The development of young children's mathematical understanding

Early childhood mathematics education research is burgeoning in Australasia. This chapter highlights and critiques key research in the area that has been published between 2004 and 2007. In particular, it considers specific mathematical topics such as number and numeracy, space and measurement, and structure and patterning; contextual matters such as links among home, school, pri or·to·sch 001 settings and community, indigenous learners and mathematics learning as children start school; assessment of mathematics learning in early childhood settings and the professional development of early childhood teachers of mathematics. It concludes with some suggestions for fruitful areas of future research.

Identifying the underlying dimensions of teachers' emotional intelligence

Within the area of educational research that has its focus on individual differences, the concept of emotional intelligence and its study in relation to the professional lives of teachers has raised considerable interest over the past decade. This article reports on data from a new measure of emotional intelligence specifically related to situations in the teaching environment. The four underlying dimensions that are identified in this study appear to be a more relevant way of characterising emotional intelligence for those in the teaching profession than other conceptualisations of emotional intelligence. The article concludes with an examination of the contention that emotional intelligence is strongly connected to effective teaching practice

Like blood or brown water

Gaylene Perry records the paradox of being a vegetarian in a family of butchers.

The non-verbal and the verbal: expanding awareness of practice-led research in creative writings

This paper takes up the concept of practice-led research: research (or the production and performance of knowledge) that is implicit within practice – in this case creative arts practice and more specifically, creative writing practice. Does practice-led research offer new possibilities for recognition of contributions to research by writers? This exploration of creative practice and research stretches out tendrils between creative writing and other art forms. What may the predominantly non-verbal creative arts disciplines offer creative writing in terms of exploring modes of knowledge production and performance?

Emotional intelligence and teaching : solving the puzzle

The emotional intelligence of educators has a major influence on how well they are able to help people to learn. Teachers with high levels of emotional intelligence always or usually adopt an appropriate emotionally intelligent response in both positive and negative situations. Teachers with low levels of emotional intelligence sometimes adopt an emotionally intelligent response in positive situations but seldom or never in negative situations. These differences have some significant implications. The authors' research shows that emotional intelligence and self-efficacy are different but related concepts. A teacher's level of emotional intelligence is linked to his or her sense of self-efficacy. A teacher with high levels of emotional intelligence is more likely to be able to work more effectively and persist longer because they have a belief in their own ability and feel that they are in control. The emotionally intelligent teacher is sensitive to his or her own emotions and the emotions of others and so is able to build positive relationships with colleagues and students. Beyond that, a teaching environment that is emotionally healthy and supportive will enhance the development of teachers' emotional intelligence.

Ferals, nomads, drifters, gypsies, vagrants, blow-ins, thieves, troublemakers, tricksters and terrorists : creative writing, from creative industries to creative ecologies

In this paper I consider some issues that I, as a creative writer and academic, find with the concept and current understandings of the term creative industries. The subject of creative industries is not one that has been adequately teased out in relation to creative writing, even though the creative industries model has been a strong force in cultural policymaking internationally since the late 1990s. It influences policies that in turn may affect writers, especially those applying for state or national funds to resource their writing, and also writers working within the academy and attempting to gain recognition and funding for creative work there. The issues relating to creative industries are also particularly pertinent at this time in Australian universities, as the new system of research quality measurement is negotiated, and creative arts scholars, including those in creative writing, struggle to define their work in terms of those negotiations. I will argue that the recent work of Paul Carter looks towards ways in which creative industries may be more inclusive and useful for the creative arts, including creative writing, and suggest that a reclaimed term, creative ecologies, indicates a good way of taking creative industries into the future.

An exploration of individual differences in teachers’ temperaments and multiple intelligence

For this study on individual differences, predictions were made from the literature on the four temperaments in order to examine how teachers with particular temperaments might use their multiple intelligence strengths in their approaches to teaching and learning. From a cohort of 336 beginning teachers it was found that temperaments and multiple intelligences are two separate constructs. The differences in patterns of intelligence strengths confirm that each of the four temperaments is distinct from the other. Teachers adopting a Catalyst Temperament have above average strengths in Linguistic, Musical, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Intelligences. Those with a Stabilizer Temperament display above average strengths in Logical-Mathematical and Interpersonal Intelligences. Teachers adopting a Theorist Temperament demonstrate strengths in Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Spatial and Intrapersonal Intelligences. Those with an Improviser Temperament show below average strengths in all except Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence.

Water's edge and the water's edge writing

Thesis consists of a novel and an exegesis with bibliography. There is no title page or abstract provided by the author.

Narrativization of actuality : convergence of form and genre in film and television

The thesis concerns the treatment of actuality in film and television, particularly the narrativization of actuality images, and the context of their placement within audio/visual texts. Several instances of the convergence of media form and genre are analyzed, and the conventions of classificatory systems and boundaries that pertain to film and television representations are reconsidered in light of changes in the conventions of genre. The distinction between, and convergence of fictional and non-fictional conventions of narrative are therefore central to the thesis, as are the related issues of viewer response, the nature of subjectivity in the viewer, the connectivity of text and culture, and the relations of actuality to the text. The thesis traces the narrativization of actuality through textual, formal and genre boundaries, adopting a ‘line of flight or deterritorialization’ that enables the thesis to ‘change in nature and connect with other multiplicities.’This line of flight passes through the conventional separation of genre groupings and texts, and, similarly, has been applied in the thesis as a rationale for the diminution of theoretical boundaries. A multiperpectival approach is applied to the permeability of, or transcendent relations of the analysis to the boundaries between genres, between texts and culture, and between actuality and virtual representation. In the thesis there is also a theoretical deterritorialization that consents to a pluralism of theory, which is an approach demonstrated by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. The model of multi-perspectivalism adopted in the thesis engages in establishing connections and similarities between theories, rather than emphasizing contradictory and exclusive practices. The Foucauldian notion of the rules of formation in discourse, Nichols’ theories of documentary representation of reality, Bordwell’s schematic interpretation, and several other positions are critiqued, as the line of flight embarked upon in the thesis intersects with, and passes through both textual and theoretical boundaries. The thesis consists of two parts: firstly, a location of theoretical perspective, in which the issues of theory pertaining to actuality and narrative are explicated, and the methodological approach of the thesis is defined. The second part commences with an analysis of the most familiar instances of actuality in film and television, with particular attention to documentary forms. It then engages in the analysis of films that represent actuality but which, in the process of narrativization, display a convergence of genre conventions. The films selected for analysis include Steven Speilberg's Schindler's List, (1993) Oliver Stone's JFK, (1991) and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, (1994) and Contact, (1996). Hence the thesis is concerned with the application of a pluralist theoretical approach, with, however, an emphasis on the Deleuzo-Guattarian notions of rhizome and assemblage. Within this theoretical frame, the connections between actuality and the audio/visual text are explicated, and the formation of text as ‘a rhizome with the world’, is analyzed across a range of examples.

Tracks

The artwork is intended to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of North Terrace and by extension, the many layered cultural facets of South Australia. It is called ‘Tracks’ because the stories are presented as moving tracks of electronic text in vertical columns, in an LED(lighting omitting diode) medium. It is also called ‘Tracks’ because the siting of the LED pillars is determined by a ‘variable grid’ ground pattern which forms a significant feature of the new landscape design. It celebrates the cultural heritage of North Terrace through the composition of four text gathering histories, anecdotes, facts and aspirations under the four headings of air, water, fire and earth. These stories are presented to the public as four colour differentiated continuous streams or tracks of electronic text in four columns placed on the northern side of North Terrace.