Why students should learn about negative pH

A common misconception is that the pH scale runs between 0 and 14. The possible origins of this misconception are discussed and strategies to avoid the misconception are presented.

Learning to think, learning to learn : super teaching for super success

The early childhood years are a busy, exciting time. New discoveries, skills and competencies are a regular part of life for a young child. Early childhood teachers have the opportunity to optimise these amazing and important years. In this paper, I will discuss teaching strategies that can turn children’s possibilities into realities. The practices that will be discussed involve expanding thinking, problem-solving and developing hypotheses. These teaching strategies can build on children’s learning dispositions and their strengths and interests to put the ‘wow factor’ into learning.

Impact of the Learn to Play program on play, social competence and language for children aged 5 - 8 years who attend a specialist school

Introduction
The aim of this study was to investigate the change in the relationship between play, language and social skills of children aged 5–8 years pre and post participation in the ‘Learn to Play’ program. The Learn to Play program is a child led play based intervention aimed at developing self-initiated pretend play skills in children.

Methods
All 19 participants attended a specialist school, with 10 of the 19 children having a diagnosis of autism. The play, language and social skills of the children were assessed at baseline and at follow up. Children were assessed using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment, the Preschool Language Scale and the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale. Follow up data collection occurred after the children had been participating in the Learn to Play program for 1 hour twice a week for 6 months.

Results
After 6 months in the program, typical indicators of play accounted for an increase of 47.3% in shared variance with social interaction and an increase of 36% in shared variance for social connection. For language, object substitution ability accounted for 50% of the shared variance, which was an increase of 27% from baseline.

Conclusion
The ‘Learn to Play’ program was associated with increases in children's language and social skills over a 6-month period within a special school setting, indicating the Learn to Play program is an effective intervention for children with developmental disabilities. This paper presents an example of how the Learn to Play program can be adapted into a classroom setting.

Negotiating the university environment : how first year students learn about university processes

This paper is an attempt to make sense of the literature about how new university students develop an understanding of those university processes that are essential to their academic success. Whereas traditionally there has been a tendency to regard students as deficient if they had transition difficulties, such an approach fails to recognise the complexity of the process and the role of the habitus, as explored by Bourdieu (1993), in rendering this task even more difficult for some students. The literature highlights the need for further research. We suggest the need to do so with regard to the complexity of students' experiences and the need to better appreciate the role of emotional or affective influences to that end. We also suggest that Bourdieu's concepts, especially those concerning habitus, would provide a sound foundation for the suggested research.

Loss and grief in the workplace. What can we learn from the literature?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine how Australian workplaces, their managers and employees respond to those who are grieving at work, as a result of chronic or terminal illness, or caring for those with chronic or terminal illness. The review draws on Australian and relevant international literature and seeks to answer this question.
Design/methodology/approach – A literature review was undertaken in preparation for an Australian study examining workplace supports for people who are grieving – because they are carers, have experienced a death, or are balancing their own illness with their work. Using a range of search terms, the literature was searched for relevant work between 1980 and 2010. The search found examples of workplace supports throughout the world and some developing Australian literature.
Findings – Despite illness and death occurring at any stage of a person's life, there is little research that identifies workplace issues associated with grief and loss. And while workplace legislation allows for minimal supports, there was evidence that some workplaces have begun to offer flexibility for work life balance.
Practical implications – Effective workplace supports will involve individual and workplace responses, but also require legislative approaches in order to effect broad-based system change.
Originality/value – The paper compares Australian and international literature about workplace supports and provides an overview of the issues arising.

Prevention of common mental disorders: what can we learn from those who have gone before and where do we go next?

Objective:

iTeach we learn via mobile apps : "a case study in a business course"

Mobile smart phones and Mobile applications (apps) can be seen as an added opportunity for education and for teachers in particular, this can be true if educational institutions are willing to enable this type of delivery mechanism. With the recent development of app technologies in today’s society and the shift towards mobile technologies (devices and applications), it seems hard to imagine better devices and tools that can grant students easy and on demand access to learning content. These smart devices and technologies are multitasking and can offer variety of educational apps that teachers and students are able to integrate into their daily learning activities and can carry with them anywhere. In this paper mobile apps and their integration in education are discussed, a case study on the use of three mobile apps (e-Lecture-Producer, Dropbox and QR Code) in an educational setting in a Business e-commerce course is described. Results and outcomes are discussed based on the results from the case study.

Constructing representations to learn in science

Current research into student learning in science has shifted attention from the traditional cognitivist perspectives of conceptual change to socio-cultural and semiotic perspectives that characterize learning in terms of induction into disciplinary literacy practices. This book builds on recent interest in the role of representations in learning to argue for a pedagogical practice based on students actively generating and exploring representations. The book describes a sustained inquiry in which the authors worked with primary and secondary teachers of science, on key topics identified as problematic in the research literature. Data from classroom video, teacher interviews and student artifacts were used to develop and validate a set of pedagogical principles and explore student learning and teacher change issues. The authors argue the theoretical and practical case for a representational focus. The pedagogical approach is illustrated and explored in terms of the role of representation to support quality student learning in science. Separate chapters address the implications of this perspective and practice for structuring sequences around different concepts, reasoning and inquiry in science, models and model based reasoning, the nature of concepts and learning, teacher change, and assessment. The authors argue that this representational focus leads to significantly enhanced student learning, and has the effect of offering new and productive perspectives and approaches for a number of contemporary strands of thinking in science education including conceptual change, inquiry, scientific literacy, and a focus on the epistemic nature of science.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow : attempting to plan for coastal change in South West Victoria

Learn from yesterday, live for today hope for tomorrow. When Albert Einstein penned these opening words, the realm of planning was least on his mind despite the aptness of the thoughts. This paper, having regard to this quotation, questions whether demographic change in one coastal area is occurring at a faster rate than in non–coastal areas? The South West coastal area of Victoria, from 1981 onwards, has witnessed a dramatic increase in population and also major shifts in the social and economic characteristics of the region. What have been the historic demographic and employment characteristics of the area and has there been a shift in these characteristics leading to the rapid population growth? These questions are considered using the City of Warrnambool, the largest urban centre in South West Victoria, as a study vehicle. The impact of a growing population on the municipal landscape can be demanding in terms of land use planning, land supply and the urban design. This paper will review the population growth using a shift share analysis method compared against overall growth patterns in the Victorian state population and Australia overall. It will then examine government population forecasts for the City of Warrnambool and suggest those impacts upon the current City of Warrnambool landscape.