Re-reading the reading lesson : episodes in the history of reading pedagogy

Reading pedagogy is constantly an object of discussion and debate in contemporary policy and practice but is rarely a matter for historical inquiry. This paper reports from a recent study of the history of reading pedagogy in Australia and beyond. It focuses on a recurring figure in the historical record—the ‘reading lesson’. Presented as a distinctive trope, the reading lesson is traced in its regularity in and through the discourse of reading pedagogy, starting in 1930s Australia and moving back into 19th-century Europe, and with specific reference to the UK and the USA. Teaching reading is expressly identified as a moral project—something that, it can be argued, clearly continues into the present.

Open-ended art environments motivate participation

In this research we observe the situated, embodied and playful interaction that participants engage in with open-ended interactive artworks. The larger project from which this work derives [28] contributes a methodological model for the evaluation of open-ended interactive artwork that treats each work individually and recognises the importance of the artist intent and the traditions from which the work derives. In this paper, we describe this evolving methodology for evaluating and understanding participation via three case studies of open-ended interactive art installations. This analysis builds an understanding of open-ended free-play non-narrative environments and the affordances these environments enable for participants.

Building sensitising terms to understand free-play in open-ended interactive art environments

In this paper we introduce and discuss the nature of free-play in the context of three open-ended interactive art installation works. We observe the interaction work of situated free-play of the participants in these environments and, building on precedent work, devise a set of sensitising terms derived both from the literature and from what we observe from participants interacting there. These sensitising terms act as guides and are designed to be used by those who experience, evaluate or report on open-ended interactive art. That is, we propose these terms as a common-ground language to be used by participants communicating while in the art work to describe their experience, by researchers in the various stages of research process (observation, coding activity, analysis, reporting, and publication), and by inter-disciplinary researchers working across the fields of HCI and art. This work builds a foundation for understanding the relationship between free-play, open-ended environments, and interactive installations and contributes sensitising terms useful for the HCI community for discussion and analysis of open-ended interactive art works.

Evoking gesture in interactive art

In this paper, we describe an interactive artwork that uses large body gestures as its primary interactive mode. The artist intends the work to provoke active reflection in the audience by way of gesture and content. The technology is not the focus, rather the aim is to provoke memory, to elicit feelings of connective human experiences in a required-to-participate audience. We find the work provokes a diverse and contradictory set of responses. The methods used to understand this include qualitative methods common to evaluating interactive art works, as well as in-depth discussions with the artist herself. This paper is relevant to the Human - Centered Computing track because in all stages of the design of the work - as well as the evaluation - the focus is on the human aspect; the computing is designed to enable all-too-human responses.

'A small space of chaos’ : Elizabeth Grosz’s chaos, territory, art : Deleuze and the framing of the earth

Review of Elizabeth Grosz’s Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth

Talk2Me : the art of augmenting conversations

This paper describes an interactive installation work set in a large dome space. The installation is an audio and physical re-rendition of an interactive writing work. In the original work, the user interacted via keyboard and screen while online. This rendition of the work retains the online interaction, but also places the interaction within a physical space, where the main 'conversation' takes place by the participant-audience speaking through microphones and listening through headphones. The work now also includes voice and SMS input, using speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion technologies, and audio and displayed text for output. These additions allow the participant-audience to co-author the work while they participate in audible conversation with keyword-triggering characters (bots). Communication in the space can be person-to-computer via microphone, keyboard, and phone; person-to-person via machine and within the physical space; computer-to- computer; and computer-to-person via audio and projected text.

Editorial : Loop

This time last year we proposed the theme of the 'loop' issue to the M/C collective because it sounded deeply cool, satisfying our poststructuralist posturings about reflexivity and representation, while also tapping into everyday cultural objects and practices. We expected that the 'loop' issue would generate some interesting and varied responses, and it did. We received submissions about music, visual art, language, child development, pop-cultural artefacts, mathematics and culture in general. These explorations of disparate fields seemed, however, to be tied together by a common thread: the concept of "generation" itself. Each article in the 'loop' issue describes a loop that does not simply repeat an original operation, but that through iteration creates new possibilities and new meanings...

Standards and Research in Geographical Education: Current Trends and International Issues

What is the state of geographical education in the second decade of the 21st century? This volume presents a selection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2012 Cologne Congress of the International Geographical Union (IGU) sessions on Geographical Education as representative of current thinking in the area. It then presents (perhaps for the first time) a cross-case analysis of the common factors of all these papers as a current summary of the “state of the art” of geographical education today. The primary aim of the individual authors as well as the editors is not only to record the current state of the art of geographical education but also to promote ongoing discussions of the longer term health and future prospects of international geographical education. We wish to encourage ongoing debate and discussion amongst local, national, regional and international education journals, conferences and discussion groups as part of the international mission of the Commission on Geographical Eduction. While the currency of these chapters in terms of their foci, breadth and recency of the theoretical literature on which they are based and the new research findings they present justifies considerable confidence in the current health of geographical education as an educational and research endeavour, each new publication should only be the start of new scholarly inquiry. Where should we, as a scholarly community, place our energies for the future? If readers are left with a new sense of direction, then the aims of the authors and editors will have been amply met.

Making quality teachers : the role of an explicit values-based pedagogy

There is little conjecture that quality teaching is essential to student achievement and well-being. Whilst much has been written about the importance of quality teaching, including the link to pre-service teacher education, to date there has been little investigation into specific pedagogical practices that can enhance quality teaching dimensions within a pre-service teacher education programme. This paper reports on a small-scale qualitative research study, undertaken in an Australian university, which linked the fields of quality teaching, pre-service teacher education and values education. The study followed the journey of five pre-service teacher education students as they undertook their second field experience unit where the focus was centred on the values-based pedagogy of Philosophy in the Classroom. The research findings, collected via interviews, demonstrated that an explicit values-based pedagogy can have a positive impact on the development of quality teaching dimensions. This new knowledge has potential for further research into examining the ways quality teaching dimensions are gained and practised by pre-service teacher education students and these findings and recommendations are discussed in this paper.

Tell me what you see : pre-service teachers' recognition of exemplary digital pedagogy

How do you identify "good" teaching practice in the complexity of a real classroom? How do you know that beginning teachers can recognise effective digital pedagogy when they see it? How can teacher educators see through their students’ eyes? The study in this paper has arisen from our interest in what pre-service teachers “see” when observing effective classroom practice and how this might reveal their own technological, pedagogical and content knowledge. We asked 104 pre-service teachers from Early Years, Primary and Secondary cohorts to watch and comment upon selected exemplary videos of teachers using ICT (information and communication technologies) in Science. The pre-service teachers recorded their observations using a simple PMI (plus, minus, interesting) matrix which were then coded using the SOLO Taxonomy to look for evidence of their familiarity with and judgements of digital pedagogies. From this, we determined that the majority of preservice teachers we surveyed were using a descriptive rather than a reflective strategy, that is, not extending beyond what was demonstrated in the teaching exemplar or differentiating between action and purpose. We also determined that this method warrants wider trialling as a means of evaluating students’ understandings of the complexity of the digital classroom.

Successful outcomes in vocational education and training courses and mathematics: how pedagogy and expectations influence achievement

This paper reports on a four year Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project titled Skilling Indigenous Queensland, conducted in regional areas of Queensland, Australia from 2009 to 2013. The project sought to investigate Vocational Education and Training (VET) and teaching, Indigenous learners’ needs, employer culture and expectations and community culture and expectations to identify best practice in numeracy teaching for Indigenous VET learners. Specifically it focused on ways to enhance the teaching and learning of courses and the associated mathematics in such courses to benefit learners and increase their future opportunities of employment. To date thirty - nine teachers/trainers/teacher aides and two hundred and thirty - one students consented to participate in the project. Nine VET courses offered in schools and Technical and Further Education Institutes (TAFE) were nominated to be the focus on the study. This paper focuses on student questionnaire responses and interview responses from teachers/trainers one high school principal and five students as a result of these processes, the findings indicated that VET course teachers work hard to adopt contextualising strategies to their teaching; however this process is not always straight forward because of the perceptions of how mathematics has been taught and learned by trainers and teachers. Further teachers, trainers and students have high expectations of one another with the view to successful outcomes from the courses.

Double trouble — the art of synthesis of chiral dimeric natural products

Double or nothing! Recently the total ynthesis of secalonic acids A and D was reported. This work and other natural product syntheses with a dimerization step as a common feature are featured in this highlight. The significant biological activity of the secalonic acids and the fact that their synthesis has fascinated synthetic chemists for the past forty years make this work a milestone in natural product synthesis.

Book Review: "Language, literacy, and pedagogy in postindustrial societies : the case of black academic underachievement"

Mocombe and Tomlin’s Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy in Postindustrial Societies: The Case of Black Academic Underachievement is part of the Routledge Research in Education series. The purpose of the work is to set out a theoretical framework for understanding the black/white academic achievement gap in the age of globalisation and post-industrialism. The authors use each chapter to develop an explanation for the persistent black/white academic achievement gap, by theorising that the gap is an epiphenomenon of global capitalist, post-industrial structures, reinforced by education as an apparatus of the system...

Insider comes out : an artist's inquiry and narrative about the relationship of art and mental health

Background Through an account of prevailing experiences of art and mental illness, this paper aims to raise awareness, open dialogue and create agency about art created by people with experience of mental illness. Methods This paper draws on personal narrative and inquiry by an artist with mental illness and data collected as part of a larger participatory action research project that investigated understandings of identity, art and mental illness. Result An inquiry through art raised awareness and attentiveness to the importance of choice in identity construction and exposed frequent dichotomies in art and mental illness that were negotiated to eschew prescribed social stratification. As an artist, the first author challenged values present in one idea and absent in the other, and the options and concessions available to authorise her own dialogue and agency of being an artist. Conclusion Constructing an identity is an important part of being human, the labels that we choose or are chosen for us attribute to our identity. Reflections and recommendations are offered to consider expanded ways of thinking about art and mental illness and the functions that art play in identity construction.