Teachers facilitating support for young children experiencing parental separation and divorce

This paper reports on a study of Australian early childhood teachers’ pedagogical practices with young children experiencing parental separation and divorce. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews and a focus group were conducted to explore the actions of teachers to support young children experiencing parental separation and divorce. A grounded theory approach was used to analyse data. Teachers reported actions that were focussed on constructing emotional, behavioural, and academic support for young children, as well as forming partnerships with parents, school personnel, and community members to assist. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for professional practice.

The decision-making processes of early childhood teachers when working with children experiencing parental separation and divorce

In this study, the pedagogical decision-making processes of 21 Australian early childhood teachers working with children experiencing parental separation and divorce were examined. Transcripts from interviews and a focus group with teachers were analysed using grounded theory methodology. The findings showed that as teachers interacted with young children experiencing parental separation and divorce, they reported using strategic, reflexive pedagogical decision-making processes. These processes comprised five stages: (1) teachers constructing their knowledge; (2) teachers thinking about their knowledge; (3) teachers using decision-making schemas; (4) teachers taking action, and; (5) teachers monitoring action and evaluating. This understanding of teachers’ reflexive pedagogical decision-making is useful for identifying how teachers and educational leaders can support children experiencing parental separation and divorce or other life challenges.

In the right space : exploring the dynamics between design, environment and pedagogy

The environments that we inhabit shape our everyday lives, influencing our behaviors and responses (Manu, 2013). As we enter an immersive phase of education in which physical and digital environments become inseparable, should we reconsider the role and importance of design on pedagogical practice? This paper explores the reciprocal cause and effect of space, technology and pedagogy in shaping the design of educational experiences within Queensland University of Technology's collaborative learning spaces.

CoWs, Google and online possibilities : creating digital posters to enhance student engagement

A new Bachelor of Science (BSc) course was introduced at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2013 and focused on inquiry-based, collaborative and active learning. Two of the first year units required that students carry out a group poster assessment task. This poster provides a preliminary evaluation from an academic staff perspective of the assessment approach used, whereby students created digital posters to utilise the affordances of new learning spaces. The digital posters approach was first introduced to a group of academic staff from the Science and Engineering Faculty (SEF) in 2012 during a professional development program to explicitly develop skills and shared understandings of teaching in collaborative learning spaces (Steel & Andrews, 2012). Considerations were given to the pedagogical requirements of a poster assessment task, the affordances of the learning space and an identification of possible benefits of using Google Sites to create digital posters. Positive feedback from this group (as highlighted in the quotes shown) and subsequent approval from unit coordinators for two of the new first year BSc units meant that the approach was adopted for Semester 1, 2013 with approximately 360 students in each unit.

Great Expectations : stability and change in English teaching : the teacher as chameleon

Curriculum is always in a state of flux and so often the moves to ‘reform’ it are political rather than pedagogical. So often in these days of accountability we focus on the learner. I want to focus on the teacher in this presentation. As English educators we have to ‘fit’ whatever new policy model comes our way. The Australian curriculum seems to have tried to please every stakeholder in its process and as such has been formed without a single, unifying coherent theoretical basis. How do we challenge this paper tiger? We have to find the pedagogical models within the current framework and see what still works in practice. At the chalk-face there are still teaching, learning and assessment practices in English surviving from the last few decades of pedagogical change; and there is also room for accommodating new practices. Embracing and adapting the old and the new may be the key to staying creative and passionately engaged with our subject area.

'Women on a Wiki’ : the role of interactive websites in reflective learning practices for undergraduate women’s health students

Aim Our pedagogical research addressed the following research questions: 1) Can shared ‘cyber spaces’, such as a ‘wiki’, be occupied by undergraduate women’s health students to improve their critical thinking skills? 2) What are the learning processes via which this occurs? 3) What are the implications of this assessment trial for achieving learning objectives and outcomes in future public health undergraduate courses? Methods The students contributed written, critical reflections (approximately 250 words) to the Wiki each week following the lecture. Students reflected on a range of topics including the portrayal of women in the media, femininity, gender inequality, child bearing and rearing, domestic violence, mental health, Indigenous women, older women, and LGBTIQ communities. Their entries were anonymous, but visible to their peers. Each wiki entry contained a ‘discussion tab’ wherein online conversations were initiated. We used a social constructivist approach to grounded theory to analyse the 480 entries posted over the semester. (http://pub336womenshealth.wikispaces.com/) Results The social constructivist approach initiated by Vygotsky (1978) and further developed by Jonasson (1994) was used to analyse the students’ contributions in relation to four key thematic outcomes including: 1) Complexities in representations across contexts; 2) Critical evaluation in real world scenarios; 3) Reflective practice based on experience, and; 4) Collaborative co-construction of knowledge. Both text and image/visual contributions are provided as examples within each of these learning processes. A theoretical model depicting the interactive learning processes that occurred via discussion of the textual and visual stimulus is presented.

Transforming the core business of teaching and learning in classrooms through ICT

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an integral part of societies across the globe. This study demonstrates how successful technology integration by 10 experienced teachers in an Australian high school was dependent on teacher-driven change and innovation that influenced the core business of teaching and learning. The teachers were subject specialists across a range of disciplines, engaging their Year Eight students (aged 12–14 years) in the Technology Rich Classrooms programme. Two classrooms were renovated to accommodate the newly acquired computer hardware. The first classroom adopted a one-to-one desktop model with all the computers with Internet access arranged in a front-facing pattern. The second classroom had computers arranged in small groups. The students also used Blackboard to access learning materials after school hours. Qualitative data were gathered from teachers mainly through structured and unstructured interviews and a range of other approaches to ascertain their perceptions of the new initiative. This investigation showed that ICT was impacting positively on the core business of teaching and learning. Through the support of the school leadership team, the built environment was enabling teachers to use ICT. This influenced their pedagogical approaches and the types of learning activities they designed and implemented. As a consequence, teachers felt that students were motivated and benefited through this experience.

Developing graduate TPACK capabilities in initial teacher education programs: Insights from the Teaching Teachers for the Future Project

There is increased accountability of initial teacher education (ITE) programs in Australia to develop Graduate teachers who are better prepared. Most ITE programs have been designed using Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Informed by the growing Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) research, this journal article suggests that ITE programs need to develop Graduate teachers who have the TPACK capabilities to use technologies to support teaching and student learning. Insights from the research and evaluation of the Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) Project, which was guided by the TPACK conceptualisation, are provided. The TTF Project, which involved all Higher Education Institutions providing ITE programs in Australia, drew upon the TPACK conceptualisation. The TTF Project research and evaluation included the development and administration of a TTF TPACK Survey and the implementation of the Most Significant Change Methodology. Key findings resulting from the employment of these methodologies are summarised to provide guidance to inform the improvement of ITE programs to develop Graduate TPACK capabilities.

Developing young students’ meta-representational competence through integrated mathematics and science investigations

This paper describes students’ developing meta-representational competence, drawn from the second phase of a longitudinal study, Transforming Children’s Mathematical and Scientific Development. A group of 21 highly able Grade 1 students was engaged in mathematics/science investigations as part of a data modelling program. A pedagogical approach focused on students’ interpretation of categorical and continuous data was implemented through researcher-directed weekly sessions over a 2-year period. Fine-grained analysis of the developmental features and explanations of their graphs showed that explicit pedagogical attention to conceptual differences between categorical and continuous data was critical to development of inferential reasoning.

Mentoring for Effective Teaching (MET)

The Mentoring for Effective Teaching (MET) program aims to facilitate understandings and skills for advancing mentoring and teaching practices for preservice teachers. The paper outlines the key findings from the MET program, including findings related to: (1) the mentor-mentee relationship, (2), mentoring pedagogical knowledge practices, and; (3) providing feedback to the mentee. Each part of the paper presents a model synthesised from the research, which can be used as a visual guide for faciltiating effective mentoring practices.

Teaching Reflective Learning in Higher Education : A Systematic Approach Using Pedagogic Patterns

This book is about understanding the nature and application of reflection in higher education. It provides a theoretical model to guide the implementation of reflective learning and reflective practice across multiple disciplines and international contexts in higher education. The book presents research into the ways in which reflection is both considered and implemented in different ways across different professional disciplines, while maintaining a common purpose to transform and improve learning and/or practice. Readers will find this book innovative and new in three key ways. First, in its holistic theorisation of reflection within the pedagogic field of higher education; Secondly, in conceptualising reflection in different modes to achieve specific purposes in different disciplines; and finally, in providing conceptual guidance for embedding reflective learning and reflective practice in a systematic way across whole programmes, faculties or institutions in higher education. The book considers important contextual factors that influence the teaching of forms and methods of reflection. It provides a functional analysis of multiple modes of reflection, including written, oral, visual, auditory, and embodied forms. Empirical chapters analyse the application of these modes across disciplines and at different stages of a programme. The theoretical model accounts for students’ stage of development in the disciplinary field, along with progressive and cyclical levels of higher order thinking, and learning and professional practice that are expected within different disciplines and professional fields. The book provides: • A conceptual model for the application of reflection across disciplines in a variety of contexts. • Empirical examples of different modes and pedagogic patterns for reflection. • Guidance and support for embedding systemic pedagogical and curriculum change.

A model for reflection in the pedagogic field of higher education

This chapter provides an introduction to the use of pedagogical patterns in capturing and sharing educational design experience. In higher education, helping students to learn to engage in productive reflection presents a complex set of challenges. Delicate balances must be found: too little structure and support for students’ reflective work can leave them floundering; too much, and some will remain dependent. Moreover, this is a dynamic teaching problem – scaffolding needs to be adjusted as students develop confidence and capability, which they will do at different rates. The model presented in this chapter embraces the three main elements that teachers can legitimately design, or help set in place, to support their students’ reflective activity: good tasks, the right tools, and appropriate divisions of labour. It delineates a complex, shifting architecture of tasks, tools and people, activities and outcomes associated with reflective learning. It shows how the designable elements of this complex mix can be described in patterns and pattern languages, which then become design resources for teachers’ own action, reflection and professional development.

The whole world shook : shifts in ethnic, national and heroic identities in children's fiction about 9/11

Like many other cataclysmic events September 11, a day now popularly believed to have 'changed the world', has become a topic taken up by children's writers. This thesis, titled The Whole World Shook: Ethnic, National and Heroic Identities in Children's Fiction About 9/11, examines how cultural identities are constructed within fictional texts for young people written about the attacks on the Twin Towers. It identifies three significant identity categories encoded in 9/11 books for children: ethnic identities, national identities, and heroic identities. The thesis argues that the identities formed within the selected children's texts are in flux, privileging performances of identities that are contingent on post-9/11 politics. This study is located within the field of children's literature criticism, which supports the understanding that children's books, like all texts, play a role in the production of identities. Children's literature is highly significant both in its pedagogical intent (to instruct and induct children into cultural practices and beliefs) and in its obscurity (in making the complex simple enough for children, and from sometimes intentionally shying away from difficult things). This literary criticism informed the study that the texts, if they were to be written at all, would be complex, varied and most likely as ambiguous and contradictory as the responses to the attacks on New York themselves. The theoretical framework for this thesis draws on a range of critical theories including literary theory, cultural studies, studies of performativity and postmodernism. This critical framework informs the approach by providing ways for: (i) understanding how political and ideological work is performed in children's literature; (ii) interrogating the constructed nature of cultural identities; (iii) developing a nuanced methodology for carrying out a close textual analysis. The textual analysis examines a representative sample of children's texts about 9/11, including picture books, young adult fiction, and a selection of DC Comics. Each chapter focuses on a different though related identity category. Chapter Four examines the performance of ethnic identities and race politics within a sample of picture books and young adult fiction; Chapter Five analyses the construction of collective, national identities in another set of texts; and Chapter Six does analytic work on a third set of texts, demonstrating the strategic performance of particular kinds of heroic identities. I argue that performances of cultural identities constructed in these texts draw on familiar versions of identities as well as contribute to new ones. These textual constructions can be seen as offering some certainties in increasingly uncertain times. The study finds, in its sample of books a co-mingling of xenophobia and tolerance; a binaried competition between good and evil and global harmony and national insularity; and a lauding of both the commonplace hero and the super-human. Being a recent corpus of texts about 9/11, these texts provide information on the kinds of 'selves' that appear to be privileged in the West since 2001. The thesis concludes that the shifting identities evident in texts that are being produced for children about 9/11 offer implicit and explicit accounts of what constitute good citizenship, loyalty to nation and community, and desirable attributes in a Western post-9/11 context. This thesis makes an original contribution to the field of children's literature by providing a focussed and sustained analysis of how texts for children about 9/11 contribute to formations of identity in these complex times of cultural unease and global unrest.

The Games Concept Approach (GCA) as a mandated practice : views of Singaporean teachers

This paper reports on the views of Singaporean teachers of a mandated curriculum innovation aimed at changing the nature of games pedagogy within the physical education curriculum framework in Singapore. Since its first appearance over 20 years ago, Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), as an approach to games pedagogy has gathered support around the world. Through a process of evolution TGfU now has many guises and one of the latest of these is the Games Concept Approach (GCA) a name given to this pedagogical approach in Singapore. As part of a major national curricular reform project the GCA was identified as the preferred method of games teaching and as a result was mandated as required professional practice within physical education teaching. To prepare teachers for the implementation phase, a training program was developed by the National Institute of Education in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and well known experts in the field from the United States. For this part of the study, 22 teachers from across Singapore were interviewed. The data were used to create three fictional narratives, a process described by Sparkes (2002a) and used more recently by Ryan (2005) in the field of literacy. The stories were framed using Foucault’s (1980/1977) notion of governmentality and Bernstein’s (1996) notion of regulative discourse. The narratives reveal tales of confusion, frustration but also of hope and enthusiasm.

Seeing it differently: physical education, teacher education and the possibilities of personal construct theory

The celebrated work of Lortie (1975) alerted teacher educators to the extended period of 'apprenticeship' that student teachers have been through before they arrive at teacher education programmes. The subjective implicit theories (Marland, 1992) developed by prospective teachers are shaped by their lifeworld experiences at school and in the case of physical education teachers, their experiences in sport. The biography of physical education teacher education (PETE) students tends to be characterised by ecto-mesomorphic individuals who have been socialised by the rigours of highly competitive sport (Gore, 1990; Macdonald, 1992; Rossi, 1996). We can add to this, the requirements of teacher preparation in physical education which for the most part are dominated by the traditions and rhetoric of the 'natural' bio-physical sciences; largely a legacy of Henry's (1964) work on physical education as an academic discipline, as well as that of Abernathy and Waltz the same year (Abernathy & Waltz, 1964). In the United Kingdom, Curl (1973) further advanced the argument in an attempt to justify human movement as an independent field of study with its own corpus of knowledge. It is little wonder then, that the dominant pedagogical discourse in physical education is, as Tinning (1991) discusses, one of performance pedagogy (see also Hendry, 1986 for an earlier discussion). The knowledge required to support such a discourse could be described as 'official' (Apple, 1993) and it assumes such status by virtue of the power appropriated by and bestowed upon the scientific community in PETE (Macdonald & Tinning, 1995; Sparkes, 1989, 1993). However, there are social reifiers too, and these tend to relate to the social construction of the body (Kirk, 1993; Kirk & Spiller, 1994; Gilroy, 1994) and what Tinning (1985) has termed the Cult of Slenderness. Furthermore the 'slender image' has become a signifier of 'good health'. This is inextricably linked to what might be considered as a health triplex—'exercise = fitness = health' (see Kirk & Colquhoun, 1989; Tinning & Kirk, 1991) which in Australia, underpins curriculum packages such as Daily Physical Education which teachers (often including physical education primary...