Learning experiences for the transition to professional work

A better educated workforce contributes to a more informed and tolerant society with higher economic output, and this is also associated with higher levels of personal health, interpersonal trust and civic and social engagement. Against this backdrop, the role of universities has expanded, as university learning has moved beyond providing an education to preparing students for leadership positions within society. This article examines the effectiveness of final-year learning experiences from the perception of recent graduates. The aim is to improve undergraduate curriculum to facilitate the transition to professional employment. An online quantitative and qualitative survey instrument was developed to investigate graduates’ perceptions of their different learning experiences and assessment types in their senior year. Four hundred and twelve alumni from five universities completed the survey. Our results indicate that graduates value case studies, group work and oral presentations, and that graduates rate lectures and guest lectures from practitioners as the least important in their transition to work. The results validate the use of graduate capability frameworks and mapping the development of the skills over the curriculum. These results are useful for curriculum designers to assist with designing programmes on the transition to professional work.

The nature of academic leadership at the colleges of the Royal University of Bhutan

This qualitative case study explored leaders' and faculty members' perspectives on the nature of academic leadership at the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) Colleges. The study revealed that academic leadership at the Colleges is a complex and emergent fusion of Western and Buddhist leadership. The research recommended a hybrid model intended to inform academic leadership development in Bhutanese higher education and contribute to the realisation of the Gross National Happiness philosophy. The model incorporates Buddhist-influenced leadership and other relevant leadership approaches and is expected to contribute to academic rigour through effective learning and research leadership.

Ethical leadership in a time of increasing accountability

Australia, like many other countries, has embraced national testing as part of wider reforms and increased accountability in schooling. Results for standardised testing programs, such as NAPLAN, are widely published yet form only one part of accountability for educators. We argue that accountability also has moral, ethical and professional dimensions. In this paper we offer a discussion of background to our study of ethical leadership in a time of data driven or contractual accountability. Based on Starratt’s (1996) model, we define ethical leadership as a social, relational practice concerned with the moral purpose of education (Angus, 2006). Our central thesis is that given increasing accountabilities, school leaders need to consider approaches to ethical leadership to improve quality and equity in education and achieve equitable outcomes for all students. The paper concludes with key implications for school leaders.

Negotiating Chineseness through learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia: The role of habitus

While education researchers have drawn on the work of a wide diversity of theorists over the years, much contemporary theory building in these areas has revolved around the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Theory as Method in Research develops the capacity of students, researchers and teachers to successfully put Bourdieu’s ideas to work in their own research and prepare them effectively for conducting Masters and Doctoral scholarships. Structured around four core themes, this book provides a range of research case studies exploring educational identities, educational inequalities, school leadership and management, and research in teacher education. Issues as diverse as Chinese language learning and identity, school leadership in Australia and the school experience of Afro-Trinidadian boys, are covered, intertwined with a set of innovative approaches to theory application in education research. This collection brings together, in one comprehensive volume, a set of education researchers who place Pierre Bourdieu’s key concepts such as habitus, capital and field at the centre of their research methodologies. Full of insight and innovation, the book is an essential read for practitioners, student teachers, researchers and academics who want to harness the potential of Bourdieu’s core concepts in their own work, thereby helping to bridge the gap between theory and method in education research.

Embedding sustainability in a real-world context: Developing a world class early learning centre

This symposium describes what is possible when early childhood professionals work with designers to develop a vision for an exemplary early childhood centre with a focus on Education for Sustainability (EfS). The symposium provides insights into cross-disciplinary initiatives between QUT Early childhood and Design staff and students, who have worked together with the iconic Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, to explore imperatives around EfS, including leadership and professionalism. This practical, real world project has seen all stakeholders engage in a focus on sustainability which has opened new ways of thinking about early childhood centre design. Cross-disciplinarity has created space to re-think the potential of the disciplines to interweave, and in so doing opened different ways for thinking about early childhood centres – their operation and their function. For the first time in Queensland, this project creates strategic alliances between EfS, childcare, business and sustainable design. EfS is essential for addressing local and global environmental issues and early childhood EfS research has been gaining international momentum, with governments nominating this area as having significant capacity to empower communities and promote change. While models for collaboration exist in the early childhood programs in Reggio Emilia, we offer sustainability as a unique and contemporary focus with immense potential to generate international and national interest. To date Early Childhood degree students enrolled in a leadership and management unit/subject have worked collaboratively with Design students to explore the sustainable design of the proposed Lone Pine early childhood centre. Providing students with a ‘real world’ project sees them re-positioned from ‘novice’ to ‘professional’, where their knowledge, expertise and perspectives are simultaneously validated and challenged. These learning experiences are enabling students to practice a new model of early childhood leadership, one that is vital for leading in an increasingly complex world. The symposium will be comprised of three discrete, though interconnected presentations, that work together to tell the story of this project. Three key facets of the project will be explored during the 90 minute session, as the perspectives of key stakeholders are shared. The first presentation (A/Prof Julie Davis, Dr Lyndal O’Gorman& Dr Megan Gibson) will outline the role of QUT School of Early Childhood staff and students, with attention to the ways in which the project was embedded in students’ work in the final year of their degree program of study. The second presentation (Ms Lindy Osborne) will provide insights into the Design students’ collaborative work in the project. Finally, the key role of the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and their commitment for EfS (Ms Peta Wilson & Dr Sue Elliott) will map out the philosophy that underpins the project. Together, the authors will conclude key project outcomes that have been achieved through this real-world, cross-disciplinary work.

Leading Beautifully : Educational Leadership as Connoisseurship

Leading Beautifully provides a new dimension to understanding effective leadership. Drawing from lessons in the arts and the humanities, English and Ehrich explore how educational decision-making in schools can be informed by identity, personal competence, and an understanding of the field's intellectual foundations. Based on in-depth interviews of artists and educational leaders, this book provides insight into the inner world of successful leaders who have developed competencies and understandings that extend beyond the standard leadership tool box. This exciting new book explores the theory and practice of leadership connoisseurship as a human-centered endeavor and as an antidote to mechanistic, business-oriented practices. The authors' well-grounded reconsideration of educational leadership will enliven and enhance any educational leader's practice.

Implementation of e-learning: A case study of three schools

As Western Australian schools move to implement technology into the classroom, there appears to be prevalence in combining e-learning with face to face traditional classroom practice. This has been accompanied by a shift toward a digital curriculum that incorporates re-usable learning objects. Essential to any teacher contemplating the use of a digital curriculum resource is not only the knowledge of learning theories but models of best practice to create online curriculum for students to use in every day classrooms. This paper explores the e-learning practices in three case study schools (n=3) in Western Australia. Data were collected by observation and interviews (n=11) conducted with the teachers and the ICT co-ordinators, to ascertain their perceptions and experiences with regard to the e-learning environment. There were challenges associated with the implementation of e-learning by teachers into their classroom such as skill development, changes in their role and the pedagogies they employ. The case study schools were pilot schools breaking new ground in order to test a new portal technology. Findings indicated that successful implementation of the e-learning environment was dependent on the four key factors of ICT infrastructure, ICT leadership, support and training initiatives and the teachers’ ICT capacity.

Literacy leadership and accountability practices: Holding onto ethics in ways that count

Despite the rhetoric of schools serving the needs of specific communities, it is evident that the work of teachers and principals is shaped by government imperatives to demonstrate success according to a set of standard ‘benchmarks’. In this chapter, we draw from our current study of new forms of educational leadership emerging in South Australian public primary schools to explore the ways in which test-based accountability requirements are being mediated by principals in schools that serve high poverty communities. Taking an institutional ethnography approach we focus on the everyday work of a principal and a literacy leader in one suburban primary school to show the complexity of the impact of national testing on practices of literacy leadership. We elaborate on the inescapable textual framings and tasks faced by the principal and literacy leader, and those that they create and modify – such as a common literacy agreement and ‘literacy chats’ between a literacy leader and classroom teacher – in order to ‘hold on to ethics’. We argue that while leaders’ and teachers’ everyday work is regulated by ‘ruling relations’ (Smith, 1999), it is also organic and responsive to the local context. We conclude with a reflection on the important situated work that school leaders do in mediating trans-local policies that might otherwise close down possibilities for engaging ethically with students and their learning in a particular school.

The CAMEL Project: Collaborative Approaches to the Management of E-Learning

CAMEL is short for Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning and was a project funded by the HEFCE Leadership, Governance and Management programme. It set out to explore how institutions who were making effective use of e-learning and who were collaborating in regional lifelong learning partnerships might be able to learn from each other in a Community of Practice based around study visits to each of the partner institutions. This short publication highlights some of the things CAMEL participants found out about e-learning and about each other.

Case study: Supporting informed implementation and use of technology in learning

Case study on how Plumpton College and FE Sussex and 13 other partners are leading a programme to facilitate the management and introduction of learning technology in those colleges. The project has two strands which address aspects of technology in leadership, governance and teaching practice.

Graduate Education for Leadership in Sustainable Development Innovation , Practice and Research

This paper reflects on the motivation, method and effectiveness of teaching leadership and organisational change to graduate engineers. Delivering progress towards sustainable development requires engineers who are aware of pressing global issues (such as resource depletion, climate change, social inequity and an interdependent economy) since it is they who deliver the goods and services that underpin society within these constraints. In recognition of this fact the Cambridge University MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development has focussed on educating engineers to become effective change agents in their professional field with the confidence to challenge orthodoxy in adopting traditional engineering solutions. This paper reflects on ten years of delivering this course to review how teaching change management and leadership aspects of the programme have evolved and progressed over that time. As the students on this professional practice have often extensive experience as practising engineers and scientists, they have learned the limitations of their technical background when solving complex problems. Students often join the course recognising their need to broaden their knowledge of relevant cross-disciplinary skills. The course offers an opportunity for these early to mid-career engineers to explore an ethical and value-based approach to bringing about effective change in their particular sectors and organisations. This is achieved through action learning assignments in combination with reflections on the theory of change to enable students to equip themselves with tools that help them to be effective in making their professional and personal life choices. This paper draws on feedback gathered from students during their participation on the course and augments this with alumni reflections gathered some years after their graduation. These professionals are able to look back on their experience of the taught components and reflect on how they have been able to apply this key learning in their subsequent careers.

Graduate education for leadership and organisational change in sustainable development

This paper reflects on the motivation, method and effectiveness of teaching leadership and organisational change to graduate engineers. Delivering progress towards sustainable development requires engineers who are aware of pressing global issues (such as resource depletion, climate change, social inequity and an interdependent economy) since it is they who deliver the goods and services that underpin society within these constraints. They also must understand how to implement change in the organisations within which they will work. In recognition of this fact the Cambridge University MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development has focussed on educating engineers to become effective change agents in their professional field with the confidence to challenge orthodoxy in adopting traditional engineering solutions. This paper reflects on ten years of delivering a special module to review how teaching change management and leadership aspects of the programme have evolved and progressed over that time. As the students who embark on this professional practice have often extensive experience as practising engineers and scientists, many have already learned the limitations of their technical background when solving complex problems. Students often join the course recognising their need to broaden their knowledge of relevant cross-disciplinary skills. The programme offers an opportunity for these early to mid-career engineers to explore an ethical and value-based approach to bringing about effective change in their particular sectors and organisations. This is achieved through action learning assignments in combination with reflections on the theory of change to enable students to equip themselves with tools that help them to be effective in making their professional and personal life choices. This paper draws on feedback gathered from students during their participation on the programme and augments this with alumni reflections gathered some years after their graduation. These professionals are able to look back on their experience of the taught components and reflect on how they have been able to apply this key learning in their subsequent careers. Copyright © 2012 September.

Dealing with affective needs in e-learning: Contrasting two cases in two cultures.

This chapter presents and contrasts descriptions of two cases of online affective support provided to support students engaged in higher level learning tasks. The cases are set in different cultures, centre upon different intended learning outcomes, and follow different tutorial styles. One (Eastern) tutor acted as a “shepherd leader” in response to needs arising in the Confucian Heritage Culture as the teacher promoted critical thinking, according to the Western model. The other (Western) tutor provided Rogerian facilitation of reflective learning journals, kept by students seeking to develop personal and professional capabilities. In both styles, affective support features strongly. The cultural and pedagogical comparisons between the cases have proved useful to the writers. These distinctions together with the similarities between the two online styles emerge in the comparisons. Keywords: affective needs, asynchronous discussion, Confucian Heritage Culture, constructivism, critical thinking, facilitation, reflection, reflective learning journals, Rogerian, shepherd leadership, social-constructivist, student-centred, support.

Engaging with leadership development in Irish academic libraries: some reflections of the Future Leaders Programme (FLP)

Four librarians from Irish university libraries completed the U.K. Future Leaders Programme (FLP) in 2010. In this article they recount their experience and assess the effect of the programme on their professional practice and the value for their institutions. The programme is explored in the context of the Irish higher education environment, which is facing significant challenges due to the demise of the Celtic Tiger economy. A brief review of the literature relating to structured programmes to prepare librarians for senior positions, is presented. The structure and content of the FLP and the learning methodologies, theories, tools and techniques used throughout are discussed. The article suggests that the programme has real value for both individuals and institutions and that it can play a significant role in succession planning and the leadership development of librarians