Teacher and student readiness to use Facebook for learning in an adult vocational educational setting

The factors influencing both teacher and student readiness to use Facebook as part of their teaching and learning in a vocational educational institution were studied through a qualitative case study. Data included teacher and student questionnaire and focus group interviews. While it was found that the students demonstrated readiness and willingness to incorporate Facebook into their current learning, the teachers were more reluctant. Different perceptions around control of learning, time, and concerns around compartmentalisation of learning and social lives would need to be addressed before Facebook could be used as a formal learner engagement strategy.

Teacher education for high-poverty schools : keeping the bar high

For some time now, there has been a focus, both in Australia and internationally, on quality teaching as a fundamental component that affects the educational outcomes of all students. The question of how teacher education programs in Australia prepare effective teachers to work across all school settings-including low-SES schools-has been elevated to national prominence by data from the 20 12 Programme for International Student Assessment (PIS A), which revealed a fall in Australian students' world ranking across Mathematics, Reading and Science. Education is commonly acknowledged as a "foundation capability" that improves a person's life chances, including employment prospects, and it is widely understood to be a "route out of disadvantage" (McLachlan, Gilfillan, and Gordon 20 13). The Australian Bureau of Statistics 201 1- 12 data suggest that around 2.6 million (11.8%) Australians currently live under the poverty line (Phillips et a!. 2012, 8). According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), despite the significant effects teachers have on student performance, disadvantaged schools are not always staffed with the highest quality teachers (see Darling-Hammond, 2006).

After Darkly Catwalk Design, QUT Fashion Graduate Showcase 2013

QUT Fashion collaborated with QUT Interior Design to design the Catwalk for the After Darkly Graduate Fashion Show 2013. The ephemeral work (catwalk canopy) was developed through a collaboration between the authors based upon an undergraduate interior design unit 'Filmic Interiors'. The unit exploited the potential of film to influence, understand, and develop novel interior spaces – particularly through consideration of mise en scene, cinematic effects and atmospheric design strategies engaged by key film directors. The design outcome represented a hybridisation of student design proposals, contemplating both film and emerging fashion collections from QUT fashion graduate class of 2013. The creative work built upon material experimentation research explored by the designers either through prior QUT interior design units ('Strange Spaces') or through previous practice ‘Making Strange’(1). The work explored a number of iterations each testing material qualities and associated immaterial cinematic affects. The final catwalk proposed a unique design, which posited the spectators centrally within the space, encircled by a hand formed flexible material canopy used as an entrance for the fashion collections. The proposal exploited the malleable yet tensile character of the canopy to inform a temporary installation, intensified further through a varied program of sceno-graphic lighting. (1) Lindquist, M. & Pytel, A. (2013)

Workforce-related risks in projects with a contingent workforce

Our research examined how projects can draw together the fields of human resource management (HRM) and risk management (RM) to consider workforce-related risks on projects; particularly those with a large contingent workforce. It is argued that RM frameworks could be enhanced by a more comprehensive understanding of the specific potential non-technical “people risks” in projects. The study focussed on the Oil and Gas industry and undertook interviews with experts in the field. The findings are considered within the framework of key HRM areas; Management Practices, General Employment Practices, Staffing, HR Development, and Compensation and Benefits, along with Project Completion. Drawing together RM and HRM in a project environment, our research provides a unique opportunity to identify critical workforce-related risks. Such identification is the first step towards a more comprehensive approach to risk assessment and planning for mitigation of such risks in projects.

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.

Teacher education for high poverty schools : the National Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools program

A vital element to improve outcomes for disadvantaged students is outstanding teachers. A reality, however, is that teacher graduates in the top quartile of academic scores are far less likely to accept positions in tough urban, regional, rural and remote schools. Further, because high poverty schools can be challenging environments, these teachers are retained for much shorter periods of time. In response to this challenge, the National Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools program (NETDS) creates a pathway for the highest quality pre-service teachers to be fully prepared, professionally and personally, for roles within high poverty schools. The program identifies the highest-achieving mainstream preservice teachers in university programs across the country and offers them a specialised curriculum and supported practicum experience in a network of disadvantaged partner schools. By working closely with government, philanthropy and partner schools, the program also works to channel these exceptional pre-service teachers into employment in schools where they will have the greatest impact. Its initial results have been exceptional: over 90% of graduates are now employed as teachers in high poverty schools. This paper will discuss their research on how they are working to build the infrastructure and capacity for research on innovations that prepare teachers for 21st century schools in the Australian context.

Learning about and taking action for the environment : child and teacher experiences in a preschool water education program

Water education and conservation programs have grown exponentially in Australian primary and secondary schools and, although early childhood services have been slower to respond to the challenges of sustainability, they are catching up fast. One early program targeted at preschools was the Water Aware Centre Program in northern New South Wales developed by the local water supply authority. This paper reports on a qualitative study of children’s and teachers’ experiences of the program in three preschools. The study’s aim was to identify program attributes and pedagogies that supported learning and action taking for water conservation, and to investigate if and how the program influenced children’s and teachers’practices. Data were collected through an interview with the program designer, conversations with child participants of the program, and a qualitative survey with early childhood staff. A three-step thematic analysis was conducted on the children’s and teachers’ data. Findings revealed that the program expanded children and teachers’ ideas about water conservation and increased their water conservation practices. The children were found to influence the water conservation practices of the adults around them, thus changing practices at school and at home.

The use of multimodal technologies to enhance reflective writing in teacher education

For preservice teachers new to the teaching profession, reflective practice can be a difficult process. Yet reflective writing, once mastered, has the capacity to support preservice teachers to make connections between teaching theory and professional practice, and to start to take control of their own professional learning journey. The reflective practice described in this chapter was scaffolded through a framework for writing, the use of annotated work samples and explicit teaching. This approach was enhanced through multimodal resources including written peer assessment, audio teacher feedback and a video recording of the class presentation. The video footage assisted the preservice teachers to reconcile the feedback that they received from multiple sources. This chapter describes and analyses the implementation of the PRT Pattern (Prompting Reflection using Technology). Results of this practice revealed that the multiple forms of feedback assisted the preservice teachers to analyse their performance in terms of their developing professional identity and practice.

How can principals enhance teacher job satisfaction and work commitment?

Teachers leave the teaching profession at different stages throughout their careers. When mid-career teachers leave the profession, there is a potential loss of experienced, quality staff. Increasingly principals have the responsibility for recruiting and keeping quality staff, which translates to responsibility for arresting the attrition rate. This paper reports on an ongoing study that investigates how school leadership may affect teacher job satisfaction in order to understand how principals can enhance teacher work commitment. This paper uses the domains of leadership identified in Education Queensland’s Leadership Matters Framework (2008) to compare school leaders’ and teachers’ perceptions about mid-career teachers’ leaving the profession. Five current principals and five ex-teachers participated in semi-structured, qualitative, individual interviews about which leadership practices impact on teacher work commitment. The ideas identified by each cohort were coded through a content analysis. The five domains of leadership (i.e., personal, relational, intellectual, organisational and educational leadership) provided an analytical framework. Both participant groups indicated relational leadership practices as the strongest influence on teacher work commitment. The relational skills, such as valuing staff, being approachable, being consistent with staff interactions, having good interpersonal skills and developing staff strengths, were noted to have specific impacts on teachers’ work commitment. There were significant differences between the groups, with the ex-teachers rating the personal leadership practices as the second most important practice that can influence teacher work commitment. In contrast, the principals felt that the organisational and education leadership practices were of next importance for teacher work commitment. The findings have implications for principal leadership professional learning. Improving relational skills may help school leaders to increase teacher work. Teacher attrition is a serious concern to many education jurisdictions and by understanding reasons for decline in commitment, jurisdictions can redress the negative impact of leadership practices and keep teachers committed and in the profession. However, further research needs to incorporate more participants through a quantitative study to validate connections with the qualitative findings presented in this current study.

On the topic of competency and excellence of our graduate engineers

Problem solving is an essential element of civil engineering education. It has been I observed that students are best able to understand civil engineering theory when there is a ' practical application of it. Teaching theory alone has led to lower levels of comprehension and motivation and a correspondingly higher rate of failure and "drop-out". This paper analyses the effectiveness of introducing practical design projects at an early stage within a civil engineering undergraduate program at Queensland University of Technology. In two of the essential basic subjects, Engineering Mechanics and Steel Structures, model projects which simulate realistic engineering exercises were introduced. Students were required to work in small groups to analyse, design and build the lightest I most efficient model bridges made of specific materials such as spaghetti, drinking straw, paddle pop sticks and balsa wood and steel columns for a given design loading/target capacity. The paper traces the success of the teaching strategy at each stage from its introduction through to the final student and staff evaluation.

Mapping geographical knowledge and skills needed for pre-service teachers in teacher education

In Australia, for more than two decades, a ‘social science’ integrated framework was the favoured approach for delivering subjects such as history and geography. However, such interdisciplinary approaches have continued to attract criticism from various parts of the academic and public spheres and since 2009, a return to teaching the disciplines has been heralded as the ‘new’ way forward. Using discourse analysis techniques associated with Foucauldian archaeology, the purpose of this paper is to examine the Australian Curriculum: Geography document to ascertain the discourses necessary for pre-service teachers to enact effective teaching of geography in a primary setting. Then, based on pre-service teachers’ online survey responses, the paper investigates if such future teachers have the knowledge and skills to interpret, deliver and enact the new geography curriculum in primary classrooms. Finally, as teacher educators, our interest lies in preparing pre-service teachers effectively for the classroom so the findings are used to inform the content of a teacher education course for pre-service primary teachers.

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...