Picture books stimulate the learning of mathematics

In this article we describe our experiences using picture books to provide young children (five- to six-year-olds) with a learning environment where they can explore and extend preliminary notions of mathematics-related concepts, without being taught these concepts explicitly. We gained these experiences in the PICO-ma project, which aimed to generate more knowledge about the effect of picture books on young children's learning of mathematics. The project's goal is to investigate how picture books can contribute to the development of mathematical concepts in young children, and how the actions of the teacher can strengthen the characteristics of picture books that support learning. The reading sessions described in this article were not intended to be mathematics 'lessons'. Instead, the reading sessions were intended to tell the children a pleasant story and, at the same time, give them something to think about. Based on our research we provide reasons for using picture books to develop mathematical thinking, and include recommendations for practitioners interested in using picture books for mathematics learning.

Pocket books of engagement : a 'just-in- time' framework for a high quality first year student experience

This paper describes a 'just-in-time' engagement framework for a high quality first year experience ('FYE'). The concept 'just-in-time' refers to a student-centered timeline for a managed learning environment based on the week-to-week experiences faced by a first year student in an Australian University semester. The engagement framework detailed in this paper consists of a series of teaching strategies embedded as part of a designed, integrated and co-ordinated first year program, expanding on the transition blueprint of Nelson, Kift, Humphreys & Harper (2006), working within a transition pedagogy (Kift, 2008) and implementing an institutional-wide program of collaborative engagement. This paper discusses the application of this framework to a first year foundational unit in the Bachelor of Laws degree at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, implemented as part of an embedded institutional-wide transition program.

To wrap or not to wrap? What is expected? Some initial findings from a study of gift wrapping

This paper aims to explore and discuss the expectations surrounding the decision to wrap a gift. Gift wrapping can enable an object to be turned into a gift through the development of meaning that symbolises it as a gift. There are two key expectations surrounding the use of gift wrapping. The first expectation is that receivers prefer gifts to be wrapped and the second expectation is that the gift meets individual and social expectations of what a gift should look like. Data was gathered using three qualitative techniques; observation, interviews and projective workshops. These initial findings form part of a larger research study into gift wrapping.

The gift of perseverance

The Exhibition was held as a part of  Melbourne Writers Festival, 2008

The gift of absence

This thesis explores the different readings of sublimation offered by Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein from the perspective of clinical work and with an emphasis on clinical cases. The distinction Lacan draws between maternal and feminine jouissance is pivotal in explaining the differences in their work.

"A lasting gift to his descendants” : family memory and the great war in Australia

This article examines the processes of remembering and transmitting experiences of the Great War within families of Australian veterans now passed on. It focuses on a recent boom in private publishing of ancestors’ personal letters and diaries and argues that these practices continue to reimagine and reshape family memories of the war. In so doing it exposes the range of family members implicated in family remembrance then and now, and so complicates any process by which a war almost beyond living memory is to become entirely understood by its public myths and representations.

Making difference SUPER : a critical approach to the politics of celebrity-authored children's books

Recent years have seen a flood of celebrity-authored children’s books enter the children’s literature marketplace. This paper tracks the evolution of this phenomenon as it pertains to contemporary celebrity culture, and responds to the question: what are the embedded messages about identity at play in such texts? The key contention here is that these works endorse celebrity as the most desirable identity category for the children of the new millennium, going so far as to position difference as a commodity to be traded in the quest for fame. Using critical theory around celebrity culture, and through a close reading of a short celebrity-authored picture book, this paper demonstrates that far from being innocuous pieces of popular culture, such books beckon children into a world that increasingly values visibility and stardom above all else.

Dual audiences, double pedagogies : representing family literacy as parental work in picture books

Narrative for a dual audience of children and adults is a field of expanding interest among children’s literature scholars. A great deal of the extant research is implicitly or explicitly informed by longstanding anxieties about the status of children’s fiction, a context that shifts the parameters of the analysis to questions of literary sophistication. Whilst some attention is paid to the readersubject position of the child reader, rather less is given to the positioning of the adult reader in relation to the pedagogical agendas of such texts. This article examines picture books featuring parents reading to preschool children. In the context of family literacy, it is an instance in which the pedagogical address to the adult reader is as significant as the address to the child. Drawing on distinctions between double and dual address, the article examines the ways in which representations of parents.