Science teacher leadership for transforming the curriculum and classroom practice

While teacher leadership is the basis for innovation and reform within schools, few international studies have focused on the leadership practices of science teachers and heads of science departments. This chapter reviews the Australasian literature that addresses the issue both directly and indirectly. The transformational practices of heads of science departments as well as influential science teachers within departments are identified in this chapter.

ASERA : an uncontroversial evolution

The Australasian Science Education Research Association Ltd. (ASERA) is the oldest educational research association in Australasia. Starting as an informal meeting of science educators at Monash University in May 1970, it has evolved progressively without major controversy into a formally constituted limited company that promotes science education at all levels and contexts. There are no revelations of fractures within the association, and no accounts of major controversy, other than reference to a few grumbles here and there when changes were proposed. So, has the ASERA experience been positive and uplifting for all? Are there unspoken controversies? Can the uncontroversial be made controversial?

ASERA : brief histor(y/ies)

This collection of historical accounts provides diverse perspectives on the structure and culture of the community of researchers who participate in activities of the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA). It describes the formation of the Association, and identifies major changes and challenges for the ever growing and internationalisation of its membership.

Assessment and curriculum reform in China : the college English test and tertiary English as a foreign language education.

Educational assessment was a worldwide commonplace practice in the last century. With the theoretical underpinnings of education shifting from behaviourism and social efficiency to constructivism and cognitive theories in the past two decades, the assessment theories and practices show a widespread changing movement. The emergent assessment paradigm, with a futurist perspective, indicates a deviation away from the prevailing large scale high-stakes standardised testing and an inclination towards classroom-based formative assessment. Innovations and reforms initiated in attempts to achieve better education outcomes for a sustainable future via more developed learning and assessment theories have included the 2007 College English Reform Program (CERP) in Chinese higher education context. This paper focuses on the College English Test (CET) - the national English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing system for non-English majors at tertiary level in China. It seeks to explore the roles that the CET played in the past two College English curriculum reforms, and the new role that testing and assessment assumed in the newly launched reform. The paper holds that the CET was operationalised to uplift the standards. However, the extended use of this standardised testing system brings constraints as well as negative washback effects on the tertiary EFL education. Therefore in the newly launched reform -CERP, a new assessment model which combines summative and formative assessment approaches is proposed. The testing and assessment, assumed a new role - to engender desirable education outcomes. The question asked is: will the mixed approach to formative and summative assessment provide the intended cure to the agony that tertiary EFL education in China has long been suffering - spending much time, yet achieving little effects? The paper reports the progresses and challenges as informed by the available research literature, yet asserts a lot needs to be explored on the potential of the assessment mix in this examination tradition deep-rooted and examination-obsessed society.

“I woke up and realised the ground had shifted”: the shifting terrain of English curriculum

The theme of this conference comes from the epitaph on the Lewis Carroll’s gravesite. “Is All our Life then But A Dream?” This seems fitting for a time when so much change in the terrain of English makes us feel as if we are somnambulating through a surrealist landscape. Like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, (Carroll, 2003) we might find ourselves at strange tea parties with bureaucratic mad hatters, and just when we think we have a grasp of applying new theory in our teaching, we fall down another rabbit hole, to swim in confusion as some queen calls out, ‘off with their heads!’. The shifting ground in English inevitably moves in response to waves of theory influencing classroom practice. Each new paradigm has claimed to liberate language learners from the flaws of the previous model. Each linguist or literary theorist who shaped the new paradigm no doubt dreamt of a new population emerging from school as more powerfully literate citizens than the previous generation.

Operationalising first year curriculum principles

This project builds on the First Year Curriculum Project that was carried out at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2006-2007 (QUT, 2007). One of the objectives of that project was “to develop principles for the Course Development processes that capture good design in first year curriculum practice” (p. 1) and this was achieved through the development of a set of broad organising principles for first year curriculum design—the First Year Curriculum Principles (FYCPs) (Kift, 2008).

Integrating engineering education in the middle school mathematics curriculum

Many nations are experiencing a decline in the number of graduating engineers, an overall poor preparedness for engineering studies in tertiary institutions, and a lack of diversity in the field. Given the increasing importance of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology in our world, it is imperative that we foster an interest and drive to participate in engineering from an early age. This discuission paper argues for the intergration of engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. In doing so, we offer a definition of engineering education and address its core goals; consider some perceptions of engineering and engineering education held by teachers and students; and offer one approach to promoting engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curriculum, namely through mathematical modeling.

Integrating Engineering Experiences within the Elementary Mathematics Curriculum

Engineering education for elementary school students is a new and increasingly important domain of research by mathematics, science, technology, and engineering educators. Recent research has raised questions about the context of engineering problems that are meaningful, engaging, and inspiring for young students. In the present study an environmental engineering activity was implemented in two classes of 11-year-old students in Cyprus. The problem required students to use the data to develop a procedure for selecting among alternative countries from which to buy water. Students created a range of models that adequately solved the problem although not all models took into account all of the data provided. The models varied in the number of problem factors taken into consideration and also in the different approaches adopted in dealing with the problem factors. At least two groups of students integrated into their models the environmental aspect of the problem (energy consumption, water pollution) and further refined their models. Results provide evidence that engineering model-eliciting activities can be successfully integrated in the elementary mathematics curriculum. These activities provide rich opportunities for students to deal with engineering contexts and to apply their learning in mathematics and science to solving real-world engineering problems.

Future directions and perspectives for problem solving research and curriculum development

Since the 1960s, numerous studies on problem solving have revealed the complexity of the domain and the difficulty in translating research findings into practice. The literature suggests that the impact of problem solving research on the mathematics curriculum has been limited. Furthermore, our accumulation of knowledge on the teaching of problem solving is lagging. In this first discussion paper we initially present a sketch of 50 years of research on mathematical problem solving. We then consider some factors that have held back problem solving research over the past decades and offer some directions for how we might advance the field. We stress the urgent need to take into account the nature of problem solving in various arenas of today’s world and to accordingly modernize our perspectives on the teaching and learning of problem solving and of mathematical content through problem solving. Substantive theory development is also long overdue—we show how new perspectives on the development of problem solving expertise can contribute to theory development in guiding the design of worthwhile learning activities. In particular, we explore a models and modeling perspective as an alternative to existing views on problem solving.

Ipswich stories : using digital storytelling to research intergenerational sharing of heritage, history, place, identity and community connection : a pilot study

Co-creative media production practices offer important new modes and opportunities for social participation and engagement. In mid-2009 Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation researchers at QUT adapted a specific model of co-creative media production, known as ‘digital storytelling’ and piloted it as an action research platform for facilitating and researching knowledge production based on intergenerational dialogue and exchange. Nine stories were produced and important insights were generated into this particular use of digital storytelling, as well as the impact of institutional constraints and opportunities on the possibilities and outcomes co-creative media practices and processes.

Integrating engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curriculum

Many nations are experiencing a decline in the number of graduating engineers, an overall poor preparedness for engineering studies in tertiary institutions, and a lack of diversity in the field. Given the increasing importance of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology in our world, it is imperative that we foster an interest and drive to participate in engineering from an early age. This discussion paper argues for the integration of engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. In doing so, we offer a definition of engineering education and address its core goals; consider some perceptions of engineering and engineering education held by teachers and students; and offer one approach to promoting engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curriculum, namely through mathematical modeling.

The arobase in the libr@ry : new political economies of children’s literatures and literacies

This essay--part of a special issue on the work of Gunther Kress--uses the idea of affordances and constraints to explore the (im)possibilities of new environments for engaging with literature written for children (see Kress, 2003). In particular, it examines a festival of children's literature from an Australian education context that occurs online. The festival is part of a technologically mediated library space designated by the term libr@ry (Kapitzke & Bruce, 2006). The @ symbol (French word "arobase") inserted into the word library indicates that technological mediation has a history, an established set of social practices, and a political economy, which even chatrooms with "real" authors may alter but not fully supplant.