Industry-school partnerships : an ecological approach

Internationally, Industry-School Partnerships (ISPs) are a ubiquitous government approach for enabling school to work transitions. Significant benefits of ISPs for centralised bureaucracies that are seeking to address common educational problems include: i) cost reduction; ii) supply to geographically dispersed locations, and; iii) industry access to innovative education solutions. In Queensland, there exists a government led ISP, the Gateway to Industry Schools Program. Under this initiative is the Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy, a lead industry organisation for 34 schools and 17 multinational sponsor companies. Acquiring an understanding of this strategic ISP is critical, given the current Resources Industry boom, and the workforce skills shortage experienced in Australia. This review paper adopts Ecological Systems Theory as a lens to understand the inner workings of ISPs. Acknowledging that ISPs will remain a key feature of government policy, this paper seeks to further illuminate the role of ISPs in transitioning young people from school to the working world.

Resources for improving journalists' understanding of the economic and financial parameters of Australia's agricultural and commodity producers

The research addresses how an understanding of the fundamentals of economics will better inform general journalists who report on issues or events affecting rural and regional Australia. The research draws on practice-based experience of the author, formal economics studies, interviews with news editors from Australian television news organisations, and interviews from leading economists. A guidebook has also been written to help journalists apply economic theories to their reporting. The guidebook enables reporters to think strategically and consider the 'big picture' when they inform society about policies, commodity trade, the environment, or any issues involving rural and regional Australia.

A new era : personal technology challenges educational technology

As we race towards a new era, rapid change of conventional models has become the norm. Just as technology has etched itself to the core of society, the sheer quantity of student devices connecting to university networks presents a sector wide challenge coinciding almost perfectly with many universities creating technology rich learning spaces. New fears include future proofing. It is not just a matter of technology becoming outdated. In seeking to accommodate the teaching styles and experience of staff across diverse faculties, is this technology simply too vanilla to meet their needs as they become increasingly skilled and inspired by technology’s potential? Through the early findings of a study into staff use of technology within Queensland University of Technology's next generation collaborative learning spaces, this paper explores whether the answers lie in a model presented by students equipping themselves with the tools they need to learn in the 21st century.

"You’ve modelled and now what?" : Exploring determinants of process model re-use

Business process modelling as a practice and research field has received great attention over recent years. Organizations invest significantly into process modelling in terms of training, tools, capabilities and resources. The return on this investment is a function of process model re-use, which we define as the recurring use of process models to support organizational work tasks. While prior research has examined re-use as a design principle, we explore re-use as a behaviour, because evidence suggest that analysts’ re-use of process models is indeed limited. In this paper we develop a two-stage conceptualization of the key object-, behaviour- and socioorganization-centric factors explaining process model re-use behaviour. We propose a theoretical model and detail implications for its operationalization and measurement. Our study can provide significant benefits to our understanding of process modelling and process model use as key practices in analysis and design.

Engineering based problem solving in the middle school : design and construction with simple machines

Incorporating engineering concepts into middle school curriculum is seen as an effective way to improve students’ problem-solving skills. A selection of findings is reported from a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based unit in which students in the second year (grade 8) of a three-year longitudinal study explored engineering concepts and principles pertaining to the functioning of simple machines. The culminating activity, the focus of this paper, required the students to design, construct, test, and evaluate a trebuchet catapult. We consider findings from one of the schools, a co-educational school, where we traced the design process developments of four student groups from two classes. The students’ descriptions and explanations of the simple machines used in their catapult design are examined, together with how they rated various aspects of their engineering designs. Included in the findings are students’ understanding of how their simple machines were simulated by the resources supplied and how the machines interacted in forming a complex machine. An ability to link physical materials with abstract concepts and an awareness of design constraints on their constructions were apparent, although a desire to create a ‘‘perfect’’ catapult despite limitations in the physical materials rather than a prototype for testing concepts was evident. Feedback from teacher interviews added further insights into the students’ developments as well as the teachers’ professional learning. An evolving framework for introducing engineering education in the pre-secondary years is proposed.

Students' cultural capital : a study of assessment for learning as a field of exchange

This study was conducted within the context of a flexible education institution where conventional educational assessment practices and tests fail to recognise and assess the creativity and cultural capital of a cohort of marginalised young people. A new assessment model which included an electronic-portfolio-social-networking system (EPS) was developed and trialled to identify and exhibit evidence of students' learning. The study aimed to discern unique forms of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) possessed by students who attend the Edmund Rice Education Australia Flexible Learning Centre Network (EREAFLCN). The EPS was trialled at the case study schools in an intervention and developed a space where students could make evident culturally specific forms of capital and funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). These resources were evaluated, modified and developed through dialogic processes utilising assessment for learning approaches (Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, 2009) in online and classroom settings. Students, peers and staff engaged in the recognition, judgement, revision and evaluation of students' cultural capital in a subfield of exchange (Bourdieu, 1990). The study developed the theory of assessment for learning as a field of exchange incorporating an online system as a teaching and assessment model. The term efield has been coined to describe this particular capital exchange model. A quasi-ethnographic approach was used to develop a collective case study (Stake, 1995). This case study involved an in-depth exploration of five students' forms of cultural capital and the ways in which this capital could be assessed and exchanged using the efield model. A comparative analysis of the five cases was conducted to identify the emergent issues of students' recognisable cultural capital resources and the processes of exchange that can be facilitated to acquire legitimate credentials for these students in the Australian field of education. The participants in the study were young people at two EREAFLC schools aged between 12 and 18 years. Data was collected through interviews, observations and examination of documents made available by the EREAFLCN. The data was coded and analysed using a theoretical framework based on Bourdieu's analytical tools and a sociocultural psychology theoretical perspective. Findings suggest that processes based on dialogic relationships can identify and recognise students' forms of cultural capital that are frequently misrecognised in mainstream school environments. The theory of assessment for learning as a field of exchange was developed into praxis and integrated in an intervention. The efield model was found to be an effective sociocultural tool in converting and exchanging students' capital resources for legitimated cultural and symbolic capital in the field of education.

A review of the educational needs of nurses administering cancer chemotherapy in rural and remote areas of Queensland

This paper describes current issues in chemotherapy nursing practice in rural and remote Australia. There is a trend to refer chemotherapy clients back to their rural and remote health facility for treatment from major oncology centres in Australia. However, it is increasingly apparent that the majority of nurses administering chemotherapy in smaller centres lack the theoretical and clinical knowledge to ensure optimum client outcomes and nurse/client safety. There are also issues unique to rural and remote life which will influence optimum chemotherapy service delivery. The research program described in the paper will ascertain the education requirements of rural and remote nurses administering chemotherapy and the design and delivery of a chemotherapy education package specific to the rural and remote context. Similar programs will ensure the best standards of chemotherapy practice in non-metropolitan areas by enhancing the practical and theoretical knowledge base of rural and remote nurses.

Exploring the experiences of embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspectives on teaching practicum through interpretive phenomenology

In this paper, we discuss interpretive/hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical approach to explore the experiences of three stakeholder groups in embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspectives on teaching practicum, a project sponsored by ALTC. We begin by asking the phenomenological question ‘what is your experience of practice teaching?’ An open, explorative, phenomenological framework seeks the meanings of experiences, not truths, from the participants’ words themselves. Interpretive phenomenology is particularly suitable to explore educational experiences (Grumet, 1992; M. van Manen, 1990), as it provides rich ground for listening to the stakeholders’ lived experience and documenting it for interpretation. In an interpretive process, perspectives on lifeworlds, worldview and lenses get highlighted (Cunningham & Stanley, 2003). We establish how through various project stages, interpretive phenomenology gets to the essence of practice teaching experience creating a pedagogical ‘understanding’ of the essential nature of shared experience as lived by the participants (M van Manen, 2002). Thereby, it foregrounds voices of agency, dissent, acceptance and resistance. We consider how our research study focuses on the pedagogic voice of Indigenous pre-service teachers and the recognition of complex pedagogic fields in Indigenous education. We explain how this study seeks insights into their evaluation of pedagogic relations with two other education stakeholders – their practicum supervising teachers at schools and university staff involved practicum experience. As such, our study aims to support and develop long term, future-oriented opportunities for Indigenous pre-service teachers to embed Indigenous knowledge in the curricula. We conclude with some projections into the discourse on how Indigenous knowledge (IK) and perspectives might be diversely exemplified in pre-service teachers’ professional works (particularly E-portfolios). We speculate how this change could in turn maximise opportunities for Indigenous pre-service teachers, their supervising teachers and university staff to demonstrate leadership in their field through the creation of future tangible products such as units of work, resources, assessment and reflection tools. The processes contextualising the cultural interface of competing knowledge systems (Nakata, 2007) provide important analytical tools for understanding issues affecting student-teacher-mentor relationships occurring on practicum.

Self-Regulated Learning : key strategies and their sources in a sample of adolescent males

This study identified the key self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and their sources for nine school-aged adolescent males aged 15 to 17 years. The Self-Regulated Learning Interview Schedule (SRLIS) was used along with semi-structured interviews with the participants and their parents to elicit information on SRL strategies and contexts for the formation of self-regulatory habits. Early habit-forming experiences of the family home in relation to homework and study routines were found to form an important base for effective SRL. Teachers were identified as the most common source of SRL strategies with important formative experiences occurring during the first two years of high school.

A wound management education and training needs analysis of health consumers and the relevant health workforce and stocktake of available education and training activities and resources

The goals of this project were to determine the education and training needs of health consumers and the relevant health workforce and to identify and map the available education and training activities and resources. The methods used to collect the data included online surveys and one on one interviews of relevant patients and their carers. The project manager actively sought to engage with the key wound management leaders and advanced clinicians to gain their support and views on the priority education and training issues. The response to all data collection methods was pleasing with almost five hundred responses to the general wound workforce online survey. The data supported the need for more wound management education and training and identified some particular topics of need, such as utilising wound investigations and understanding wound products, pharmaceuticals and devices. The occupational groups with the highest need appear to be those working in primary health care, such as practice nurses and GPs, and those working in residential aged care facilities. The education and training stocktake identified a wide range of activities currently available, the majority being provided in a face to face format. The next stage of the project will be to form some clear and achievable priority action areas based on the available data. An online directory of wound management education and training activities and resources will be developed and further development will be undertaken on a knowledge and skills framework for the wound management workforce. Additionally, transfer of learning factors in the general practice environment will be assessed and strategies will be developed to improve the pre-entry or undergraduate wound management training within relevant higher education programs.

Well-being, satisfaction and commitment : the substitutable nature of resources for maternity hospital nurses

Abstract Aims. To investigate the relationship between three types of organizational resources (job control, social support and organizational justice) and the impact of job demands on nurse’s well-being and attitudes towards their work. Background. The negative impact of work-related stress on nurse’s health and attitudes towards their work has been established. Increasingly, research is focusing on the role of organizational resources in reducing the impact of work related stress. Design. Cross-sectional survey. Method. Data collected in November 2008 from 226 Australian nurses and midwives were analysed using the full Job Strain Model with the addition of organizational justice variables. Multiple regression analyses explored the relationships among job control, job demands, three sources of social support and four types of organizational justice on well-being and work attitudes. Results. The overall regression models explained a significant amount of variance in well-being, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Significant main effects were evident for support variables and organizational justice variables on well-being and job satisfaction. Interactions between job control and supervisor support and between job demands and supervisor support were evident for job satisfaction. Conclusions. Supervisor support and organizational justice have significant relationships with nurses’ well-being and job satisfaction. More broadly, the findings suggest that, in the triple-matching approach from a work-stressor to a resource to a work outcome, personal, supervisory and organizational resources may be substitutable. These findings provide nurse management with empirical endorsement for the development and delivery of the organization’s resources for nursing staff.

Examining workload models in online and blended teaching

Over the past decade, most Australian universities have moved increasingly towards online course delivery for both undergraduate and graduate programs. In almost all cases, elements of online teaching are part of routine teaching loads. Yet detailed and accurate workload data are not readily available. As a result, institutional policies on academic staff workload are often guided more by untested assumptions about reduction of costs per student unit, rather than being evidence-based, with the result that implementation of new technologies for online teaching has resulted in poorly defined workload expectations. While the academics in this study often revealed a limited understanding of their institutional workload formulas, which in Australia are negotiated between management and the national union through their local branches, the costs of various types of teaching delivery have become a critical issue in a time of increasing student numbers, declining funding, pressures to increase quality and introduce minimum standards of teaching and curriculum, and substantial expenditure on technologies to support e-learning. There have been relatively few studies on the costs associated with workload for online teaching, and even fewer on the more ubiquitous ‘blended’, ‘hybrid’ or ‘flexible’ modes, in which face-to-face teaching is supplemented by online resources and activities. With this in mind the research reported here has attempted to answer the following question: What insights currently inform Australian universities about staff workload when teaching online?

The effect of employment while in high school on educational attainment : a conditional difference-in-differences approach

Using American panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, this article investigates the effect of working during grade 12 on attainment.We employ, for the first time in the related literature, a semiparametric propensity score matching approach combined with difference-in-differences. We address selection on both observables and unobservables associated with part-time work decisions, without the need for instrumental variable. Once such factors are controlled for, little to no effects on reading and math scores are found. Overall, our results therefore suggest a negligible academic cost from part-time working by the end of high school.

Developing examplars for sustained integration of palliative care principles into allied health curricula

The PCC4U (Palliative Care Curriculum for Undergraduates) project aims to support the inclusion of the principles and practice of palliative care in all health professional training. While uptake rates of the project resources and curriculum initiatives is strong in medicine and nursing (86% of courses actively engaged with the project in 2012) integration of palliative care content in allied health disciplines has been less consistent. This report explores the process adopted to address this issue. In 2012 six allied health courses – representing social work, pharmacy, psychology, occupational therapy, dietetics and physiotherapy – commenced a range of tailored curriculum initiatives with the aim of informing the development of exemplars of integration of palliative care in specific disciplines. The PCC4U project provided palliative care learning materials, curriculum resources and expertise, and financial support as part of this curriculum development process. Review of the outcomes of each initiative indicates that tailored support has provided an opportunity for courses to develop palliative care curriculum content that reflects both discipline and local contexts. It has contributed six discipline specific exemplars of the integration of palliative care in allied health professional curricula and provided insights into allied health educational approaches in palliative care, particularly the use of evidence based resources. As a result project curriculum materials and activities have been expanded. These will be implemented with allied health courses through workshops, site visits and curriculum mapping initiatives in 2013 to better sustain the integration of palliative care in health professional curricula.

Biobanking of blood and bone marrow : emerging challenges for custodians of public resources

The Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR) is a publicly funded company that is part of an international network that facilitates unrelated bone marrow transplantation. This role means that the ABMDR has access to a large biospecimen repository, therefore making it a highly valuable research resource. Recognising the potential value of these biospecimens for research purposes, the ABMDR is in the process of determining whether, and how, to share its biospecimens with other biobanks. While this would undoubtedly be of value to the scientific community, and ultimately to the wider community, it would also inevitably transform the role of an institution whose primary role is therapeutic, and would compromise the degree of control that a custodian has over donated material. This article describe the challenges confronting the ABMDR, and organisations like it, in balancing their duties to donors, patients, researchers and the general public. These problems have led inevitably to the use of "property" rights language in the discussion of these issues but notions of gift, ownership, trusteeship and transfer might also be considered.