Becoming l(IT)erate : pre-service English teachers and ICTs

One of the recommended principles for classroom practice from the Digital Rhetorics Project is ‘Teachers First’, emphasising the need to prioritise the requirements of teachers in learning new technologies and in understanding their relationship to literacy education (Lankshear, Green and Snyder 2000, p. 121). While most of my pre-service English Education students use digital technologies for their own purposes and understand the benefits of doing so, it is not always straightforward regarding how technology can be effectively utilised in their classroom and for what purposes. This article reports work conducted with pre-service English Education teachers in an elective unit that focuses upon digital technologies in secondary classrooms. Using Green’s 3D model of literacy as a way of understanding the complex interrelationships between the cultural, critical and operational aspects of literacy, the students experiment with digital technologies such as mobile phones, wikis and blogs.

Shortest equals fastest : upper primary children`s pre-conceptions of speed

An understanding of speed as distance travelled per unit time is fundamental to the development of the more complex conception of acceleration. This paper examines the opportunities provided for upper primary children to reveal and modify their pre-conceptions of speed through a walking activity developed as part of the Practical Mechanics in Primary Mathematics project.

Mathematical knowledge of some entrants to a pre-service education course

Standards for teaching emphasise the need for teachers to have deep content knowledge. To assess the mathematical knowledge of students enrolling in its B.Ed. program, the University of New England has introduced a mathematics diagnostic test. This work is the first stage of an ongoing research project into the numeracy needs of students entering the B.Ed. program. The test is a pen-andpaper test that replaces previous on-line, multiple-choice tests. This paper reports on the test results, discusses some common errors made by students and outlines the future direction of the research.

Putting pre-service teachers first

One of the recommended principles for classroom practice from the Digital Rhetorics Project is "teachers first", emphasising the need to prioritise the needs of teachers in learning new technologies and understanding their relationship to literacy education (Lankshear, Green, & Snyder, 2000), p.121). While most of my pre-service English Education students use digital technologies for their own purposes and understand the benefits of doing so, it is not always straightforward as to how technology can be effectively utilised in their classroom and for what purposes. This paper reports on work conducted with pre-service English Education teachers in an elective unit that focuses upon digital technologies in secondary classrooms. Using Green's 3D model of literacy as a way of understanding the complex interrelationships between the cultural, critical and operational aspects of literacy, the students experiment with digital technologies such as mobile phones, wikis and blogs.

Achieving greater feedback and flexibility using online pre-laboratory exercises with non-major chemistry students

Compulsory online pre-laboratory exercises were required of non-major, first-year university chemistry students in response to poor student preparation for laboratory sessions. The online pre-laboratory exercises were designed to be straightforward, endeavoring to help students maximize the benefits of the introductory laboratory class. Diagrams and pictures were included in the exercises to improve descriptions. Students were allowed multiple attempts with immediate feedback provided to help them learn from their mistakes. The study is a descriptive account of students' perceptions of the impact of online pre-laboratory exercises on their learning. Students recognized the value of the exercises in improving their organization, their preparedness for the laboratory class, and their understanding of the chemistry concepts of the weekly experiments. The increased flexibility of doing pre-laboratory exercises online and the increased feedback to students were two important aspects of this project that nearly all students recognized as being beneficial to their learning.

Video reflection and the formation of teacher identity in a team of pre-service and experienced teachers

This paper discusses a project in which a team of pre-service and experienced teachers, following a teaching development model devised by the authors, reflected on videos of the pre-service teachers teaching literacy. Using a discourse analytic approach, the paper focuses on how teachers' joint reflection contributes to student teacher identity formation. Analysis suggests that reflection, at least in the talk of this team, is a language practice with a distinctive generic structure. Using this structure, participants jointly construct professional teacher identities for themselves and others through the key devices of representation, categorization, evaluation, individualization and inclusion.

Opening the doors to multiculturalism : Australian pre-service music teacher education students' understandings of cultural diversity

Educational reform in Australia has urged teachers and tertiary institutions to prepare students for multicultural classrooms. Engagement with multicultural music by teachers and students promotes understanding of difference and diversity as music has both global and cross-cultural manifestations. This article reports on a research project undertaken at both Deakin University and Monash University (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) with final year music specialist students (2005-2007). Students participated in an online, anonymous survey (2005) regarding their understandings of multiculturalism. By in-depth analysis of four semi-structured interviews undertaken with volunteers from the 2006 to 2007 cohort, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, emergent themes and construct understandings of participant experiences were identified. Two significant themes are discussed: representations of multicultural music in Victorian schools and cultural context. Music education can be an effective platform to 'opening the doors to multiculturalism and cultural understanding'. Pre-service teacher education courses should reflect the changing societies in which they are situated.

The Sustainable Farm Families Project : changing attittudes to health

Introduction: Farm health and safety has historically focussed on strategies such as injury prevention, safety audits and fulfilling legislative responsibilities. However, farmer injuries mask deeper health issues including higher rates of cancer, suicides, cardiovascular disease and stress. The relationship between occupational health and safety and farm family health has not been fully investigated. The Sustainable Farm Families (SFF) project attempts to make this connection in order to address premature death, morbidity and injury on Australian farms. The SFF project illustrates how increasing health literacy through education and physical assessment can lead to improved health and knowledge outcomes for farm families.

Methods: The SFF project focuses on the human resource in the triple bottom line and is working with farmers, families, industry and universities to collaboratively assess and promote improvement in the health and wellbeing of farm families. Based on a model of extension that engages farm families as active learners where they commit to healthy living and safe working practices, the SFF project is proving to be an effective model for engaging communities in learning and change. Health education and information is delivered to farm men and women aged 18 to 75 years using a workshop format. Pre- and post-knowledge surveys, annual physical assessments and focus group discussions form the methodological context for the research over a three-year intervention.

Results: This article discusses the progress of the research outlining the design of the SFF project, the delivery and extension processes used to engage 321 farm families from within a broadacre and dairy-farming family sample. The article presents key learnings on intersectoral collaboration, engaging farmers and families in health, and the future for this project extending into agricultural industries across the nation. Key results reveal that health issues do exist in farming families and are often underreported by family members. Health indicators were at a level where referral and intervention was required in over 60% of men and 70% of women in both broad acre and dairy industries. Farm men and women verbalised health concerns relating to access, support and control mechanisms of the health system. Participants also revealed how they put into practice their new knowledge and how this has influenced their health.

Conclusions: The key learning is that farm men and women who are at high risk of premature morbidity and mortality will participate in health education and assessment programs based on industry collaboration with high levels of individual participation. This program provides evidence that farmers will engage with health professionals if programs are presented to them in personally engaging and relevant ways. The SFF program is a definite tool for interventional health promotion that supports attitudinal change to health and farming practices.

Developing mathematical concepts in Australian pre-school settings : the background

The SIMERR project Mathematical Thinking of Pre-school Children in Rural and Regional Australia: Research and Practice included a review of relevant research literature with the aim of making this accessible to researchers as well as early childhood teachers and educators. This paper introduces the methods used in the project and provides a brief summary of the literature pertaining to the development of mathematical concepts.

The technological knowledge of early childhood pre-service educators

With the current introduction of new national and state Early Years Frameworks and the increased interest and activity in educating early childhood educators, it was timely to investigate what knowledge, if any, early childhood educators had when it came to design technology. Although not prescriptive around technological understanding, the new Framework highlights children's learning related to "creativity", "exploration", "collaboration", and "problem-solving", in the context of connecting with people and technologies. This small pilot project asked 20 pre-service educators a number of questions designed to elicit both their understanding and their practices relating to technology. Responses were recorded and from those given, it was apparent that the Early childhood educators not only included technological activities in their daily practices with children, but generally had a basic understanding of technology, differentiated from other forms of learning activities.

Music teaching is more than telling : attitudes and beliefs of Australian pre-service teachers

Pre-service teachers’ views are often confronted at tertiary level in regards to theories of teaching and learning which can through discussion and reflection change their perceptions and their understanding of classroom practice. Tertiary educators are challenged to develop positive attitudes and beliefs about education to their pre-service students if music education is to be valued in all educational settings. Drawing on educational perspectives on teaching, this article investigates the myriad of influences that shape pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about music teaching and learning. Between 2005-2009 final year music teacher education students from Deakin University and Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) participated in a research project entitled Intercultural attitudes of pre-service music education students. This article draws on the 2008 cohort interpersonal and affective attributes regarding what they thought makes a good teacher and how they would see themselves as future music teachers. Whilst the findings provide important insights into Australian pre-service teachers they also hold similar significance for teacher education in general. I contend that continued research with our students can only help us as tertiary educators to prepare our students to be effective teachers.

'I do lots of things that the University would not approve of'. What counts as professional knowledge in the eyes of pre-service and beginning teachers -implications of the encounter for the role of teacher educators in pre-service middle school preparati

This paper is an account of teacher educator perceptions of the take-up by beginning teachers of the values and practices advocated in pre-service education. Methodologically grounded in a critical ethnographic account, two teacher educator/researchers retell their understanding of the one-month experience as middle school classroom teachers in an allocated school. The paper examines the consequences of what counts as professional knowledge in the eyes of pre-service and beginning teachers and the implications of the encounter for the role of teacher educators in preservice preparation. The purpose of the research is to consider the well-researched issue of the rejection of academic training (to greater or lesser extents) that is experienced by very many preservice and beginning teachers at some stage after experience in schools. As an exemplary colleague teacher said to us as we negotiated our participation in the school: "I do lots of things that the University would not approve of". Our argument is that teacher education needs the kind of participatory inquiry represented by the undertaking and methodology of this project. The paper is the 'primary record' (Carspecken 1996) of the research and works to open the next phase, the dialogical stage of the research process.

Sacred rules, secular revelations : the conceptions of rights in pre-modern Europe

This paper is an attempt to reflect on the methodological approaches that I bring to ‘reading law’ in my current project on understandings of individual rights in the legal and theological texts of the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Middle Ages, entitled ‘Sacred Rules, Secular Revelations: The Conceptions of Rights in Pre-Modern Europe’

Reinstating indigenous landscape planning curatorship : the Lake Condah restoration project

While contemporary Western planning traditions in Australia talk of the last 200 years of innovation and transposition of European and North American planning traditions upon the Australian landscape, they neglect to mention some 40-50,000 years of Indigenous landscape planning initiatives and practice. The ancestral country of the Gunditjmara people is in the Western District of Victoria focused upon the Lake Condah and Mount Eccles localities. The Gunditjmara had, and continue to have a strong social, cultural and land management and planning presence in the region, in particular linked to environmental engineering initiatives and aquaculture curatorship of eel and fish resources. Archaeological evidence confirms that some 10,000 years of pre-European contact landscape planning practice has been applied by the Gunditjmara to construct resources management infrastructure to service a regional food need as well as a community need. Within contemporary reconciliation discourses, the Gunditjmara have activity sought over the last 25 years the rehabilitation of Lake Condah, which is now coming into fruition, and the restoration of their traditional landscape planning and management responsibilities. This paper reviews the restoration of Indigenous landscape planning and management theory and practice by the Gunditjmara, pointing to significant policy and practice success as well as the need to better appreciate this culturally-attuned and ecologically-responsive approach to landscape planning borne out of generations of knowledge.

Predicting changes in lifestyle and clinical outcomes in preventing diabetes : The Greater Green Triangle Diabetes Prevention Project

Objectives : To analyse how psychosocial determinants of lifestyle changes targeted in the Greater Green Triangle Diabetes Prevention Project conducted in Southeast Australia in 2004–2006 predict changes in dietary behaviour and clinical risk factors.

Methods : A longitudinal pre-test and post-test study design was used. The group program was completed by 237 people at high risk of type 2 diabetes. Associations between changes in the variables were examined by structural equation modelling using a path model in which changes in psychological determinants for lifestyle predicted changes in dietary behaviours (fat and fibre intake), which subsequently predicted changes in waist circumference and other clinical outcomes. Standardised regression weights are presented, with β = ± 0.1 and β = ± 0.3 representing small and medium associations, respectively.

Results : Improvements in coping self-efficacy and planning predicted improvements in fat (β = − 0.15, p < 0.05 and β = − 0.32, p < 0.001, respectively) and fibre intake (β = 0.15, p < 0.05 and β = 0.23, p < 0.001, respectively) which in turn predicted improvements in waist circumference (β = 0.18, p < 0.01 and β = − 0.16, p < 0.05, respectively). Improvements in waist circumference predicted improvements in diastolic blood pressure (β = 0.13, p < 0.05), HDL (β = − 0.16, p < 0.05), triglycerides (β = 0.17, p < 0.01), and fasting glucose (β = 0.15, p < 0.05).

Conclusions : Psychological changes predicted behaviour changes, resulting in 12-month biophysical changes. The findings support the theoretical basis of the interventions.