Going bush: Preparing pre-service teachers to teach in regional Western Australia

This paper reports on outcomes of Phases One and Two of the ALTC Competitive Research and Development Project "Developing Strategies at the Pre-Service Level to Address Critical Teacher Attraction and Retention Issues in Australian Rural, Regional and Remote Schools." This project funded over two years aims to strengthen the capacity and credibility of universities to prepare rural, regional and remote educators, similar to the capacity and credibility that has been created in preparing Australia's rural, regional and remote health workers. There is a strong recognition of the fundamental importance of quality teaching experiences rural, regional and remote schools and throughout this project over 200 pre-service teachers have participated in a curriculum module/object and completed a survey that encourages them to consider teaching in regional Western Australia. The project has mapped current Western Australian rural, regional and remote pre-service teacher education curriculum and field experience model. This mapping completed a comparison of national information with the identification of rural, regional and remote education curriculum and/or field experience models used nationally and internationally. In particular results from Phase One and Two will be presented reporting on the findings of the first year of the project.

Regional resilience: Pre-service teacher preparation to teach in the bush

This paper reports on the outcomes of a two year ALTC Competitive Research and Development Project that aimed to "Develop Strategies at the Pre-Service Level to Address Critical Teacher Attraction and Retention Issues in Australian Rural, Regional and Remote Schools". As well as developing a ‘training framework’ and teaching guides to increase the capacity and credibility of four universities to prepare educators who might venture out of the metropolitan area to teach, data were gathered from pre-service and graduate teachers to analyse regional resilience. It was found that there was a strong likelihood to participate in a regional practicum and stay in a non-metropolitan community once they graduated from university if they had a positive attitude to regional Western Australia either through a family connection or previous experience. Recommendations from this study emphasise the importance of having pre-service students participate in positive regional experiences early in their university study.

See you in class: Promoting a quality program for pre-service educators in regional locations through a virtual classroom

The quality of an online university degree is paramount to the student, the reputation of the university and most importantly, the profession that will be entered. At the School of Education within Curtin University, we aim to ensure that students within rural and remote areas are provided with high quality degrees equal to their city counterparts who access face-to-face classes on campus.In 2010, the School of Education moved to flexible delivery of a fully online Bachelor of Education degree for their rural students. In previous years, the degree had been delivered in physical locations around the state. Although this served the purpose for the time, it restricted the degree to only those rural students who were able to access the physical campus. The new model in 2010 allows access for students in any rural area who have a computer and an internet connection, regardless of their geographical location. As a result enrolments have seen a positive increase in new students. Academic staff had previously used an asynchronous environment to deliver learning modules housed within a learning management system (LMS). To enhance the learning environment and to provide high quality learning experiences to students learning at a distance, the adoption of synchronous software was introduced. This software is a real-time virtual classroom environment that allows for communication through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and videoconferencing, along with a large number of collaboration tools to engage learners. This research paper reports on the professional development of academic staff to integrate a live e-learning solution into their current LMS environment. It involved professional development, including technical orientation for teaching staff and course participants simultaneously. Further, pedagogical innovations were offered to engage the students in a collaborative learning environment. Data were collected from academic staff through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The findings discuss the perceived value of the technology, problems encountered and solutions sought.

Developing nations need more than words from G20 tax reform

Tax reform is squarely on the agenda for the G20 Brisbane summit in November. The current international tax regime is broken and it’s going to take significant effort on a global scale to fix it. In a recently released CEDA Report on securing the G20’s future, I recommended the role Australia could play in ensuring real and substantive progress is made in international tax reform. There’s a very real need to ensure the Brisbane summit is not just a “talkfest”. One group that stands to significantly win or lose from reform, or lack of it, is developing nations.

Regional Blocs: Building Blocks or stumbling Blocks? (Book Review)

Reviews the book `Regional Blocks: Building Blocks or Stumbling Blocks?,' by A.S. and P. Bhalla.

Social Living Labs for Digital Participation: Designing with Regional and Rural Communities [workshop proceedings]

“Fostering digital participation through Living Labs in regional and rural Australian communities,” is a three year research project funded by the Australian Research Council. The project aims to identify the specific digital needs and practices of regional and rural residents in the context of the implementation of high speed internet. It seeks to identify new ways for enabling residents to develop their digital confidence and skills both at home and in the community. This two-day symposium will bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to discuss design practices in social living labs that aim to foster digital inclusion and participation. Day one will consist of practitioner and research reports, while day two will provide an opportunity for participants to imagine and design future digital participation strategies. Academic participants will also have an opportunity to contribute to a refereed edited volume by Chandos Publishing (an imprint of Elsevier).