study. We report on a qualitative study of fourth-grade students’ developments in working an aerospace problem, which took place during the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study. Students applied design processes together with their mathematics and science knowledge to the design and redesign of a 3-D model plane. Results: The study shows that through an aerospace engineering problem, students could complete initial designs and redesigns of a model plane at varying levels of sophistication. Three levels of increasing sophistication in students’ sketches were identified in their designs and redesigns. The second level was the most prevalent involving drawings or templates of planes together with an indication of how to fold the materials as well as measurements linked to the plane’s construction. The third level incorporated written instructions and calculations. Students’ engagement with each of the framework’s design processes revealed problem scoping components in their initial designs and redesigns. Furthermore, students’ recommendations for improving their launching techniques revealed an ability to apply their mathematics knowledge in conjunction with their science learning on the forces of flight. Students’ addition of context was evident together with an awareness of constraints and a consideration of what was feasible in their design creation. Interestingly, students’ application of disciplinary knowledge occurred more frequently in the last two phases of the engineering framework (i.e., design evaluation and redesign), highlighting the need for students to reach these final phases to enable the science and mathematics ideas to emerge. Conclusions: The study supports research indicating young learners’ potential for early engineering. Students can engage in design and redesign processes, applying their STEM disciplinary knowledge in doing so. An appropriate balance is needed between teacher input of new concepts and students’ application of this learning in ways they choose. For example, scaffolding by the teacher about how to improve designs for increased detail could be included in subsequent experiences. Such input could enhance students’ application of STEM disciplinary knowledge in the redesign process. We offer our framework of design processes for younger learners as one way to approach early engineering education with respect to both the creation of rich problem experiences and the analysis of their learning.

Assessing a statistical inquiry

As statistical education becomes more firmly embedded in the school curriculum and its value across the curriculum is recognised, attention moves from knowing procedures, such as calculating a mean or drawing a graph, to understanding the purpose of a statistical investigation in decision making in many disciplines. As students learn to complete the stages of an investigation, the question of meaningful assessment of the process arises. This paper considers models for carrying out a statistical inquiry and, based on a four-phase model, creates a developmental squence that can be used for the assessment of outcomes from each of the four phases as well as for the complete inquiry. The developmental sequence is based on the SOLO model, focussing on the "observed" outcomes during the inquiry process.

Adolescent writing development: Improving succinctness using the extended noun phrase

This study examined an aspect of adolescent writing development, specifically whether teaching secondary school students to use strategies to enhance succinctness in their essays changed the grammatical sophistication of their sentences. A quasi-experimental intervention was used to compare changes in syntactic complexity and lexical density between one-draft and polished essays. No link was demonstrated between the intervention and the changes. A thematic analysis of teacher interviews explored links between changes to student texts and teaching approaches. The study has implications for making syntactic complexity an explicit goal of student drafting.

All of Us

All of Us is a ground-breaking Australian government approved anti-bullying educational resource comprised of seven online videos that feature gender diverse, sexual diverse and intersex youths. The videos, along with unit guides and student handouts, have been designed to address a gap in high school curriculum as they teach not just about sexual diversity and gender diversity but also the values of empathy and respect, which has been demonstrated to improve students’ wellbeing and educational engagement. The resource captures the real life experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people through a collection of short videos and teaching activities that are aligned to the Year 7/8 Health and Physical Education learning area of the Australian Curriculum. All Of Us has been developed to have a real impact on student attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and to encourage whole school change that affirms and supports the right of all students, staff and families to feel safe at school. This free video resource is widely available and allows all schools, regardless of experience, location or funding, the chance to create an environment where every student can learn, every teacher can teach and every family can belong from the beginning of 2016. The resource was launched on Thursday, 26 November 2015 at Treasury Theatre, 1 Macarthur St, Melbourne. The launch was attended by almost 200 people including former Safe Schools Coalition Ambassador Jason Ball, Victorian Commissioner for Gender and Sexuality Ro Allen, Chris Bush, Executive Producer of All Of Us, Micah Scott, CEO of Minus18, All Of Us Margot Fink; Safe Schools Coalition Victoria's Manager Roz Ward and; Sally Richardson, National Program Director of Safe Schools Coalition Australia.

Jumping the Gun

Jumping the Gun is a play written for secondary school audiences. It follows the lives of three senior school students as they navigate moral, ethical and personal choices during the final year of school.

Theories of moral education and implementation in Indonesia: Re-energizing cultural identity and addressing future challenges

School is regarded as a site of moral training for the younger generation to encounter nation’s future challenges as well as to re-energize nation’s cultural identity. The more competitive global society led by free market trade in terms of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), requires the school to adapt and change its curriculum more frequently. Like many other countries, Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture has introduced and nurtured universal values and traditional values respectively through school curriculum reforms to develop students’ ability to participating in global society. This paper will describe classical and contemporary theories related to moral education that have been implemented in Indonesia’s school curriculum and school activities. The theories developed by Durkheim, Alastair MacIntyre, and Basil Bernstein will be discussed. This includes explaining how far the theories have been adopted in Indonesia and how the approaches are currently being used in Indonesian schooling. This paper suggests despite the implementation of those theories in Indonesian schools, the government needs to optimise the operation of those theories to gain significant outcomes.

'Create a Better Online You': Designing online learning resources to develop undergraduate social media skills

This article charts the development of the 'Create a Better Online You' (CBOY) project. The focus of CBOY was the social media skills of undergraduate students at QUT. While many students will have encountered 'cybersafety' training in primary or secondary school, however, a comprehensive environmental scan revealed little in the way of social media resources targeted at undergraduate students. In particular, there was little to no focus on the ways in which social media could be used strategically to develop a positive online reputation and enhance chances of employability post tertiary education. The resources created as part of CBOY were the result of a comprehensive literature review, environmental scan, interviews with key internal and external stakeholders, and in discussion with undergraduate students at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Following the comprehensive environmental scan, it appears that CBOY represents one of the first free, openly accessible, interactive resources targeting the social media skills of undergraduates.

Principals of audit: Testing, data and ‘implicated advocacy’

Historically, school leaders have occupied a somewhat ambiguous position within networks of power. On the one hand, they appear to be celebrated as what Ball (2003) has termed the ‘new hero of educational reform'; on the other, they are often ‘held to account’ through those same performative processes and technologies. These have become compelling in schools and principals are ‘doubly bound’ through this. Adopting a Foucauldian notion of discursive production, this paper addresses the ways that the discursive ‘field’ of ‘principal’ (within larger regimes of truth such as schools, leadership, quality and efficiency) is produced. It explores how individual principals understand their roles and ethics within those practices of audit emerging in school governance, and how their self-regulation is constituted through NAPLAN – the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy. A key effect of NAPLAN has been the rise of auditing practices that change how education is valued. Open-ended interviews with 13 primary and secondary school principals from Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales asked how they perceived NAPLAN's impact on their work, their relationships within their school community and their ethical practice.