Chronicles of architectural internships : student experiences versus practitioner expectations

This paper presents preliminary analysis and data gathered for a master of architecture by research study which seeks to explore the value of student work experience in architecture. It describes the theoretical framework upon which internships provide certain technical and professional knowledge and are regarded as an integral element of professional education. Until the last decade, internship in the architecture profession has received surprisingly little attention from researchers. Structural constraints unique to the architectural profession present challenges to how student work experience/internships can be sustained and it is pertinent to examine its precise relevance for the future. Vignettes of student learning experiences are presented and discussed against vignettes of practitioner expectations. The data in this study have been collected using combined methods of semistructured and open interviews and a qualitative approach to analysis of data. The opportunity to test the results in the architectural practice experience unit currently offered as a one credit earning elective for the architecture degree program at Deakin University will be discussed. It expects to prompt exploration into the potentially potent and broader pedagogical outcomes of a form of work-integrated learning (WIL) framework for students of built environment professions in the future.

Online pedagogy and academic work

This paper emerges from a study that foregrounds the complex nature of the consequences of a decision to implement a range of new technologies including a Learning Management System at one university. The paper draws upon data from interviews with academics to provide insights into the experience of being academic in the 21st century during a time when new technologies of teaching, learning and administration impact on the work of professional academics. It focuses on how academics view and understand online teaching environments; how they make professional judgments about their use of online environments in their teaching and how they make professional judgments about pedagogy. In doing this the paper looks at the differing levels of uptake of new technologies by academics, their levels of engagement and disengagement, the complexity of their relationship with these technologies and their impact on the pedagogy of academics in the study as it looks at patterns of usage in terms of age, gender and levels of experience of academics. It demonstrates the importance of pedagogy to academics and the problems that academics face many of which can be attributed to the impact of measures of bureaucratisation and standardisation including the introduction of an LMS that some argue has lead to the homogenisation of the experience of teaching and learning for both academics and students.

A ring-based architectural model for middle agents in agent-based system

In agent-based systems, the performance of middle agents not only relies on the matchmaking algorithms employed by them, but also the architecture that organizes them with suitable organizational structure and coordination mechanism. In this paper, we contribute a framework and develop a couple of middle agents with logical ring organizational structure to match requester agents with service provider agents. The middle agent is of the features of proliferation and self-cancellation according to the sensory input from its environment. The token-based coordination mechanism of middle agents is designed. Two kinds of middle agents, namely, host and duplicate, are designed for promoting the scalability and robustness of agent-based systems. We demonstrate the potentials of the architecture by case study.

Being explicit about aspects of mathematics pedagogy

It is conventional wisdom that contextualising mathematics tasks can make them more meaningful for students, and that open-ended questions create opportunities for student engagement. Yet concerns are emerging that strategies such as these may exacerbate the disadvantage of some. We report data from a project that seeks to address such concerns by encouraging teachers to be explicit about aspects of their pedagogy. Men teachers were explicit about aspects of the pedagogy, the students responded in the direction intended.

Logistics: Our buildings are always particular to places, access, materials, skills and technologies. How do these limits provide us with architectural opportunities?

Presents a discussion on the relations between architecture and spirituality during the 2005 conference of the Royal Architecture Institute of Australia. Reason behind difficulty encountered by architects to associate architecture and spirituality; Inspiration of Jae Cha of architectural firm Light for designing the Bolivian church; View of Kevin O'Brien of Merrima Design on Aboriginal buildings.

Improving pedagogy in the middle years

There has been considerable emphasis over the last decade on effective teaching and learning in the middle years of schooling, associated with the particular responses to schooling of adolescent students in a period of their lives when issues of identity, commitment, and independence are central to their experience and concern. Extensive research and development has generated considerable reform in Years 5 to 9. Improved understandings of students' different learning styles and needs has led to more diverse and strategic selection of teaching methods. However, there is still considerable scope for improving the quality of contemporary approaches to the education and development of adolescents. A number of major research projects have been conducted by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DE&T) middle years strategy team since 1998, including the Middle Years Research and Development (MYRAD) project, the Middle Years Literacy, and Middle Years Numeracy Research projects. Currently, the focus has shifted to a more explicit framing of a Middle Years pedagogical framework. The Middle Years Pedagogy Research and Development (MYPRAD) project has developed an explicit pedagogical framework that is grounded in research findings from previous projects and from the literature more generally.

Ethnicity, social class, practice and pedagogy : a study of teacher identity

This paper draws on findings from three separate research projects to illustrate how teachers’ and student-teachers’ ethnic and social class identities shape theirrepresentations of professional self, their interactions with their students and the pedagogies they privilege in their classes. The paper raises a number of important implications for teacher education seeking to prepare teachers for culturally diverse contexts such as Australian classrooms. It concludes that a major challenge for teacher educators is to find ways of enabling their students to interrogate often taken-for-granted assumptions about their own ethnic and classed positionings.

Rethinking the English pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan

For many years Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and an English-Only approach to English teaching have characterised pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan.

These approaches have had a significant impact on the ways in which students understand their cultural identities and develop competency in both oral and written English. Sometimes, in the EFL context in Taiwan, an English-Only policy can impact on students' learning in two ways. Firstly, it may cause students to doubt the validity of their own culture in comparison to English speaking culture. Secondly it may lead to students' resisting English culture because of enhanced feelings of nationalism. Furthermore, sometimes, students may feel disturbed when learning English in an English-Only class because the lack of cognitive understanding usually makes them misunderstand the content expressed in the target language (English) and misuse the target language.

In this paper I consider the need to reintroduce elements of the Grammar-Translation method to an EFL context and suggest an integrative pedagogy in which native English-speaking teachers, applying English only in the classes, focus on teaching listening and speaking to directly foster students' English linguistic competence, while local English teachers, applying both English and Chinese in the classes, focus on teaching reading and writing to foster students' in-depth cognitive ability of English culture and suitable written expression. The purpose of such integrative pedagogy is to keep students' cultural identity as well as advance students' understanding and correct use in English.

Towards solutions for a liveable future: progress, practice, performance, people: Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Architectural Science Association ANZAScA

There is hope! Since Al Gore disclosed the inconvenient truth, the climate has changed. The time of denial is over; the era of well-informed action and sound development is with us. Sustainability has now moved from the fringe, into the mainstream of politics, society, architecture and building practice. In this new context architectural science will contribute to two main tasks: prevent further damage to our environment, and respond to challenges invoked by climate change.
The built environment and human activity within it account for a large part of the problem. Architectural science and architectural practice are part of the solution. The ANZAScA 2007 conference focuses on the solutions architectural science has to offer toward a liveable future through the following generic themes:
progress – the evaluation and improvement of built facilities, new and existing, in terms of energy intensity, financial reward and environmental impact.
practice – the relationship between our cultural heritage, new facility design, retrofit design and its realisation
through construction.
performance – the connection between building operation targets, validation of performance, and user comfort and interaction in new and existing environments.
people – the effect of space on user behaviour, user responsibility and social wealth.
In response to this challenge, architectural science researchers including students, educators, and practitioners at ANZAScA 2007, present a broad range of research activity and concern within the built environment from global issues down to the specific actions of individuals.

Little big boys: a study of peers, power and pedagogy

In this paper we will argue that the dominant discourse on young males 'at risk' focuses too narrowly on the adolescent and young adult years. There is a tendency to individualise, both practically and theoretically, behaviours that are thought to substantiate the application of this category. Against this backdrop, we report on a study undertaken with a group of 6-8 year old boys in a primary school setting. The research was compiled around the interactions of an 'affinity group' of five young males across a six-month period. Prominent in our discussion of this data will be, the contextual nature of behaviour and identity, the influential role of the peer group, and the desire to 'other' in defining the self. We conclude by considering some of the implications this work has for the way mainstream schooling is structured and practiced.