Innovators or inhibitors? Accounting faculty resistance to new educational technologies in higher education

While technology affords new opportunities and benefits for educators in their teaching practice, a significant number of faculty are resistant to adopting new technologies. Unprompted, 93% of faculty interviewed in the Australian study to be discussed in this paper pointed to accounting educator resistance as a key barrier to technology adoption and use. Adopting the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a framework, this paper argues that one of the greatest challenges facing business schools and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the 21st century is not new technologies themselves, but the ability of educators to embrace educational technologies. Drawing on the qualitative data to emerge from interviews with accounting educators recognised as exemplary in their use of innovative technologies, this paper explores the reasons for lack of faculty uptake and argues for academics to become innovators rather than inhibitors. The findings offer a timely insight into a twenty-first century issue affecting HEIs and, specifically, accounting academics. While carried out in the Accounting discipline, the findings may be relatable and applicable to all disciplines. A suite of recommendations are proposed for institutions, business schools and academics to consider.

Critical factors in the adaptation and implementation of Japanese Lesson Study in the Australian context

Worldwide interest in Japanese Lesson Study as a vehicle to improve mathematics teaching practice through professional learning has left largely unanswered questions about the extent to which it can be replicated elsewhere. This paper reports on a small-scale research project, Implementing structured problem solving mathematics through lesson study, carried out in three Australian schools during 2012, and continued in a modified form during 2013 and 2014. Two major aims of the project were to investigate critical factors in the adaptation and effective implementation of (1) structured problem-solving mathematics lessons, and (2) Japanese Lesson Study as a model for teacher professional learning in the Australian context. This paper discusses the specific affordances that contributed to both the implementation of structured problem solving and to teachers' professional learning as a result of their participation in this project, as well as the constraints encountered, and the implications of these for the sustainability of lesson study in the Australian context. Critical factors identified by the teachers as contributing to the success of the project included the opportunities for in-depth lesson planning, the presence of large numbers of observers at the research lessons and the post-lesson discussions, and the insight provided by the " knowledgeable other". Major constraints included the difficulty in finding suitable problem solving tasks to match the Australian curriculum, and the teaching culture that emphasises small-group rather than whole-class teaching

Neil Taylor’s experimental animation: the technical habitus as aesthetic trace

This essay examines Neil Taylor’s (1945-) animations, situated between the moving image, performance and sculpture and in the shadows of his recognised wire-based sculptural practice. Taylor’s animations automatically inscribe the surfaces of flipbooks and note pads, (Short Lives 1980-90) cash register rolls (Roll Film 1990) and are enhanced by hand-made ‘machines’ (Copy Copy 1998) designed to shape this idiosyncratic activity. These short films are part of an avant-garde project ‘that continues to explore the physical properties of film and the nature of perceptual transactions which take place between viewer and film.’ (John Hanhardt, 1976: 44). Taylor’s practice is additionally placed, through Vilem Flusser’s ‘technical image’ in relation to the ascendancy of digital culture, and Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ is used to frame both Taylor’s art and teaching practice, in order to examine the discounting of the technical classes that these fields of production consistently perform.

Are the kids alright? Relating to representations of youth

Initiatives aimed at promoting young people's well-being potentially conflict with more traditional modes of adult/youth relationship privileging adult authority. For example, teaching practice has shifted from teacher to student-centred, a move that can be attributed at least in part to the acknowledged importance of empathetic teacher-student relationship to the well-being of students. This discussion considers an area of sociocultural practice with the potential to inform understandings of youth and their relationships with adults: How youth have been discursively represented in a sample of popular music spanning the five decades from the 1960s to the 2000s. The analysis, in the first instance, demonstrates how popular culture supports and maintains discernible social relationships, sustaining what is identified here as a normative control-contest binary. A direct challenge to commonplace notions of authority and well-being follows, offering opportunities to theorise a different kind of psychosocial action.

Primary teachers notice the impact of language on children’s mathematical reasoning

Mathematical reasoning is now featured in the mathematics curriculum documents of many nations, but this necessitates changes to teaching practice and hence a need for professional learning. The development of children’s mathematical reasoning requires appropriate encouragement and feedback from their teacher who can only do this if they recognise mathematical reasoning in children’s actions and words. As part of a larger study, we explored whether observation of educators conducting mathematics lessons can develop teachers’ sensitivity in noticing children’s reasoning and consideration of how to support reasoning. In the Mathematical Reasoning Professional Learning Research Program, demonstration lessons were conducted in Australian and Canadian primary classrooms. Data sources included post-lesson group discussions. Observation of demonstration lessons and engagement in post-lesson discussions proved to be effective vehicles for developing a professional eye for noticing children’s individual and whole-class reasoning. In particular, the teachers noticed that children struggled to employ mathematical language to communicate their reasoning and viewed limitations in language as a major barrier to increasing the use of mathematical reasoning in their classrooms. Given the focus of teachers’ noticing of the limitations in some types of mathematical language, it seems that targeted support is required for teachers to facilitate classroom discourse for reasoning.

Editorial: English afloat on a digital sea

In the 21st Century, new technologies, in particular interactive multimedia and the internet, challenge many aspects of our teaching practice and assumptions. What counts as knowledge, what counts as literacy, the ways we teach, and even the relationships we form are coloured and reshaped by changing cultural and social practices, such as global commerce and ICTs. These issues, and the relationships between them, need to be considered anew. Two current frames of reference for thinking about these changes and their implications for subject English are the notion of an "information revolution" (Castells 1996) and the changing nature of literacy, with its shift towards multiliteracies, or thinking of literacy as design (New London Group, 2000). Both frames have significant implications for how we conceptualise English curriculum (for example, literacy, texts and assessment), for how we re-imagine English teaching, and for the ways in which we ask students to work with and within digital culture and new media.

The role of the knowledgeable other in post-lesson discussions in lesson study

Worldwide interest in Japanese Lesson Study as a vehicle to improve mathematics teaching practice through professional learning has left largely unanswered questions about the extent to which it can be replicated elsewhere. This paper reports some of the findings from a small-scale research project, “Implementing structured problem-solving mathematics lessons through lesson study”, carried out in three Australian schools during 2012, and continued in a modified form during 2013 and 2014. In particular, it discusses the potential contribution to teacher professional learningresulting from post-lesson discussion commentaries by “knowledgeable others” with considerable experience of and expertise in lesson study within and outside of Japan.

A gallery walk: 'drawing out' understandings of collaborative self-study in teacher education

The Collaborative Reflective Experience and Practice in Education (CREPE) Research Group formed mid 2014 as a group of eight teacher educators interested in working collaboratively to improve our teaching practice through self-study methodology. Located at distance across the three campuses of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia and from the disciplines of mathematics, science, visual arts, performing arts, and curriculum and pedagogy, we aimed to better understand, improve, and share our practices as teacher-educators. While a few of us had engaged in self-study previously, all were comfortable with observing some kind of professional reflective/reflexive practice. We shared the intention of engaging in the scholarship (teaching practice and research) of self-study methodology via community of practice approaches, focusing on our collaborative (overarching) research as well as engaging in focused research simultaneously. It is our efforts towards collaborative research that are the subject of this chapter.

Towards reflexive ethnicity: museums as sites of intercultural encounter

In a highly globalised world with increasing ethno-nationalistic tensions and conflicts, the importance of intercultural education has never been greater. The challenge remains, however, as to whether educating for mutual respect and social cohesion can be achieved through traditional modes of schooling or whether additional approaches that are not necessarily school-centric are required. Drawing on in-depth qualitative data including video diaries, narrative interviews and focus groups with Australian secondary school students and semi-structured interviews with teachers, this paper discusses such an endeavour in which a museum exhibition on identity and belonging is employed as an interactive space for meaningful encounter among students and as a form of professional learning that enlivened teaching practice. Using the concept of reflexive ethnicity, this paper examines whether cognitive and affective encounters outside the ‘school gate’ create opportunities for critical learning about ethnicity that can complement and enhance school curricula and classroom learning. More importantly, the paper explores how the possibility of building on such activities to create and sustain teaching practice can challenge entrenched static notions of ethnicity.The paper concludes that reflexive encounters with ‘difference’ within an interactive museum space can unsettle prejudice and provide a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ethnic identity that goes beyond rote classroom learning.

More than substitution: an ongoing journey of the 1:1 iPad program

The drive for the incorporation of digital technologies in the primary mathematics classroom is becoming more prevalent in our schools and curriculum documents. It is vital these technologies enrich the learning experience to make this integration worthwhile, and not simply be employed as a substitution for already satisfactory pedagogical approaches. The SAMR Model (Puentedura, 2006) incorporates four levels of technology integration in the classroom, from the simplicity of “Substitution” through to the transformative level of “Redefinition” (p. 7). In this paper, teachers from Ringwood North Primary School share how the SAMR Model impacted their teaching practice to support, enhance, and personalise student learning in mathematics through the 1:1 iPad Program. Tasks created with user-friendly and easily accessible digital resources such as Padlet, Kahoot! and Explain Everything are shared. Educators should consider the application and suitability of these digital technologies in conjunction with an appropriate level of integration prior to employment as a tool for enhancing mathematical understanding.