Will they know enough? Pre-service primary teachers' knowledge base for teaching intergrated social sciences

A significant issue in primary teacher education is developing a knowledge base which prepares teachers to teach in a range of subject areas. In Australia, the problem in primary social science education is compounded by the integrated nature of the key learning area of Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). Recent debates on teaching integrated social sciences omit discussions on the knowledge base for teaching. In this paper, a case study approach is used to investigate primary pre-service teachers’ approaches to developing a knowledge base in designing a SOSE curriculum unit. Data from five teacher-educators who taught primary SOSE curriculum indicates that novice teachers’ subject content knowledge, as revealed through their curriculum planning, lacked a disciplinary basis. However, understanding of inquiry learning, which is fundamental to social science education, was much stronger. This paper identifies a gap in the scholarship on teaching integrated social science and illustrates the need to support and develop primary teachers’ disciplinary knowledge in teacher education.

Why new business development projects fail : coping with the differences of technological versus market knowledge

Managing through projects has become important for generating new knowledge to cope with technological and market discontinuities. This paper examines how the fit between the creation of technological and market knowledge and important project management characteristics, i.e. project autonomy and completion criteria, influences the success of new business development (NBD) projects. In-depth longitudinal case research on NBD projects commercialised from 1993 to 2003 in the consumer electronics industry highlights that project management characteristics focusing only on the creation of technological knowledge contributed to the failure of those NBD projects that required new market knowledge as well. The findings indicate that senior management support and engaging in an alliance with partners possessing complementary market knowledge can offset this misalignment of the organisation of NBD projects.

Blogs, wikis and podcasts : collaborative knowledge building tools in a design and technology course

Design and Technology has become an important part of the school curriculum. In Queensland, Australia, Technology (which encompasses Design) is one of the Key Learning Areas (KLAs) for students in the first ten years of schooling. This KLA adopts a student-centred, hands-on constructivist approach to teaching and learning. The ability to conceptualise and implement appropriate learning experiences, however, has been a challenge for some early career teachers. This paper describes how Design and Technology is being taught to pre-service primary teachers at an Australian University through their involvement in a range of authentic problem-solving activities supported by social learning tools such as wikis and blogs. An interview with a sample from this group (N=5) provides an insight into how these social software tools enhanced their knowledge and learning. This paper will describe how these social learning tools impact on the agency of learning.

Closing the cultural distance gap: managing value-based knowledge in MNC by using MEP

Today more than ever, generating and managing knowledge is an essential source of competitive advantage for every organization, and particularly for Multinational corporations (MNC). However, despite the undisputed agreement about the importance of creating and managing knowledge, there are still a large number of corporations that act unethically or illegally. Clearly, there is a lack of attention in gaining more knowledge about the management of ethical knowledge in organizations. This paper refers to value-based knowledge, as the process of recognise and manage those values that stand at the heart of decision-making and action in organizations. In order to support MNCs in implementing value-based knowledge process, the managerial ethical profile (MEP) has been presented as a valuable tool to facilitate knowledge management process at both the intra-organizational network level and at the inter-organizational network level.

Chasing Reporters : Intertextuality, Entertainment and Public Knowledge

This paper examines ‘What Have We Learned From Current Affairs This Week?’: a very successful weekly segment from the ABC program The Chaser’s War on Everything. It argues that through its intertextual satire, this regular segment acts not as a traditional news program would in presenting news updates on current events, but as a text which reflects on the way news is reported and how this, in turn, may shape public discourse. While the program has been highly controversial (enduring many a loud call for it to be pulled from air), this form of light entertainment can play an important public service by encouraging citizens to ‘read through’ (Gray, 2006: 104) commercial current affairs’ façade of ‘quality’ journalism.

Up the junction? Exploiting knowledge-based development through supply chain and SME cluster interactions

Maximisation of Knowledge-Based Development (KBD) benefits requires effective dissemination and utilisation mechanisms to accompany the initial knowledge creation process. This work highlights the potential for interactions between Supply Chains (SCs) and Small and Medium sized Enterprise Clusters (SMECs), (including via ‘junction’ firms which are members of both networks), to facilitate such effective dissemination and utilisation of knowledge. In both these network types there are firms that readily utilise their relationships and ties for ongoing business success through innovation. The following chapter highlights the potential for such beneficial interactions between SCs and SMECs in key elements of KBD, particularly knowledge management, innovation and technology transfer. Because there has been little focus on the interactions between SCs and SMECs, particularly when firms simultaneously belong to both, this chapter examines the conduits through which information and knowledge can be transferred and utilised. It shows that each network type has its own distinct advantages in the types of information searched for and transferred amongst network member firms. Comparing and contrasting these advantages shows opportunities for both networks to leverage the knowledge sharing strengths of each other, through these ‘junctions’ to address their own weaknesses, allowing implications to be drawn concerning new ways of utilising relationships for mutual network gains.

Year 8, 9 and 10 students’ understanding and access of percent knowledge

This paper reports on Years 8, 9 and 10 students’ knowledge of percent problem types, use of diagrams, and type of solution strategy. Non- and semi-proficient students displayed the expected inflexible formula approach to solution but proficient students used a flexible mixture of estimation, number sense and trial and error instead of expected schema based methods.

The knowledge exchange intermediary as service provider : a discussion and an Australian case

The critical impact of innovation on national and the global economies has been discussed at length in the literature. Economic development requires the diffusion of innovations into markets. It has long been recognised that economic growth and development depends upon a constant stream of innovations. Governments have been keenly aware of the need to ensure this flow does not dry to a trickle and have introduced many and varied industry policies and interventions to assist in seeding, supporting and diffusing innovations. In Australia, as in many countries, Government support for the transfer of knowledge especially from publicly funded research has resulted in the creation of knowledge exchange intermediaries. These intermediaries are themselves service organisations, seeking innovative service offerings for their markets. The choice for most intermediaries is generally a dichotomous one, between market-pull and technology-push knowledge exchange programmes. In this article, we undertake a case analysis of one such innovative intermediary and its flagship programme. We then compare this case with other successful intermediaries in Europe. We put forward a research proposition that the design of intermediary programmes must match the service type they offer. That is, market-pull programmes require market-pull design, in close collaboration with industry, whereas technology programmes can be problem-solving innovations where demand is latent. The discussion reflects the need for an evolution in knowledge transfer policies and programmes beyond the first generation ushered in with the US Bayh-Dole Act (1980) and Stevenson-Wydler Act (1984). The data analysed is a case study comparison of market-pull and technology-push programmes, focusing on primary and secondary socio-economic benefits (using both Australian and international comparisons).

Mining patterns and factors contributing to crash severity on road curves

Road curves are an important feature of road infrastructure and many serious crashes occur on road curves. In Queensland, the number of fatalities is twice as many on curves as that on straight roads. Therefore, there is a need to reduce drivers’ exposure to crash risk on road curves. Road crashes in Australia and in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) have plateaued in the last five years (2004 to 2008) and the road safety community is desperately seeking innovative interventions to reduce the number of crashes. However, designing an innovative and effective intervention may prove to be difficult as it relies on providing theoretical foundation, coherence, understanding, and structure to both the design and validation of the efficiency of the new intervention. Researchers from multiple disciplines have developed various models to determine the contributing factors for crashes on road curves with a view towards reducing the crash rate. However, most of the existing methods are based on statistical analysis of contributing factors described in government crash reports. In order to further explore the contributing factors related to crashes on road curves, this thesis designs a novel method to analyse and validate these contributing factors. The use of crash claim reports from an insurance company is proposed for analysis using data mining techniques. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use data mining techniques to analyse crashes on road curves. Text mining technique is employed as the reports consist of thousands of textual descriptions and hence, text mining is able to identify the contributing factors. Besides identifying the contributing factors, limited studies to date have investigated the relationships between these factors, especially for crashes on road curves. Thus, this study proposed the use of the rough set analysis technique to determine these relationships. The results from this analysis are used to assess the effect of these contributing factors on crash severity. The findings obtained through the use of data mining techniques presented in this thesis, have been found to be consistent with existing identified contributing factors. Furthermore, this thesis has identified new contributing factors towards crashes and the relationships between them. A significant pattern related with crash severity is the time of the day where severe road crashes occur more frequently in the evening or night time. Tree collision is another common pattern where crashes that occur in the morning and involves hitting a tree are likely to have a higher crash severity. Another factor that influences crash severity is the age of the driver. Most age groups face a high crash severity except for drivers between 60 and 100 years old, who have the lowest crash severity. The significant relationship identified between contributing factors consists of the time of the crash, the manufactured year of the vehicle, the age of the driver and hitting a tree. Having identified new contributing factors and relationships, a validation process is carried out using a traffic simulator in order to determine their accuracy. The validation process indicates that the results are accurate. This demonstrates that data mining techniques are a powerful tool in road safety research, and can be usefully applied within the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) domain. The research presented in this thesis provides an insight into the complexity of crashes on road curves. The findings of this research have important implications for both practitioners and academics. For road safety practitioners, the results from this research illustrate practical benefits for the design of interventions for road curves that will potentially help in decreasing related injuries and fatalities. For academics, this research opens up a new research methodology to assess crash severity, related to road crashes on curves.

Knowledge is not power, but it’s a start : young people and employment entitlements

This paper employs empirical evidence from a survey of Queensland secondary school students to examine their knowledge about their wages and working conditions. It does so within the theoretical lens of the Gagne (or Gagne-Briggs) theory of instruction, which centres on the content of learning and how learning is acquired (Gagne, Briggs & Wager, 1988). While Gagne articulates five categories of learning, our focus here is on two; verbal information or declarative knowledge (facts that people can declare), and procedural knowledge (the rules and procedures for achieving outcomes). We show that student workers know little about the instruments governing their employment, or their workplace entitlements. Of the total sample of year 9 and year 11 students surveyed (n=892), those students who worked, or who had worked in the past year (n=438), were asked to identify whether they were employed under an award, collective agreement or AWA. Eighty three per cent of students did not know which industrial instrument set their wages. We argue that if young workers do not have declarative knowledge of their entitlements, nor basic procedural knowledge about redress, then they are not in a position to deploy Gagne’s ‘cognitive strategies’ that would enable them to take action to ensure their working conditions meet legal minima. We advocate that young workers should be given summary information on their wages and other entitlements on appointment and that such summary information should be readily available on employers’ noticeboards and electronically on company websites, and that the information should include a brief summary of avenues for redressing issues of underpayment or sub-standard conditions.

The awareness and explication of disciplinarity across four senior-secondary subject areas

This paper issues a challenge to the notion of domain-general teaching and learning, positing that different subject areas require distinct approaches to developing student knowledge and understanding. The aim has been to observe and compare awareness and explication of disciplinarity in four senior secondary school subjects: Biology, History, Music and Physics. Specifically, we were interested in: (1) teachers’ concepts of what it means to ‘know the discipline’, to ‘think like a disciplinary expert’ and to ‘teach and learn the discipline’; and (2) how teachers draw these concepts together to build student knowledge in the classroom. The research informs educational practice and policy, in particular curricular initiatives involving interdisciplinary curricula.

Students’ conceptual knowledge about workplace pedagogies and applications to learning in the workplace

The development of effective workplace pedagogies is integral to work-integrated and work-based learning. The workplace pedagogies that facilitate and support learning include: activities in which individuals engage such as daily work practices, questioning; observing, and listening; interactions with more experienced workers through coaching and modelling; and referencing documented procedures. Each of these dimensions is significant in enhancing processes of workplace learning. Learning can be optimised when these pedagogies are appropriately embedded in the context of and process of participating in normal work activities. Yet learners need to understand the nature of these pedagogies, and how and for what purposes to use these to achieve a range of learning outcomes. This is because it is the worker-learners who play the key roles in the process and outcomes of learning through work. A pilot study was conducted on students’ conceptions of how each of these dimensions of workplace pedagogy help their learning, by providing examples of learning from these sources; and stating their preferences for learning in the workplace. A sample of seventeen students, enrolled in the second year of a Diploma in Nursing course at a Technical and Further Education institution, participated in a survey intended to capture these conceptions and the importance attached to each of them. The findings indicate that these students have basic understanding of how each of seven workplace pedagogic practices can contribute to their learning. They reported relying mostly on daily practices, observing and listening to others, modelling, coaching, and other workers. Their selection of these contributions emphasise significant opportunities for guided learning by others, yet suggest fewer student-initiated interactions, less intensity in interactions, and likelihood that learning is more passive. The data also suggests that these students rely mostly on using academic learning skill, and limited workplace learning skills. It is proposed, therefore, that the knowledge and understandings about workplace learning and pedagogies might be best embedded in the full curriculum and not become add-on shortly before students go on work placement. This approach will allow students to appreciate the significance and use of workplace pedagogies for learning.

Exploration and exploitation : the interplay between knowledge and continuous innovation

In rapidly changing environments, organisations require dynamic capabilities to integrate, build and reconfigure resources and competencies to achieve continuous innovation. Although tangible resources are important to promoting the firm’s ability to act, capabilities fundamentally rest in the knowledge created and accumulated by the firm through human capital, organisational routines, processes, practices and norms. The exploration for new ideas, technologies and knowledge – to one side – and – on the other one – the exploitation of existing and new knowledge is essential for continuous innovation. Firms need to decide how best to allocate their scarce resources for both activities and at the same time build dynamic capabilities to keep up with changing market conditions. This in turn, is influenced by the absorptive capacity of the firm to assimilate knowledge. This paper presents a case study that investigates the sources of knowledge in an engineering firm in Australia, and how it is organised and processed. As information pervades the firm from both internal and external sources, individuals integrate knowledge using both exploration and exploitation approaches. The findings illustrate that absorptive capacity can encourage greater leverage for exploration potential leading to radical innovation; and reconfiguring exploitable knowledge for incremental improvements. This study provides an insight for managers in quest of improving knowledge strategies and continuous innovation. It also makes significant theoretical contributions to the literature through extending the concepts of