Talking the talk : oracy demands in first year university assessment tasks

With more constructivist approaches to learning in higher education and more value on teamwork skills, students’ oracy (speaking and listening) features more prominently in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The paper reports on a study of two first-year Australian university courses in disciplines with explicit industry orientations and high proportions of international students. Drawing on classroom observations and interviews with the lecturers, this paper investigates their pedagogical designs on oracy and the oracy demands of their assessment tasks. The study found that talk-based assessment tasks (a group project and a group oral presentation) featured in both courses but the two courses treated students’ oracy differently: as product or process. The contrast between the two assessment designs explicates issues around EAL student needs, authentic links to industry, the provenance of criteria used to assess performance, perceptions about the relevance of talk and the ‘hidden assessment’ of oracy.

Academic practice as explanatory framework : reconceptualising international student academic engagement and university teaching

This paper joins growing interest in the concept of practice, and uses it to reconceptualise international student engagement with the demands of study at an Australian university. Practice foregrounds institutional structures and student agency and brings together psychologically- and socially-oriented perspectives on international student learning approaches. Utilising discourse theory, practice is defined as habitual and individual instances of socially-contextualised configurations of elements such as actions and interactions, roles and relations, identities, objects, values, and language. In the university context, academic practice highlights the institutionally-sanctioned ways of knowing, doing and being that constitute academic tasks. The concept is applied here to six international students’ ‘readings’ of and strategic responses to academic work in a Master of Education course. It is argued that academic practice provides a comprehensive framework for explaining the interface between university academic requirements and international student learning, and the crucial role that teaching has in facilitating the experience.

The First Steps Program : a case study of a new model of community child health service

Community Child Health Nursing Services provide support for new mothers; however, the focus has often been on individual consultations, complemented by a series of group sessions soon after birth. We describe a new model of community care for first-time mothers that centres on group sessions throughout the whole contact period. The model was developed by practicing child health nurses for a large health service district in south-east Queensland, which offers a comprehensive community child health service. Issues identified by clinicians working within existing services, feedback from clients and the need for more resource-efficient methods of service provision underpinned the development of the model. The pilot program was implemented in two community child health centres in Brisbane. An early individual consultation to engage the family with the service was added in response to feedback from clinicians and clients. The modified model has since been implemented service-wide as the ‘First Steps Program’. The introduction of this model has ensured that the service has been able to retain a comprehensive service for first-time parents from a universal population, while responding to the challenges of population growth and the increasing number of complex clients placing demands on resources.

Reliability of routinely collected hospital data for child maltreatment surveillance

Background: Internationally, research on child maltreatment-related injuries has been hampered by a lack of available routinely collected health data to identify cases, examine causes, identify risk factors and explore health outcomes. Routinely collected hospital separation data coded using the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) system provide an internationally standardised data source for classifying and aggregating diseases, injuries, causes of injuries and related health conditions for statistical purposes. However, there has been limited research to examine the reliability of these data for child maltreatment surveillance purposes. This study examined the reliability of coding of child maltreatment in Queensland, Australia. Methods: A retrospective medical record review and recoding methodology was used to assess the reliability of coding of child maltreatment. A stratified sample of hospitals across Queensland was selected for this study, and a stratified random sample of cases was selected from within those hospitals. Results: In 3.6% of cases the coders disagreed on whether any maltreatment code could be assigned (definite or possible) versus no maltreatment being assigned (unintentional injury), giving a sensitivity of 0.982 and specificity of 0.948. The review of these cases where discrepancies existed revealed that all cases had some indications of risk documented in the records. 15.5% of cases originally assigned a definite or possible maltreatment code, were recoded to a more or less definite strata. In terms of the number and type of maltreatment codes assigned, the auditor assigned a greater number of maltreatment types based on the medical documentation than the original coder assigned (22% of the auditor coded cases had more than one maltreatment type assigned compared to only 6% of the original coded data). The maltreatment types which were the most ‘under-coded’ by the original coder were psychological abuse and neglect. Cases coded with a sexual abuse code showed the highest level of reliability. Conclusion: Given the increasing international attention being given to improving the uniformity of reporting of child-maltreatment related injuries and the emphasis on the better utilisation of routinely collected health data, this study provides an estimate of the reliability of maltreatment-specific ICD-10-AM codes assigned in an inpatient setting.

The critical meets the cultural : International students’ responses to critical, dialogic postgraduate education in a Western university

What happens when international students encounter critical, dialogic approaches to postgraduate education in a Western university? This chapter works with the narrative accounts of two students from Asian countries about their varied experiences of and responses to critically-oriented, interactive, English-medium study in a Master of Education course in Australia. Beginning from researcher standpoint, it tables the students’ stories of cultural, academic, linguistic and personal border crossings, and their ‘readings’ of course demands prioritising critical analysis, dialogic exchange and problem-solving. Their responses raise ongoing, unresolved epistemological and experiential issues about the cross-cultural and transnational relevance and value of Western/Eurocentric ‘critical’ education.

Bayesian network for risk of diarrhea associated with the use of recycled water

Estimating potential health risks associated with recycled (reused) water is highly complex given the multiple factors affecting water quality. We take a conceptual model, which represents the factors and pathways by which recycled water may pose a risk of contracting gastroenteritis, convert the conceptual model to a Bayesian net, and quantify the model using one expert’s opinion. This allows us to make various predictions as to the risks posed under various scenarios. Bayesian nets provide an additional way of modeling the determinants of recycled water quality and elucidating their relative influence on a given disease outcome. The important contribution to Bayesian net methodology is that all model predictions, whether risk or relative risk estimates, are expressed as credible intervals.

Incorporating parameter uncertainty into quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA)

Modern statistical models and computational methods can now incorporate uncertainty of the parameters used in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessments (QMRA). Many QMRAs use Monte Carlo methods, but work from fixed estimates for means, variances and other parameters. We illustrate the ease of estimating all parameters contemporaneously with the risk assessment, incorporating all the parameter uncertainty arising from the experiments from which these parameters are estimated. A Bayesian approach is adopted, using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Gibbs sampling (MCMC) via the freely available software, WinBUGS. The method and its ease of implementation are illustrated by a case study that involves incorporating three disparate datasets into an MCMC framework. The probabilities of infection when the uncertainty associated with parameter estimation is incorporated into a QMRA are shown to be considerably more variable over various dose ranges than the analogous probabilities obtained when constants from the literature are simply ‘plugged’ in as is done in most QMRAs. Neglecting these sources of uncertainty may lead to erroneous decisions for public health and risk management.

A tale of six fish: achieving social presence through discussion forums in an offline learning environment

It is widely held, through the Socratic tradition, that discussion is at the heart of learning. Moderated discussion forums have been shown to replicate the debate, argument and verbal defence of viewpoints that we have come to expect in face-to-face learning environments and that we generally accept to underpin learning. While much has been written about discussion forums in educational settings, particularly in how to moderate and promote effective interaction with students at a distance, this paper takes a different approach. It looks at how forums may be used to support face-to-face learning in the contemporary context of the massification of on-campus classes. Further to this, it will argue for discussion forums as an indicator of social presence in the learning environment. It will cautiously conclude that, through purposeful design, this form of asynchronous communication has a valuable role to play in creating a positive and supportive environment for students entering university. Discussion forums are tools with a versatility yet to be fully exploited.

Mooting and technology : to what extent does using technology improve the mooting experience for students?

It is generally acknowledged that mooting is an effective way to enhance the teaching of practical skills in legal education as well as to provide an authentic learning experience with links to the real world. However, there are a number of impediments to students participating in mooting; in particular being located off-campus, inexperience and lack of time. It has been suggested that technology may be a means of overcoming these impediments. However the use of technology in mooting has not been tested. This paper will report on a trial of the use of Second Life and Elluminate and videoconferencing as platforms for the conduct of moots. The trials identified limitations in the use of technology for mooting in particularly in relation to the development of advocacy skills. The paper will conclude that these limitations can be overcome by careful consideration of the appropriate technology to be used depending on the context and the objectives to be achieved by the moot. It will also suggest that in order to provide an authentic use of online communication technology in a court setting, the best available technology should be used for the conduct of moot competitions.

Social Impact of Mining Survey : Aggregate Results Queensland Communities

This is the final report from a study into the social impact of mining in Queensland.

Defining synthesizer teaching

The synthesizer has come a long way since wendy Carlos' 'Switched On Bach'. Unfortunately many would not realise it. Synthesizers are in most of the popular and commercial music we hear, and their development has followed the rapid development of computing technology, allowing sugnificant perfromance leaps every five years. In the last 10 years or so, the physical interface of synthesizers has changed little even while the sound generating hardware has raced ahead. The stabilisation of gestural controller, particularly keyboard-based controllers, has enabled tje synthesizer to establish itself as an expressive instrument and one worthy of the hours of practice required on any instrument to reach a high level of proficiency. It is now time for the instrumental study of synthesizer to be taken seriously by music educators across Australia, and I hope, through this paper, to shed some light on the path forward.

Keeping House : a novel and novel companion

The creative work of this study is a novel-length work of literary fiction called Keeping House (published as Grace's Table, by University of Queensland Press, April 2014). Grace has not had twelve people at her table for a long time. Hers isn't the kind of family who share regular Sunday meals. As Grace prepares the feast, she reflects on her life, her marriage and her friendships. When the three generations of her family come together, simmering tensions from the past threaten to boil over. The one thing that no one can talk about is the one thing that no one can forget. Grace's Table is a moving and often funny novel using food as a language to explore the power of memory and the family rituals that define us. The exegetical component of this study does not adhere to traditional research pedagogies. Instead, it follows the model of what the literature describes as fictocriticism. It is the intention that the exegesis be read as a hybrid genre; one that combines creative practice and theory and blurs the boundaries between philosophy and fiction. In offering itself as an alternative to the exegetical canon it provides a model for the multiplicity of knowledge production suited to the discipline of practice-led research. The exegesis mirrors structural elements of the creative work by inviting twelve guests into the domestic space of the novel to share a meal. The guests, chosen for their diverse thinking, enable examination of the various agents of power involved in the delivery of food. Their ideas cross genders, ages and time periods; their motivations and opinions often collide. Some are more concerned with the spatial politics of where food is consumed, others with its actual preparation and consumption. Each, however, provides a series of creative reflective conversations throughout the meal which help to answer the research question: How can disempowered women take authority within their domestic space? Michel de Certeau must defend his "operational tactics" or "art of the weak" 1 as a means by which women can subvert the colonisation of their domestic space against Michel Foucault's ideas about the functions of a "disciplinary apparatus". 2 Erving Goffman argues that the success of de Certeau's "tactics" depends upon his theories of "performance" and "masquerade" 3; a claim de Certeau refutes. Doreen Massey and the author combine forces in arguing for space, time and politics to be seen as interconnected, non-static and often contested. The author calls for identity, or sense of self, to be considered a further dimension which impacts on the function of spatial models. Yu-Fi Tuan speaks of the intimacy of kitchens; Gaston Bachelard the power of daydreams; and Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin gives the reader a taste of the nourishing arts. Roland Barthes forces the author to reconsider her function as a writer and her understanding of the reader's relationship with a text. Fictional characters from two texts have a place at the table – Marian from The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood 4 and Lilian from Lilian's Story by Kate Grenville. 5 Each explores how they successfully subverted expectations of their gender. The author interprets and applies elements of the conversations to support Grace's tactics in the novel as well as those related to her own creative research practice. Grace serves her guests, reflecting on what is said and how it relates to her story. Over coffee, the two come together to examine what each has learned.

Regrounding critical literacy : representation, facts and reality

A discussion of the pivotal theoretical and practical issue in the teaching of critical literacies: the relationship between representation and material social, economic and ecosystemic reality. The argument here is that models of critical literacy are contingent upon a principled and grounded pursuit of material social, economic and ecological realities 'outside' of textual representation per se.

Included by design : a case for regulation for accessible housing in Australia

Accessible housing is a scarce yet much needed commodity in Australia. A national agreement between industry and advocacy groups to a voluntary approach, called the Livable Design program, aims to provide access features in all new housing by 2020. Through a range of awareness raising initiatives, the program is anticipating increased supply by builders and increased demand by home-buyers. However the people who need accessible housing are the least likely and least able to buy it at the point of new sale and average homebuyers do not consider access features as a priority. This approach has not been successful overseas or in Australia in the past. Regulation with incentives supported by education and awareness has provided the best results, yet, regulation typically comes with controversy and resistance from the housing industry. A study is planned to identify how effective the Livable Design program is likely to be, what is likely to hinder it and why regulation is likely to be needed.