The e-learning cycle and continuous improvement for e-entrepreneurs

The purpose of this paper is to explore the integration of learning, continuous improvement and innovation theories as a basis for enhancing the education of e-entrepreneurs. Conceptual development of emerging interdisciplinary literature is combined with example analysis to develop the Circle of E-learning uniquely augmented by hermeneutics, action research and the creative destruction cycle of innovation using applied examples of e-entrepreneurship. Four R’s are discussed in the Circle of E-learning; Review, Revise, Reconstruct, and Reveal. Observations for each of the 4R’s are made regarding continuous improvement of the education of e-entrepreneurs. Findings are that the procedural pivot points indicated by the 4R’s can be helpful for administrators and educators to improve operations and outcomes in management and professional development situations.

Learning in both worlds : academic journalism as a research outcome

Works of journalism by journalism academics can be valuable outcomes of research without making the claim that they are scholarly works per se. In the discussion of the feature article Learning in both worlds that follows, I make a case for the importance of writing and publishing this piece of journalism as an outcome of my research on the interplay of news media and bilingual education policy in Australia’s Northern Territory 1988-2008. I also advocate the ‘experimental’ possibilities such works of journalism offer for ‘testing’ research findings, concepts and theories.

Modern enhancements in teaching design theories to mechanical engineering students

This paper describes the application of computer aided design (CAD) in teaching advanced design methodologies to fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in mechanical engineering. This involves modern enhancements in teaching strategies for subjects such as design-for-X (DFx) and failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) concepts, which are traditionally categorised as advanced design methodologies. The main subsets of DFx including design-for-assembly (DFA), design-for-disassembly (DFD), design-for-manufacturing (DFM), design-for-environment (DFE) and design-for-recyclability (DFR) were covered by studying various engineering and consumer products. The unit was designed as a combination of practical hands-on workshop-based classes along with a software-based evaluation of different products. In addition to CAD, finite element modelling techniques were utilised to enhance the students’ understanding of design faults and failures. The inquiry into teaching practice and design of this fourth-year unit was carried out during past two years and it revealed some interesting outcomes from our teaching practice in terms of students’ learning experiences. Finally, the paper discusses some critical factors in the context of teaching advanced design methodologies to the undergraduates in mechanical engineering and even manufacturing engineering.

Learning architecture through ideas about the spatial body

There are many varied ways that the human body is referred to in the thinking about architecture. However, rethinking about the body in other disciplines has meant that some of the binary theories within architecture have needed to be reviewed. The spatial body is a particular conceptualisation of the body that brings a focus onto space within architecture, and proposes that rethinking space through the body produces different and new ideas of spatiality. This paper examines body-architecture relations and how they might be revised in order that a spatial body is conceptualised. While this idea of the spatial body has been theorised through research, it can also be explored through creative practices and teaching. The theory is extended by a presentation of a studio programme that tried to develop exploration of architectural space through the idea of the spatial body.

Material world: learning and teaching chemistry

 In the Australian National Curriculum, the science understanding of overarching ideas of matter and energy covers science topics in the conceptual area of chemistry, such as the properties, forms and uses of different materials, the states of matter (solid, liquid and gas), and energy, such as forces, movement and electricity. This chapter focusses on explaining the abstract science ideas related to matter and energy through the use of appropriate vocabulary, examining ways of organising knowledge and linking scientific models and theories to observations and experiences. The particle model of matter is used to explain common observations, demonstrating the value of scientific inquiry and the role of models and representations in scientific thinking. A directed inquiry teaching approach in which there is a focus on the use of representations is recommended for these abstract topics. Representations are a vital component of communicating the abstract ideas of matter and energy. The use of the pedagogical approach in which students construct and evaluate representations of scientific ideas is used in the negotiation and development of their understandings.

Teaching critical reflection: a tool for transformative learning in social work?

In an Australian Bachelor of Social Work degree, critical reflection is a process explicitly taught in a fourth year subject to students who have returned from their first field placement experience in agencies delivering social work programmes. The purpose of teaching critical reflection is to enable social work students to become autonomous and critical thinkers who can reflect on society, the role of social work and social work practices. The way critical reflection is taught in this fourth year social work unit relates closely to the aims of transformative learning. Transformative learning aims to assist students to become autonomous thinkers. Specifically, the critical reflection process taught in this subject aims to assist students to recognise their own and other people's frames of reference, to identify the dominant discourses circulating in making sense of their experience, to problematise their taken-for -granted ‘lived experience’, to reconceptualise identity categories, disrupt assumed causal relations and to reflect on how power relations are operating. Critical reflection often draws on many theoretical frameworks to enable the recognition of current modes of thinking and doing. In this paper, we will draw primarily on how post-structural theories, specifically Foucault's theorising, disrupt several taken-for-granted concepts in social work.

Special issue : recent advances in soft computing : theories and applications

Soft Computing is an interdisciplinary area that encompasses a variety of computing paradigms. Examples of some popular soft computing paradigms include fuzzy computing, neural computing, evolutionary computing, and probabilistic computing. Soft computing paradigms, in general, aim to produce computing systems/machines that exhibit some useful properties, e.g. making inference with vague and/or ambiguous information, learning from noisy and/or incomplete data, adapting to changing environments, and reasoning with uncertainties. These properties are important for the systems/machines to be useful in assisting humans in our daily activities. Indeed, soft computing paradigms have been demonstrated to be capable of tackling a wide range of problems, e.g. optimization, decision making, information processing, pattern recognition, and intelligent data analysis. A number of papers pertaining to some recent advances in theoretical development and practical application of different soft computing paradigms are highlighted in this special issue.

Learning from rural planning development to encourage urban and regional planning ; indigenous villages versus city development in Bali province

The most important crises in the planning system is related to the significance of "capitalist state" influences [3]. In the global context, Bengs states that there is a matter partiality between "global capitalism" and "national democracy"[4]. Bengs stresses that planning is closely related to the economy of a country, which is in one side the government wants to reduce taxes, while on the other side there is a dilemma of the global and indefinite solicitation of assets. Hall (2002) discusses the problems of the city; those are city planning, history of planning, and geographical setting. City planning is not only planning in one region but also including the district around the city, such as river basin and a certain regional culture. The urban planner should involve all those aspects in the city planning. Friedmann (2003) distinguishes planning theory into three types. First, planning theory is related to planning in particular fields such as land utilization, transportation, urban design, regional development, environmental planning etc. Second, the type of theory related to planning tout court, and the third type is the theory about planning itself. Sanyal (2002) states that although planners have limited autonomy, their actions affect policy result [5]. Friedman (2003) supports Sanyal's argument stressing that planners learned from their actions not from theories.

O where are you going? O do you imagine? Reproduction and response : a reflexive sociology of scholarship of teaching and learning in practical legal training

My doctoral research studies Australian PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning. I argue that many PLT practitioners are motivated to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning in their work. There are, however, individual and extra-individual impediments.
PLT practitioners are lawyers that teach in institutional practical legal training (“PLT”). Satisfactory completion of mandatory PLT is an eligibility requirement for admission to the Australian legal profession. The PLT requirement is additional to academic legal qualifications. PLT is undertaken at a post-graduate level with, or after, the academic law degree.
My study investigates PLT practitioners’ motivations and capabilities to engage with scholarship of teaching and learning (“SoTL”). I study organisational symbolic support for SoTL in PLT, and organisational allocation of resources to SoTL in PLT.
The study involves individual and extra-individual domains of PLT practitioners’ work. It considers how social structures (e.g. “the juridical”) are inscribed into individuals’ practices (“teaching”) and, conversely, whether practices influence social structures.
My research adopts qualitative methodologies. These involve inter-disciplinary exchanges between law, legal education, practice research, sociology of law, cultural theory, and theory and practice of teaching and learning. My theoretical framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s “reflexive sociology”, and Michel de Certeau’s “heterological science”.
I sourced data from documents, and semi-structured interviews with 36 Australian PLT practitioners. Documentary sources include statutory instruments, speeches, reports, practice directions, histories, and scholarly publications.
To analyse the data I adopted Kelle’s characterisation of “theoretical sensitivity”, drawing on “explicit” and “emergent” analysis strategies derived from “grounded theory”. The explicit strategies were based on my theoretical framework. The emergent strategy involved sensitivity to non-explicit concepts and theories that emerged from the data. Computer-aided qualitative data analysis software expedited these methods.
My findings to date question dominant legal structures’ readiness for change, the implications of this for teaching and learning in PLT, and in particular for PLT practitioners’ engagement with SoTL in PLT.
The espoused rationale for mandatory PLT (in statutes) is improvement for the protection of clients, the administration of justice, and to assure quality legal services. The tacit rationale is improved quality of legal education, and experiences, for lawyers-to-be. My thesis argues dominant structures in legal education impede the espoused and tacit objectives, and impede PLT practitioners’ engagement with scholarship of teaching and learning.

Beyond deficit models of learning mathematics : Socio-cultural directions for change and research

Major paradigmatic changes in mathematics education research are drawing attention to new perspectives on learning. Whereas deficit models were previously in the foreground of research designs, these have been replaced by a wide variety of theoretical directions for studying diverse approaches to learning mathematics. There is now an acceptance of the need for richness and variety in research practices so that approaches can be studied, compared and mutually applied and improved. Psychological and quantitative approaches and methods are now increasingly complemented, or even replaced, by new directions that rely on social and anthropological theories and methods. Rather than reviving ideas about deficit research in mathematics education, the aim of this chapter is to present some socio-cultural perspectives of mathematics learning, and to show how these perspectives go beyond the deficit model of learning. Framing the main traditional markers of discrimination in school mathematics—gender, social class and ethnicity—in a perspective of social justice, the chapter concludes with a reflection on equality in terms of the democratic principle of meritocracy in mathematics education.

Learning in-between, across and beyond workplace boundaries

In this paper, we challenge conventional theories underpinning the practice of human resource development (HRD) that typically focus on the objects of learning - individuals, skills, jobs - or separate the contexts of work (performance) from learning (training). Using case study research from a public utility and a winery, we found similarities in workers' experiences of various organisational practices despite different objects of learning. These practices were, firstly, temporarily occupying (acting up) in a more senior position and, secondly, collaborating across functions. Unlike notions of boundary-crossing or job rotation, we argue that learning 'in-between' develops interactional competence that is grounded within the work practices of interacting individuals. This relational view opens up possibilities for redirecting the focus of HRD practice towards integrating work and learning in ways that develop the potential for learning in-between, across and beyond the boundaries of work. © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Theories into practice: understanding and rethinking our work with young children and the EYLF

This book introduces and explores each of the five major groups of theories described in the Early Years Learning Framework that inform practice in the early childhood field. In doing so, it addresses the need of the early childhood educators to better understand how their practice is underpinned by theories of learning and development.Educators draw from a range of perspectives, but it can sometimes be difficult to understand the link between theorists, theories and perspectives and their own practice. This book makes these links clear and easy to understand so educators can talk with more authority to colleagues, families and communities about their work, and reflect constructively on their practice.Each chapter deals with a different group of theories, briefly outlining the major thrust of each group and what it might look like in practice. Some of the major theorists are then focused on in turn. Discussion starter topics follow each theorist to promote discussion on the main topics and threads of the theorist’s thinking. This is followed by questions for reflection that relate more to thinking about the main concepts in relation to practice.

Challenges to providing work integrated learning to international business students at Australian universities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a three-year Australian study of international business and accounting students and the transition to employment. For international students seeking to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive global labour market, foreign work experience is now an integral part of the overseas study “package”. Work-integrated learning (WIL) is seen to provide critical “employability” knowledge and skills, however, international students have low participation rates. The high value placed on WIL among international students poses challenges for Australia as well as opportunities. Understanding the issues surrounding international students and WIL is closely linked to Australia’s continued success in the international education sector which has broad, long-term, social and economic implications.Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on 59 interviews with a range of stakeholders including international students, universities, government, employers and professional bodies. Central to the paper is an in-depth case study of WIL in the business and accounting discipline at one Australian university.Findings – Providing international students with access to discipline-related work experience has emerged as a critical issue for Australian universities. The study finds that enhancing the employability skills of internationals students via integrated career education, a focus on English language proficiency and “soft skills” development are central to success in WIL. Meeting the growing demand for WIL among international students requires a multipronged approach which hinges on cooperation between international students, universities, employers and government.Originality/value – This project aims to fill a critical knowledge gap by advancing theories in relation to international students and WIL. While there is a significant body of research in the fields of international education and WIL, there is an absence of research exploring the intersection between the two fields. The study will contribute to the advancement of knowledge in both fields by exploring the emerging issue of WIL and international students.

Emergent behaviour: learning from an artificially intelligent performing software agent

This research investigates the possibility for emergent choreographic behaviour to arise from the interactions between a human dancer and a learning, digital performing agent. The cognitive framework is extended through theories of distributed cognition to take into account the two interacting agents rather than a single agent and its environment. The Artificial Neural Network based performing agent demonstrated emergent dance behaviour when performing live with the human dancer. The agent was able to follow the dancer, create movement phrases based on what the dancer was performing and recognize short movement phrases, as a result of the interaction of the dancer’s motion captured movement data and the agent’s artificial neural network. This emergent behaviour was not explicitly programmed, but emerged as a result of the learning process and the interactions with the human dancer.

An analysis of the use of autobiographical narrative for teachers’ intercultural learning

The currency of intercultural education has risen worldwide in response to increased diversity within societies resulting from migration and global lows of populations. As intercultural education becomes a core responsibility of schooling, critical, detailed analysis of pedagogies for teachers’ own intercultural learning is largely absent in education research, in contrast to attention to developing students’ intercultural capabilities and theoretical and policy analyses. In beginning to address this limitation, this article offers a critical, reflexive analysis of our use and the efficacy of using autobiographical narrative for teachers’ intercultural learning. Framing theories include interculturality, autobiographical narratives for teachers’ professional learning, reflexivity, and the effects of silence and silencing in relation to diversity and intercultural relations in schools. Three instances of teacher autobiographical narrative elicited as part of a large-scale, longitudinal study of intercultural education in Australian schools are deconstructed to elucidate their explicit and hidden meanings and effects. The analysis reveals that while autobiographical narrative has productive potential as a strategy for stimulating teacher reflexivity about cultural identities and intercultural relations, it also contains hidden dangers and traps that caution against viewing it as a pedagogical cure-all in the development of teachers’ intercultural knowledge and skills.