Preparing pre-service physical education teachers for uncertain future(s) : a scenario-based learning case study from Australia

Background: A key aim of a physical education teacher education (PETE) program is to promote wide and deep knowledge, enabling students to establish connections and understand contexts within and beyond education, physical education and their life worlds. Most often PETE programs equip students with content knowledge and pedagogical strategies that help them address current challenges, but less attention is directed to helping the students anticipate future challenges and engage with opportunities they may face as teachers.
Purpose: This paper presents a case study of scenario-based learning as it was implemented in a final year PETE program in an Australian university, as a means of preparing students for their future teaching careers.
Participants and setting: Twenty-five final year pre-service physical education teachers enrolled in the culminating unit of their physical education degree.
Data collection: Scenario-based learning was introduced to the students via class discussion and assigned tasks. Examples of student-written scenarios and reflection on the experience from the lecturer and student perspectives are analysed.
Findings: Although the cohort found the process of scenario-based learning daunting the post-unit questionnaires revealed that it was a valued and valuable means of exploring professional issues they will face in the future. Scenario-based learning was a powerful tool of learning as well as modelling a pedagogy students could use in the upper levels of secondary school.
Conclusion: This paper argues that scenario-based learning should be a key component of forward-looking PETE programs that encourage their graduates to solve problems about issues they may face as beginning teachers.

A life in environmental education : an autobiographical case study

This thesis reveals that context can be used as a tool to explore the connections, interpretations and meanings individuals assign to their existence and unique constructions of reality. Effective and transformative environmental education is dependent on a deeper understanding and examination of these unique existential and contextual forces.

The waterhole : using educational drama as a pedagogical tool in a foreign language class at a public primary school in Japan

This study investigates Japanese primary school students’ and teachers’ responses to educational drama as a pedagogical tool in their English language classes. Along with the participants’ responses, the applicability of educational drama as a teaching method for the Japanese teachers is also discussed. The study was conducted in Japan as ateacher-researcher using participatory action research methods. The participants of the study are three Year Six classes and their teachers in a public primary school in Japan. Educational drama is introduced as an alternative teaching and learning method to these participants who have had no experience of drama in education.

Restructuring teacher education, the national interest and globalisation

This paper argues that the repositioning of Asian countries as new 'centres' for world trade and commerce and the transformation of Australian society and economy to accord with this global consolidation, includes a general restructuring of all levels of Australia's 'education industry' and specifically the (re)forming of its initial teacher and professional-education programmes. The need for such reformation arises in part from the restructuring of the work of teaching based on a broader definition of the people and educational settings that are involved in the teaching/learning process, a reworking of this teaching/learning process, the higher status given to certain substantive areas of study, such as languages other than English, and the management of education along corporatist lines. This paper suggests further that teacher-education programmes should also provide students with the resources to critically analyse these changes, giving consideration to issues such as identity, the impact of new technologies on culture and learning, the use of language in promoting particular discourses, and the repositioning of education as a tool for economic reform.

Facing off : facebook and higher education

A social and cultural expectation that Information Communication Technologies (ICT) should be ubiquitous within peoples' daily lives is apparent. Connecting generational groups with a specific set of technological attributes also assumes the ways that particular groups of students should be able/do “naturally” use emergent mobile and social technologies. Moreover, the use of social networking technologies is evident in a number of ways within higher education (HE) pedagogies. As part of the suite of possibilities in Web 2.0, Facebook is used in a number of ways to support communications within and between institutions and their students as well as a mechanism for teaching and learning within specific units of study.

The chapter commences with a broad discussion about social sharing software of Web 2.0, specifically Facebook, as a potential teaching and learning tool in HE contexts. We traverse recent exemplars and discourses surrounding the use of social technologies for the purposes of HE. It is clear from the literature that while there is much excitement at the possibilities that such technologies offer, there are increasing anxieties across institutional and individual practitioners, in regard to possible consequences of their use.

Through autoethnographic methodology, this chapter showcases potentials and challenges of Facebook in HE. Through the use of constructed scenarios, the authors describe occurrences that necessitate increasing professional development and vigilance online. Some of the issues highlighted within this chapter include blurring of professional and personal life world boundaries, issues of identity theft and vandalism, cyberstalking and bullying, working in the public domain, and questions of virtual integrity.

Contemporary planning education and Indigenous cultural competency agendas : erasing terra nullius, respect and responsibility

As noted in Universities Australia’s (2011a, 2011b) investigations into Indigenous Cultural Competency, most universities have struggled with successfully devising and achieving a translation of Indigenous protocols into their curricula. Walliss & Grant (2000: 65) have also concluded that, given the nature of the built environment disciplines, including planning, and their professional practice activities, there is a “need for specific cultural awareness education” to service these disciplines and not just attempts to insert Indigenous perspectives into their curricula. Bradley’s policy initiative at the University of South Australia (1997-2007), “has not achieved its goal of incorporation of Indigenous perspectives into all its undergraduate programs by 2010, it has achieved an incorporation rate of 61%” (Universities Australia 2011a: 9; http://www.unisa.edu.au/ducier/icup/default.asp).

Contextually, Bradley’s strategic educational aim at University of South Australia led a social reformist agenda, which has been continued in Universities Australia’s release of Indigenous Cultural Competency (2011a; 2011b) reports that has attracted mixed media criticism (Trounson 2012a: 5, 2012b: 5) and concerns that it represents “social engineering” rather than enhancing “criticism as a pedagogical tool ... as a means of advancing knowledge” (Melleuish 2012: 10). While the Planning Institute of Australia’s (PIA) Indigenous Planning Policy Working Party has observed that fundamental changes are needed to the way Australian planning education addresses Indigenous perspectives and interests, it has concluded that planners “! perceptual limitations of their own discipline and the particular discourse of our own craft” were hindering enhanced learning outcomes (Wensing 2007: 2). Gurran (PIA 2007) has noted that the core curriculum in planning includes an expectation of “knowledge of ! Indigenous Australian cultures, including relationships between their physical environment and associated social and economic systems” but that it has not been addressed. This paper critiques these discourses and offers an Indigenous perspective of the debate.

An education in Facebook

For some years academics have debated the role in higher education of Facebook, the world’s most extensive social networking site. At first there was enthusiasm—it was a new tool that could be ‘repurposed’ for education; then, as Facebook became more widespread, its use seemed less than opportune. But now, with so many students already engaged before they even come to a university, perhaps it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Facebook is as natural to education as the commute, the computer, and everything else which students ‘bring’. This paper first presents a summary of what Facebook affords, by way of its design and use, for online communication and networking, demonstrating the central role of reciprocal acts of attention exchange in this system. It then analyses, through a critical reading of research into Facebook and education, the way Facebook challenges traditional understandings of university education and the relationships between teachers and students. It concludes that, however we might seek to use Facebook in higher education (and there are many reasons we might), its use will always be shaped by—and indeed give rise to—a blurring of the traditional boundaries between formal and informal education.

Presidential address : culture and the future of education research

Recent changes in higher education have confronted education research with a conundrum: how our traditionally multidisciplinary field can refine itself as a unified discipline. In this address I sketch out what this conundrum may mean for education research, both substantively and methodologically, in the future. I propose that one starting point is for education researchers to consider what unites rather than divides us. One common, unifying conceptual concern is with the operation of culture/s in educational settings. I use the narratives of two teachers from different places and times to illustrate how culture analysis can be a fruitful tool for understanding the experience and practice of Education. In my conclusion, I extend the theme of culture to education research itself. I suggest that the challenge of disciplinary identity confronting education research requires a culture change in the modus operandi of our practice, and that this will involve an articulated focus on methodological pluralism, interdisciplinarity, and the use of new modes of communication as key unifying elements of the discipline of education research.

Students' perceptions on using iPods in accounting education : a mobile-learning experience

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to assess the benefits derived from the application of mobile devices as part of the students’ online learning experience and the extent to which the perceived benefits are linked to student learning styles.

Design/methodology/approach – A small group of students enrolled in an exclusively online graduate accounting program were issued with iPods as part of their learning materials. Two data collection instruments were issued: a questionnaire to elicit students’ opinions on the usefulness of the iPod as a tool for learning; and a questionnaire to establish their learning styles (using a VARK© questionnaire).

Findings – The findings indicate that the primary advantage of iPods lies in its portability, which, in turn, facilitated efficient and effective use of time and study planning. The portability attached to iPods allowed students to take advantage of what otherwise have been down-time, such as commuting. Students with a preference for visual learning rated the iPod as being important to their learning.

Research limitations/implications – The generalizability of the findings is limited due to the low sample size (23) that constrains the robustness of the results.

Originality/value – The exploratory nature of this study provides preliminary evidence on the perceived usefulness of handheld devices as a learning tool.

Introducing the D4 Diagnostic Quadrant as a targeting tool: developing a framework for the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS interventions in Tanzania and beyond

The current study develops and evaluates a tool to distinguish four different categories of educators for the effective delivery of HIV/AIDS health education using data from 548 randomly selected participants aged 16 years. The D4 Diagnostic Quadrant is based on HIV knowledge and sexual practice behaviours and indicates four distinct typologies of educator. The discerning educator has high HIV/AIDS knowledge and healthy sexual practices. The dissolute educator has high HIV/AIDS knowledge but employs unhealthy or risky sexual practices. The decorous educator has low HIV/AIDS knowledge but practices healthy sexual practices. The disempowered educator has low HIV/AIDS knowledge and employs unhealthy or risky sexual practices. The study found that the two categories that will result in the most effective behaviour-change interventions are those that target ‘discerning’ and ‘decorous’ individuals as the educators. Both these categories have underlying healthy practices that minimise the risk of HIV transmission. The D4 Diagnostic Quadrant tool provides information as to existing knowledge and beliefs about HIV/AIDS that can inform decisions relating to the allocation of scarce resources. The tool will be very useful in the selection process of would-be educators particularly in health-promotion interventions.

External policy influence and higher education reform in Ethiopia : understanding symbolic power of the World Bank

Increasingly national policy processes are intersected with and affected by global policy actors and ideas. In aid-recipient countries such as Ethiopia, donors use financial and non-financial means to influence national policy decisions and directions. This paper is about the non-financial influence of the World Bank (WB) in the Ethiopian higher education policy reform. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘thinking tool’, the paper aims to shed light on forms of symbolic capital that the Bank uses to generate a ‘misrecognisable’ form of power that regulates the HE policy process in Ethiopia. The findings show that the WB transforms its symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy to establish a ‘shared misrecognition’ and thereby make its policy prescriptions implicit and hence acceptable to local policy agents. The Bank uses knowledge-based regulatory instruments to induce compliance to its neoliberal policy prescriptions. The paper therefore underscores the value of symbol power as an analytical framework to understand elusive but critical role of donors in policy processes of aid recipient countries.

The challenges of blended learning using a media annotation tool

Blended learning has been evolving as an important approach to learning and teaching in tertiary education. This approach incorporates learning in both online and face-to-face modes and promotes deep learning by incorporating the best of both approaches. An innovation in blended learning is the use of an online media annotation tool (MAT) in combination with face-to-face classes. This tool allows students to annotate their own or teacher-uploaded video adding to their understanding of professional skills in various disciplines in tertiary education. Examination of MAT occurred in 2011 and included nine cohorts of students using the tool. This article canvasses selected data relating to MAT including insights into the use of blended learning focussing on the challenges of combining face-to-face and online learning using a relatively new online tool.

Measuring organisational capabilities in the higher education sector

Purpose – Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework and instrument to measure the organisational capabilities of university schools/ departments. In doing so, this study provides evidence of the way competitive resources are bundled to generate organisational capabilities that give university schools/departments a sustainable competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire to measure the resources that contribute to the capabilities of university schools/departments was developed. Constructs were determined, and the questionnaire was refined based on an analysis of responses from 166 Heads of schools/departments across all 39 Australian public universities. Findings – Heads conceive of the development of capabilities within their schools/departments along the core operating functions of research, teaching, and networking. Reliability and supplementary analysis confirm these constructs have strong convergent and discriminant validity as well as internal consistency. Research limitations/implications – The findings confirm that effective management and coordination of research, teaching, and networking with important stakeholders are keys to success. The framework and instrument developed in this paper also provides the opportunity to investigate university performance through the perspective of the RBV, which will enhance the understanding of the determinants of universities’ performance. Practical implications – The framework and questionnaire developed in this study can be utilised by Heads as a diagnostic tool to gain an understanding of their department’s/school’s organisational capabilities in the areas of research, teaching, and networking. Originality/value – This paper is the first study to develop a framework and questionnaire to measure organisational capabilities for university academic schools/departments.