Classroom teachers as co-researchers : the affordances and challenges of collaboration

The article outlines the aspects of the research design that engage with teachers in schools and discusses some of the challenges and affordances that the relationships (between the teachers, the schools, the research partners and the researchers) experienced in the project, Literacy in the 21st Century: Learning from Computer Games. The article has a particular focus on the teachers' work as co-researchers, their descriptions of working in the project and some of the issues for teachers and researchers in working in this way. The data used for the analysis includes the teacher writing, interview data and researcher observations. The teachers who participated in the project designed and delivered curriculum using computer games in various ways including making their own games, evaluating games, analyzing game structures, and examining the culture around games and the ways in which games and other technologies are merging. Some of these curriculum units are described elsewhere in this issue (Beavis & O'Mara, 2010). This article's purpose is to follow the teachers' professional learning experiences rather than detail these curriculum designs, which the teachers will describe elsewhere. The paper concludes with our personal reflections on the affordances and challenges of working this way for us in our different roles in the research team.

Physical prototypes in cross-functional team collaboration : a study of the Model-T2 concept car project

Virtual and physical prototypes play a significant role in the design of artifacts. This is particularly true in cross-functional team collaboration, where diverse disciplines come together to contribute to the concept, design and development of an artifact. While the role of prototyping in design and cross-functional collaboration has been widely studied independently, little is known of the role that physical prototypes play during cross-functional team collaboration. This paper reports on a study of virtual and physical prototyping strategies used by a cross-functional team comprising engineers and designers working on a concept car project. The paper provides a background of the collaborative design process and details the role of physical prototyping methods during the design of the concept car.

Assessing health literacy : a new domain for collaboration between language testers and health professionals

Health literacy, defined as an individual's capacity to process health information in order to make appropriate health decisions, is the focus of increasing attention in medical fields due to growing awareness that suboptimal health literacy is associated with poorer health outcomes. To explore this issue, a number of instruments, reported to have high internal consistency and strong correlations with general literacy tests, have been developed. However, their validity as measures of the target construct is seldom explored using multiple sources of evidence. The current study, involving collaboration between health professionals and language specialists, set out to assess the validity of the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), which describes itself as a “reading recognition” test that measures ability to pronounce common medical and lay terms. Drawing on a sample of 310 respondents, including both native and non-native speakers of English, investigations were undertaken to probe the REALM's validity as a measure of understanding the selected terms and to consider associations between scores on this widely used test and those derived from other recognized health literacy tests. Results suggest that the REALM is underrepresenting the health literacy construct and that the test may also be biased against non-native speakers of English. The study points to an expanded role for language testers, working in collaboration with experts from medical disciplines, in developing and evaluating health literacy tools.

Competition or collaboration: policies and practices in international higher education

Universities in the twenty-first century experience numerous competing drivers that shape their sense of purpose and role in society, their perspectives of knowledge and its production and their overall sense of being in the world. One major force is marketplace discourse, in particular neo-liberalism and competition, which is discordant with the discourse of academic collaboration and collegial sharing. This review essay examines what it means to ‘be’ a university in light of these overarching discourses and what is envisioned for universities of the future.

Crossing the line : collusion or collaboration in university group work?

In both policy and practice, collusion is a perplexing area of academic integrity. Students are expected to learn to work collaboratively in university courses, yet are often required to submit assessment tasks as individuals whilst in group-work situations. This paper discusses the tension between 'collaboration' and 'collusion' in group-work and the consequences for crossing the line. Adopting a theoretical framework from Bourdieu's work (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1971; Bourdieu, 1991) on symbolic power, the notion of legitimate voice and intertextuality, this paper outlines the effects on the academic identities of 17 students found 'guilty' of collusion in one Australian university. In addition, 34 staff involved in formal disciplinary procedures were interviewed. The findings indicate that collusion is a fraught notion and not approached systematically across the university, nor with any degree of confidence by staff or students. The delineation between 'acceptable collaboration' and 'collusion' appears to be founded in shifting sands, with negative attitudes towards collaborative tasks being the main lesson learned by students.