Realising the potential: assessing professional learning through the integration of ePortfolios in Australian business education

This project will enable academic leadership of Australian Business and Management education programs to design into the curriculum, and best use, ePortfolios and associated technologies in assessing students' learning of highly valued professionally-based capabilities. The project will investigate and support the best ways of broadly and deeply embedding ePortfolios across entire undergraduate business and management education curricula. ePortfolios for enabling and assessing student learning is seen as a key means for integrating student learning across the curriculum and, therefore, creating a holistic learning experience. The project will work with Program Leaders across the sector through liaison with the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Teaching and Learning Network to both draw in better practices and disseminate project findings as the project progresses through its key phases. These planned actions will lead to the progressive development of a Business Education ePortfolio Professional Learning Capabilities Assessment Framework.

Materiality, language and the prduction of knowledge art, subjectivity and Indigenous ontology

If ontology concerns theories of being, and epistemology theories of knowing, how might we bring the two together to account for movements between being and knowing that constitute cultural production? something occurs or lies behind language and meaning that must be acknowledged if we are to arrive at an explanation. In this essay, I examine some key ideas that emerge from the work of Julia Kristeva, as well as those of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on sensation and affect, to demonstrate how ontology and epistemology are inextricably entwined in knowledge production.1 Kristeva’s perspective of creative practice not only aligns with the new materialist acknowledgement of the agency of matter, but, in contrast to Deleuze and Guattari, it also affirms the dimension of human or subjective agency that is implicated in cultural production.

Promoting cultural understandings through song across the Tasman: pre-service primary teacher education

As tertiary music educators across the Tasman we argue that music, particularly song, is an effective medium for teaching and learning about non-western music when preparing generalist primary Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs). Using ‘voice’ as a portable and accessible vehicle to transmit cultural understandings, we draw on the Zimbabwean proverb ‘if you can speak you can learn to sing and if you can walk you can learn to dance’ to foster music creativity and enhance literacy development and confidence in our PSTs. Using narrative methodology, we share our teaching and learning experience at Deakin University (Australia) and the University of Auckland (New Zealand) where we include African and Māori music respectively as effective ways to promote cultural understandings. In our experience, the teaching of song goes beyond teaching a tune or something that is ‘fun’. Rather, it is as an effective context for developing knowledge, skills and understandings about multiculturalism and the importance and need to be ‘inclusive of others’. PSTs gained socially, linguistically, cultural and emotionally, to name a few. We encourage other music educators at all education levels to be culturally and linguistically inclusive and to explore non-western music as a positive teaching and learning experience.

Composition of objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour participation across the school-day, influence of gender and weight status: cross-sectional analyses among disadvantaged Victorian school children

BACKGROUND: The after-school period has been described as the 'critical window' for physical activity (PA) participation. However, little is known about the importance of this window compared with the before and during-school period among socioeconomically disadvantaged children, and influence of gender and weight status.

METHODS: 39 out of 156 (RR=25%) invited primary schools across 26 local government areas in Victoria, Australia, consented to participate with 856 children (RR=36%) participating in the wider study. The analysis sample included 298 Grade 4 and Grade 6 children (mean age: 11.2±1.1; 44% male) whom met minimum accelerometry wear-time criteria and had complete height, weight and health-behaviours questionnaire data. Accelerometry measured duration in daily light-intensity PA (LPA), moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and sedentary time (ST) was calculated for before-school=8-8:59, during-school=9:00-15:29 and after-school=15:30-18:00. Bivariate and multivariable linear regression analyses were conducted.

RESULTS: During-school represented the greatest accumulation of LPA and MVPA compared with the before and after-school periods. Boys engaged in 102 min/day of LPA (95% CI 98.5 to 104.9) and 62 min/day of MVPA (95% CI 58.9 to 64.7) during-school; girls engaged in 103 min/day of LPA (95% CI 99.7 to 106.5) and 45 min/day of MVPA (95% CI 42.9 to 47.4). Linear regression models indicated that girls with overweight or obesity engaged in significantly less LPA, MVPA and more time in ST during-school.

CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of in-school PA compared with after-school PA among socioeconomically disadvantage children whom may have fewer resources to participate in after-school PA.

Anglican identification across the generations: what can census and survey data tell us?

A report on Anglican identity in Australia using census and survey data

Unsettling creativity: intercultural spaces, study abroad and internationlization beyond the curriculum

This chapter argues that short-term student Study Tours, coupled with preparatory and reflective classes on the home campus, are a more successful way of internationalizing the curriculum and promoting intercultural reflection than the more traditional, longer term student exchange. This is because taking students out of their comfort zones to travel overseas in a study intensive promotes greater ‘productive discomfort’ while supporting this process with classes on the home campus promotes its life changing effects.This chapter draws on two important Study Tours in Creative Writing and Creative and Commercial Entrepreneurship at Deakin University, Australia. The first is an outbound Study Tour to the United States and the second is an inbound Study Tour from India. These Study Tours foreground an important ‘unsettling’ of creativity that impacts on the students’ thinking and writing processes, and prepares them most effectively for their role as global citizens.

C-reactive protein concentrations across the mood spectrum in bipolar disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Inflammatory processes and neural-immune interactions have been implicated in the pathogenesis of psychiatric conditions, but studies in bipolar disorder are inconclusive so far. We aimed to investigate whether peripheral concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), an acute-phase response protein of inflammatory activity, are increased in bipolar disorder across the mood spectrum. METHODS: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge from database inception to Aug 14, 2016, for studies that measured serum and plasma CRP concentrations in adult patients with bipolar disorder (as defined by DSM-IV-TR) and healthy controls. We extracted data from published reports. We did three between-group meta-analyses comparing CRP concentrations in patients in mania, depression, or euthymia, with those in healthy controls (cross-sectional studies), and two within-group meta-analyses comparing changes in CRP concentrations before and after treatment of an index manic or depressive episode (longitudinal studies). We used Hedges' adjusted g to calculate effect sizes and pooled results using random-effect models. We also did meta-regression analyses by mood state to investigate possible moderators of CRP concentrations. FINDINGS: We identified 27 studies representing 2161 patients with bipolar disorder and 81 932 healthy controls. Compared with healthy individuals, CRP concentrations were moderately increased in people with bipolar disorder during depression (g 0·67, 95% CI 0·23 to 1·11; p=0·003) and euthymia (0·65, 0·40 to 0·90; p<0·0001) and more substantially increased during mania (0·87, 0·58 to 1·15; p<0·0001). The extent of the increases in CRP concentrations in mania and depression was not related to symptom severity (p=0·256 for mania and p=0·626 for depression). CRP concentrations were moderately decreased after resolution of an index manic episode (-0·36, -0·66 to -0·05; p=0·022) and slightly decreased after resolution of an index depressive episode (-0·18, -0·30 to -0·07; p=0·002). INTERPRETATION: CRP concentrations are increased in bipolar disorder regardless of mood state, but are higher during mania than in depression and euthymia, suggesting an increased inflammatory burden in mania.