Perspectives of teaching in Papua New Guinea : a case study of elementary teacher trainers and their mentors

Global and national agenda for quality education led to reform in Papua New Guinea (PNG) based on the provision of quality basic education. “Education for All” (EFA) is a worldwide emphasis on the review and restructure of existing curriculum and teacher training programs to provide quality education and quality life. The provision of quality education is seen as an investment in developing countries including PNG. Quality education is facilitated through structural and curriculum reform, and teacher education programs. One such influence on quality education in teacher education relates to perspectives of teaching. Existing research shows teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of teaching influence their practice (Kember & Kwan, 2000; Prosser & Trigwell, 2004). However, there is no research focusing on perspectives of teaching for elementary education in PNG. This single exploratory case study (Yin, 2009) investigated the perspectives of teaching of eighteen elementary teacher trainers and their five mentors in the context of an Australian university Bachelor of Early Childhood (in teacher education) degree programme. The study drew on an interpretivist paradigm to analyse journals, semi-structured interviews and course planning documents using a thematic approach to data analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006). The findings revealed that participants held perspectives of teaching related to teaching children and teaching adults. The perspective of teaching children described by the trainers and mentors was learning-centred (the focus is on what the teacher does); while the perspective of teaching adults was both learning-centred and learner-centred (the focus is on what the learner does). The learning-centred perspective is at odds with the learner-centred perspective espoused in the PNG reform. The perspectives of teaching adults reflected a culturally nuanced view; providing insights about how teaching and learning are understood in different sociocultural contexts. Based on these findings, the study proposes a perspective of teaching for elementary education in PNG known as culturally connected teaching. This perspective enables the co-existence of both the learning-centred and learner-centred perspectives of teaching in the PNG cultural context. This perspective has implications for teacher training and the communities involved in elementary education.

O'Neill Building Nudgee College

This project involved the complete refurbishment and extension of a 1980’s two-storey domestic brick building, previously used as a Boarding House (Class 3), into Middle School facilities (Class 9b) on a heritage listed site at Nudgee College secondary school, Brisbane. The building now accommodates 12 technologically advanced classrooms, computer lab and learning support rooms, tuckshop, art room, mini library/reading/stage area, dedicated work areas for science and large projects with access to water on both floors, staff facilities and an undercover play area suitable for assemblies and presentations. The project was based on a Reggio Emilia approach, in which the organisation of the physical environment is referred to as the child’s third teacher, creating opportunities for complex, varied, sustained and changing relationships between people and ideas. Classrooms open to a communal centre piazza and are integrated with the rest of the school and the school with the surrounding community. In order to achieve this linkage of the building with the overall masterplan of the site, a key strategy of the internal planning was to orientate teaching areas around a well defined active circulation space that breaks out of the building form to legibly define the new access points to the building and connect up to the pathway network of the campus. The width of the building allowed for classrooms and a generous corridor that has become ‘breakout’ teaching areas for art, IT, and small group activities. Large sliding glass walls allow teachers to maintain supervision of students across all areas and allow maximum light penetration through small domestic window openings into the deep and low-height spaces. The building was also designed with an effort to uphold cultural characteristics from the Edmund Rice Education Charter (2004). Coherent planning is accompanied by a quality fit-out, creating a vibrant and memorable environment in which to deliver the upper primary curriculum. Consistent with the Reggio Emilia approach, materials, expressive of the school’s colours, are used in a contemporary, adventurous manner to create panels of colour useful for massing and defining the ‘breakout’ teaching areas and paths of travel, and storage elements are detailed and arranged to draw attention to their aesthetic features. Modifications were difficult due to the random placement of load bearing walls, minimum ceiling heights, the general standard of finishes and new fire and energy requirements, however the reuse of this building was assessed to be up to 30% cheaper than an equivalent new building, The fit out integrates information technology and services at a level not usually found in primary school facilities. This has been achieved within the existing building fabric through thoughtful detailing and co-ordination with allied disciplines.

Generation workshop 2010

The Generation Workshop Program 2010, a part of the Queensland Government Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific Event Program, consisted of two one-day intensive design thinking workshops run on October 7-8, 2011 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland, for 100 senior secondary students and 20 secondary teachers self-selected from the subject areas of Visual Art, Graphics and Industrial Technology and Design. Participants were drawn from a database of Brisbane and regional Queensland private and public schools from the goDesign and Living City Workshop Programs. The workshop aimed to facilitate awareness in young people of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in solving complex problems facing the Asia Pacific Region, and to inspire the generation of strategies for our future cities. It also aimed to encourage the collaboration of professional designers with secondary schools to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. Inspired by international and national speakers Bunker Roy (Barefoot College) and Hael Kobayashi (Associate Producer on "Happy Feet" film for Australia's Animal Logic), the Unlimited showcase exhibition Make Change: Design Thinking in Action and ‘Idea Starters’/teaching resources provided, students worked with a teacher in ten random teams, to generate optimistic strategies for the Ideal City of tomorrow, each considering a theme – Food, Water, Transport, Ageing, Growth, Employment, Shelter, Health, Education and Energy. Each team of 6 was led by a professional designer (from the discipline of architecture, interior design, industrial design, urban design, graphic design or landscape architecture) who was a catalyst for driving the student creative thinking process. Assisted by illustrators, the teams prepared a visual presentation of their idea from art materials provided. The workshop culminated in a video-taped interactive design chatter to the larger group, which will be utilised as a toolkit and praxis for teachers as part of the State Library of Queensland Design Minds Project. Photos of student design work were published on the Unlimited website.

Using the web to look for work: Implications for online job seeking and recruiting

Purpose - The web is now a significant component of the recruitment and job search process. However, very little is known about how companies and job seekers use the web, and the ultimate effectiveness of this process. The specific research questions guiding this study are: how do people search for job-related information on the web? How effective are these searches? And how likely are job seekers to find an appropriate job posting or application? Design/methodology/approach - The data used to examine these questions come from job seekers submitting job-related queries to a major web search engine at three points in time over a five-year period. Findings - Results indicate that individuals seeking job information generally submit only one query with several terms and over 45 percent of job-seeking queries contain a specific location reference. Of the documents retrieved, findings suggest that only 52 percent are relevant and only 40 percent of job-specific searches retrieve job postings. Research limitations/implications - This study provides an important contribution to web research and online recruiting literature. The data come from actual web searches, providing a realistic glimpse into how job seekers are actually using the web. Practical implications - The results of this research can assist organizations in seeking to use the web as part of their recruiting efforts, in designing corporate recruiting web sites, and in developing web systems to support job seeking and recruiting. Originality/value - This research is one of the first studies to investigate job searching on the web using longitudinal real world data. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Stepping stones : teacher lesson plans : year 2

"ORIGO Stepping Stones gives mathematics teachers the best of both worlds by delivering lessons and teacher guides on a digital platform blended with the more traditional printed student journals." -- Publisher website

Stepping stones : teacher lesson plans : year K

"ORIGO Stepping Stones gives mathematics teachers the best of both worlds by delivering lessons and teacher guides on a digital platform blended with the more traditional printed student journals." -- Publisher website

Using the work system method with freshman information systems students

Recent surveys of information technology management professionals show that understanding business domains in terms of business productivity and cost reduction potential, knowledge of different vertical industry segments and their information requirements, understanding of business processes and client-facing skills are more critical for Information Systems personnel than ever before. In an attempt to restrucuture the information systems curriculum accordingly, our view it that information systems students need to develop an appreciation for organizational work systems in order to understand the operation and significance of information systems within such work systems.

Internship : interpreting micropolitical contexts

Many university faculties of education across Australia employ a model of internship for final semester pre-service teacher education students to help them make a smooth transition into the teaching profession. While a growing body of research has explored pre-service teachers’ experiences of their practicum, including the internship, which is the final professional experience within a course of study, very little work has considered micropolitics as a lens through which to interpret interns’ relationships with their school supervisors/mentors. This paper uses a micropolitical framework to interpret reflective reports written by 145 Bachelor of Education (primary) interns who recorded their perceptions of their professional learning experience within the context of a relationship with their school-based mentors. Several key themes are identified that highlight interns’ reports of a range of micropolitical strategies at play. The paper concludes by raising a number of implications for universities and schools regarding how better to facilitate interns’ transition into the profession.

The child, the text and the teacher : reading primers and reading instruction

From the late sixteenth century, in response to the problem of how best to teach children to read, a variety of texts such as primers, spellers and readers were produced in England for vernacular instruction. This paper describes how these materials were used by teachers to develop first, a specific religious understanding according to the stricture of the time and second, a moral reading practice that provided the child with a guide to secular conduct. The analysis focuses on the use of these texts as a productive means for shaping the child-reader in the context of newly emerging educational spaces which fostered a particular, morally formative relation among teacher, child and text.

Labouring for leisure? Achieving work-life balance through compressed working weeks

Flexible work practices spreading work times across the entire week have reduced the time to engage in leisure activities and for some have compounded the problem of a lack of defined break between work weeks. This study examines time spent outside of the workplace through a multiple case study of working time and leisure in the construction industry. A framework of synchronous leisure is used to examine the interplay of work and non-work arrangements. The effects of changing work arrangements to deliver a longer break between working weeks and the consequent impact on leisure activities are analysed. Interviews and focus groups across four construction sites revealed that while leisure is important to relieve fatigue and overwork, a work schedule allowing a long break between working weeks, specifically on a weekend, enables workers to achieve synchronous time, particularly with family, and improves work-life balance satisfaction. It was found that a well-defined break across a weekend also offers the opportunity to synchronize schedules with others to spend time away on short breaks.

Analysing mentoring practices to understand how a preservice teacher reflects on practice to advance teaching

Mentors (cooperating classroom teachers) have a shared responsibility with universities for developing preservice teachers’ pedagogical practices, particularly towards becoming reflective practitioners. Preservice teachers need to participate actively in their own learning, by reflecting and acting on the mentor’s constructive feedback provided during planning and feedback dialogue sessions. This case study uses feedback practices outlined within a five-factor mentoring model to analyse dialogue between a mentor and her respective mentee during different stages in their school-based programs (first practicum). This investigation uses multiple data sources such as video and audio-recorded interviews, archival documents from participants such as lesson plans, reflections and reports to examine preservice teacher’s reflections and implementations of practice as a result of her mentor’s feedback (e.g., establish expectations, review lesson plans, observe teaching then provide oral and written feedback, and evaluate progress). Findings indicated that reflective thinking was more apparent when the mentor did not dominate conversations but instead asked astute pedagogical knowledge questions to facilitate the mentee’s reflections on practice.

Teacher education to meet the challenges of child sexual abuse

The phenomenon of child sexual abuse has significant implications for teachers’ pre-service training and professional development. Teachers have a pedagogical role in dealing with abused children, and a legal and professional duty to report suspected child sexual abuse. Teachers require support and training to develop the specialised knowledge and confidence needed to deal with this complex context. This article explains the social context of child sexual abuse, its health and educational consequences, and the legal context, showing why teachers require this specialised training. It then reports on findings from an Australian study into the amount of training received by teachers about child sexual abuse, and teachers’ satisfaction with that training. Results have implications for teacher training strategies in pre-service and in-service settings.

Engaging parents in STEM: Coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing in a Queensland high school

Diminished student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is recognised by educators, researchers and public policy makers as a concerning global trend. Inviting stakeholders like scientists and industry specialists to discuss their work is one means schools use to facilitate student engagement in the sciences. However, these visits generally comprise one-off sessions with minimal relevance to students’ particular and ongoing learning needs. This case study investigated coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing with parents in teaching a Year-8 multidisciplinary unit with science and technology foci. Two parents cotaught alongside the resident teacher and researcher over eight months. This paper concentrates on one parent, a medical scientist by profession. Data sources included video and audio recordings of cogenerative dialogues and classroom interactions, student work samples and journal entries. Data were interrogated using the sociological constructs of fields and capitals and the dialectic of structure|agency. The findings reveal how (a) the parent’s science and technology knowledge was tailored to the students’ needs initially and continually and (b) student-generated data indicated enhanced engagement in science and technology. The research speaks to schools and governments about enhancing STEM education by furthering collaborative relationships with relevant stakeholders.