Reflective positioning : the impact of conversations in the social and cultural environment of midwifery practice settings on professional learning for students

Literature reviews on the topic of reflection and reflective practice encompassed midwifery, nursing, medicine, allied health, education and professional education. This investigation also included socio-psychological theories by leading authors such as Benner (nursing), Schön (professional education) and positioning theory by Harré and others. Positioning is a psycho-sociological ontology in which individuals metaphorically position themselves within three entities: people, institutions, and societies, where conversations are constructed and make an impact upon the social world. The social and cultural structures and interactions developed in Archer’s morphogenesis were examined in terms of the impact of possible encounters and the transformational effects of learning experiences in practice settings. These bodies of work provided the theoretical framework for the author’s research of students’ experiences in midwifery education for postgraduate students from which selected excerpts with three participating students and their supervising midwives are presented. These excerpts are related to reflective practices and the professional conversations conducted between students and midwives. It was found that reflective positioning applied in midwifery education by students can serve as an analytical tool in explaining social and cultural elements of clinical placements to influence and transform their learning. The potency of conversations that occur in everyday moment-to-moment interactions do contribute to students’ induction in professional midwifery practice and their identity formation as a midwife.

Using a knowledge management evaluation framework for improving an ERP system - a Hong Kong construction industry case study

Organisations need to rely on leadership, information support and human capital in order to ensure a knowledge advantage over their competitors. Knowledge management (KM) provides organisations with sustainable competitive advantage, because it becomes extremely difficult for an organisation to cut expenditure and increase revenue by simply reengineering its business model. Project delivery and success has been traditionally viewed and measured as management of a three-legged stool, with the legs defined as cost, schedule and quality. However, KM can be linked to success by organisations becoming more effective as well as being more efficient.

This paper uses a KM framework, the Knowledge Advantage (K-Adv), developed initially for use by construction organisations. It assesses the impact of leadership and its supporting information communication technology infrastructure on the ability of people (by effectively creating, sharing, disseminating and using knowledge) to facilitate sustainable competitive advantage.

A case study that is presented is based upon the experience of a leading construction company using an Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system to demonstrate the effectiveness of KM from a cost management business unit perspective. Results are evaluated using a capability maturity model (CMM) - that forms the core of the K-Adv tool - to help improve processes that meet the needs of the organisation operating in a highly dynamic business environment. The case study is part of a broader doctoral research project that uses action learning to facilitate and measure ERP improvement.

A curriculum innovation framework for science, technology and mathematics education

There is growing concern about falling levels of student engagement with school science, as evidenced by studies of student attitudes, and decreasing participation at the post compulsory level. One major response to this, the Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) initiative, involves partnerships between schools and community and industry organisations in developing curriculum projects at the local level. This project fulfils many of the conditions advocated to engage students in learning in the sciences. ASISTM is underpinned by the notion of innovation. This paper describes the findings of case study research in which 16 ASISTM projects were selected as innovation exemplars. A definition of innovation and an innovation framework were developed, through which the case studies were analysed to make sense of the significance of the ideas and practices, participating actors, and outcomes of the projects. Through this analysis we argue that innovation is a powerful idea for framing curriculum development in the sciences at the local level that is generative for students and teachers, and that these ASISTM projects provide valuable models for engaging students, and for teacher professional learning.

Learning to read journal articles : an exploratory study of an Australian marketing class

Reading and comprehension form an integral part of educational practice. This study explores students’ learning experience in reading journal articles for a Marketing class. Two broad aims are considered: 1) to reflect on students’ reading capacity of journal articles, and 2) to investigate students’ reflection on their use of a learning framework developed to assist them in reading. Data were collected as part of an explorative pilot study from 31 students in Marketing tutorial classes at a university in Australia during a summer semester. The participants were asked about their learning experience in reading a Marketing journal article and their experience of using the learning framework as they read the given article. Findings indicate that students were positive about the value of the learning framework in assisting them to read, to understand the Marketing journal articles and to extract relevant learning themes from them.

A conceptual framework of corporate and business ethics across organizations

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a conceptual framework of corporate and business ethics across organizations in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance.

Design/methodology/approach – A framework is outlined and positioned incorporating an ethical frame of reference in the field of organizational chain management.

Findings – A number of areas and sub-areas of corporate and business ethics are framed in the context across organizations.

Research limitations/implications – The introduced framework should be seen as a seed for further development and refinement. It provides opportunities for further research of ethical concerns across organizations.

Practical implications – Organizations may benefit from the findings and insights presented and they may be used to enhance their ability to manage, monitor and evaluate ethical business practices across organizations.

Social implications – Changing societal and market patterns may enforce organizations to address ethical concerns across organizations. A myopic approach restricted to the judicial system may become insufficient and unsatisfactory from the perspective of other stakeholders of the organization.

Originality/value – The framework makes a contribution bringing in ethical concerns across organizations, providing a basis for their ethical values and culture, as well as asymmetric relationships in terms of power and dependence. The authors believe that a true learning organization needs to realise the importance of an extended view of its endeavors of corporate and business ethics in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance across organizations.

Leadership that promotes organizational learning : both sides of the coin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how leadership has the capacity to both positively influence learning processes and negatively inhibit organizational learning.

Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that brings together an analysis of leadership and organizational learning literature. The argument is centered on transformational leadership and the responsibility for creating an organizational learning culture.

Findings – There is a conventional belief that leaders have solitary control and influence when it comes to setting up organizational learning processes. However, a top-down approach to facilitate and implement learning in organizations is not always an effective method because learning should be a collaborative practice. Thus, to rely fully on leaders to initiate and sustain the learning processes can be counter-productive.

Practical implications – Good and effective leadership is the key to organizational learning. Learning is the only sustainable method of achieving competitive advantage for contemporary organizations because of rapidly changing environmental forces. Corporations with aspirations for long-term survival must facilitate, through their leadership, “the impulse to learn” amongst their members.

Originality/value – Knowledge is lacking in the area where leadership is linked to learning. Such knowledge is important because leaders play a central role in the learning framework and leaders also offer the required guidance for organizations to integrate and sustain learning processes through policy and practice.

Business analytics and competitive advantage : a review and a research agenda

Business analytics has the potential to deliver performance gains and competitive advantage. However, a theoretically grounded model identifying the factors and processes involved in realizing those performance gains has not been clearly articulated in the literature. This paper draws on the literature on dynamic capabilities to develop such a theoretical framework. It identifies the critical roles of organizational routines and organization-wide capabilities for identifying, resourcing and implementing business analytics-based competitive actions in delivering performance gains and competitive advantage. A theoretical framework and propositions for future research are developed.

The national mapping of teacher professional learning project : a multi-dimensional space?

This essay focuses on the National Mapping of Teacher Professional Learning (2008), a report that we co-authored along with a number of other researchers on the basis of extensive surveys and interviews relating to the policies and practices of teacher professional learning in Australia. The report is an update of an earlier survey conducted by David McRae and others, entitled PD 2000, and it registers significant changes in attitudes and practices relating to professional learning across Australia in the intervening period. Perhaps the most significant development is the way professional learning is now recognized as an important vehicle for education reform by systems, schools and by teachers themselves, most notably the standards-based reforms that have such a decisive effect on the policy landscape here in Australia and in other countries. The work of the AATE in developing the Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy (STELLA) is mentioned in the report. It was acknowledged that STELLA provides a generative framework for professional learning, sometimes in contradiction to more managerial approaches. The question remains, however, of how English teachers as a professional community might locate themselves within the policy landscape described in this report. This essay is an attempt to promote this kind of discussion and to argue the distinctive nature of the standpoint that English teachers might bring to thinking about and planning for professional learning and practitioner inquiry.

Strategic leadership of teaching and learning centres : from reality to ideal

This paper reports on the third phase of a study of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres to identify factors that contribute to the effective strategic leadership of Centres. Focus groups at 10 Australian universities included 66 respondents, providing a diverse range of perspectives, from students to members of the university executive. Analysis of participant contributions extended findings from prior project phases and the wider literature. They also contributed to the final construction of the strategic leadership Teaching and Learning Centre maturity framework presented here. Centres remain in a state of flux, enduring regular reconfiguration. For most Centres, their level of interaction with students is low and increased engagement with students would be of benefit. Perceptions of Centres vary widely, reinforcing the importance of a strategic partnership between the University’s Senior Executive, the Centre and faculties as a prerequisite for implementing identified high-impact strategies for improvement in teaching and learning.

Framing our understanding of learning spaces redesign

Based on the assumption that space is not neutral (Gulson and Symes 2010, Soja 1989, Massey 1994) this paper presents the framework and findings of a literature review into the connections between learning spaces, school organisations, teaching and learning. The literature review identified that there are four temporal dimensions to redesigning built learning spaces: design, transition, consolidation, sustainability/evaluation. But the focus of research and policy has been on the design phase (Tanner 2009). The paper argues the research literature is more aspirational about what redesign of space around flexibility and connectivity but there is as yet lack of coherent evidence on the use of these spaces (Higgins et al 2005). Furthermore, it suggest the need to consider the various actors- the practitioners, learners and spaces- as participative redesign (Fisher 2010, Holloway and Valentine 2000) is ongoing and necessary as schools and teacher become involved over time in serial redesign. This framework guides the analysis of current and future research into learning spaces in Victoria.

Developing an ethics education framework for accounting

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of ethics education that promotes the structured learning of ethics in the accounting discipline. The Ethics Education Framework (EEF) is based on three key inter-related components that include: Rest’s (1986) Four-Component Model of ethical decision-making and behaviour; the key cognitive and behavioural objectives of ethics education; and the discrete and pervasive approaches to delivering content. The EEF provides university students and professional accountants a structure to learn to identify, analyse and resolve ethical issues, to the point of action. The EEF is a four-stage learning continuum represented as a set of building blocks which introduces ethical concepts and then reinforces and develops new levels of understanding with progressive stages. This paper describes the EEF, and includes a discussion of how it compares with other ethics education models, and an analysis of the support through responses by professional organisations (based on an Exposure Draft issued by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), as the initial International Education Practice Statement). The IFAC has now revised its International Education Standard (IES 4) in relation to ethics, with a commentary period till July 2011.

A framework for elearning with social media using DRM

This paper provides a proposal for personal e-learning system (PELS) architecture in the context of social network environment. The main objective of PELS is to develop individual skills on a specific subject and share resources with peers. Our system architecture defines organization and management of personal learning environment that aids in creating, verifying and sharing learning artifacts and making money at the same time. We also focus on in our research one of the most interesting arenas in digital content or document management called Digital Right Management (DRAM) and its application to eLearning.

Strengthening work integrated learning (WIL) experiences for rural education students : exploring community based partnerships

This paper investigates three areas of priority for rural teacher education: work integrated learning (WIL); attraction and retention of teachers to rural areas; and the potential challenges and benefits of community based partnerships to address these areas of need. The data on which this paper is based focuses on a Victorian project around six case studies that explored the research and scholarship of teaching graduates to be work ready for the needs of rural and regional communities. The project also aimed to explore how preservice teacher education can develop and better support pre-service teachers (PSTs) through rural and regional community-based WIL experiences.
The project investigated what sort of support PSTs undertaking WIL experiences in rural and regional communities need in order to develop positive attitudes and understandings in relation to working in a rural/regional community. Consideration was also given to how support from the university, school,
supervising teacher and broader local community enhances or detracts from the PST’s experience of WIL in rural and regional areas. In order to explore these issues in this paper the authors will outline some recommendations with regards to ways in which teacher education programs may enhance the experiences of stakeholders involved in rural and regional WIL experiences, including PSTs, supervising teachers, university teacher educators and community members.
The project’s underlying conceptual framework of place, productivity and partnerships will be explained in terms of its overlapping dimensions of community, creativity and capital in order to reconceptualise preservice teacher education in local, rural and regional and global contexts as adaptive community-based work integrated learning within a knowledge economy.
The final discussion will make recommendations on how universities and other identified stakeholders can better facilitate WIL and enhance stakeholder engagement in rural and regional areas in order to equip PSTs
and classroom teachers to work creatively together in productive partnerships to meet the future demands of local rural and global contexts of change in a knowledge economy.

Early childhood educators : some identified issues in professional learning in science

In a small research project, four case studies were developed around the science education of pre-school centres. Mixed quantitative and qualitative approaches were used as the pre-school teachers were asked information about their qualifications and those of other staff; science experiences within their Early Childhood (EC) setting and the opportunities they had for science education professional development. As part of the research, educators were questioned about the science they provided and their comfort in teaching science. The interviews revealed that EC educators indicated that they provide a large number of varied experiences, although often they were unsure of the science content or the science understanding. They felt that this limited their abilities to develop the science activities further. Early Childhood Educators also indicated that whilst there was access to some science professional development, more would be welcome. The types of professional development which they felt would be most beneficial were “hands-on” play experiences – a “quick fix” approach. This paper will discuss the findings of the research through a socio-cultural framework, noting some of the issues identified during our discussions with the educators.

Regularized nonnegative shared subspace learning

Joint modeling of related data sources has the potential to improve various data mining tasks such as transfer learning, multitask clustering, information retrieval etc. However, diversity among various data sources might outweigh the advantages of the joint modeling, and thus may result in performance degradations. To this end, we propose a regularized shared subspace learning framework, which can exploit the mutual strengths of related data sources while being immune to the effects of the variabilities of each source. This is achieved by further imposing a mutual orthogonality constraint on the constituent subspaces which segregates the common patterns from the source specific patterns, and thus, avoids performance degradations. Our approach is rooted in nonnegative matrix factorization and extends it further to enable joint analysis of related data sources. Experiments performed using three real world data sets for both retrieval and clustering applications demonstrate the benefits of regularization and validate the effectiveness of the model. Our proposed solution provides a formal framework appropriate for jointly analyzing related data sources and therefore, it is applicable to a wider context in data mining.