Animateur : participatory studio-based learning in computer graphics animation

The impact of digital technology within the creative industries has brought with it a range of new opportunities for collaborative, cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary practice. Along with these opportunities has come the need to re-evaluate how we as educators approach teaching within this new digital culture. Within the field of animation, there has been a radical shift in the expectations of students, industry and educators as animation has become central to a range of new moving image practices. This paper interrogates the effectiveness of adopting a studio-based collaborative production project as a method for educating students within this new moving-image culture. The project was undertaken, as part of the Creative Industries Transitions to New Professional Environments program at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane Australia. A number of students studying across the Creative Industries Faculty and the Faculty of Science and Technology were invited to participate in the development of a 3D animated short film. The project offered students the opportunity to become actively involved in all stages of the creative process, allowing them to experience informal learning through collaborative professional practice. It is proposed that theoretical principles often associated with andragogy and constructivism can be used to design and deliver programs that address the emerging issues surrounding the teaching of this new moving image culture.

Mental health of newly arrived Burmese refugees in Australia : contributions of pre-migration and post-migration experience

Objective: This study documents the mental health status of people from Burmese refugee backgrounds, recently arrived in Australia; then examines the contributions of gender, premigration and postmigration factors in predicting mental health. Method: Structured interviews, including a demographic questionnaire, the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, Postmigration Living Difficulties Checklist and Hopkins Symptom Checklist assessed premigration trauma, postmigration living difficulties, depression, anxiety, somatisation and traumatisation symptoms in a sample of 70 adults across five Burmese ethnic groups. Results: Substantial proportions of participants reported psychological distress in symptomatic ranges including: posttraumatic stress disorder (9%); anxiety (20%), and; depression (36%), as well as significant symptoms of somatisation (37%). Participants reported multiple and severe premigration traumas. Postmigration living difficulties of greatest concern included communication problems and worry about family not in Australia. Gender did not predict mental health. Level of exposure to traumatic events and postmigration living difficulties each made unique and relatively equal contributions to traumatisation symptoms. Postmigration living difficulties made unique contributions to depression, anxiety and somatisation symptoms. Conclusions: While exposure to traumatic events impacted on participants’ mental wellbeing, postmigration living difficulties had greater salience in predicting mental health outcomes of people from Burmese refugee backgrounds. Reported rates of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were consistent with a large review of adults across seven western countries. High levels of somatisation pointed to a nuanced expression of distress. Findings have implications for service provision in terms of implementing appropriate interventions to effectively meet the needs of this newly arrived group in Australia.

Teaching sustainability : vehicle or endpoint?

In 2006, the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering introduced the first faculty wide unit dedicated to sustainability at any Australian University. BEB200 Introducing Sustainability has semester enrolments of up to 1500 students. Instruments such as lectures, readings, field visits, group projects and structured tutorial activities are used and have evolved over the last five years in response to student and staff feedback and attempts to better engage students. More than seventy staff have taught in the unit, which is in its final offering in this form in 2010. This paper reflects on the experiences of five academics who have played key roles in the development and teaching of this unit over the last five years. They argue that sustainability is a paradigm that allows students to explore other ways of knowing as they engage with issues in a complex world, not an end in itself. From the students’ perspective, grappling with such issues enables them to move towards a context in which they can understand their own discipline and its role in the contradictory and rapidly changing professional world. Insights are offered into how sustainability units may be developed in the future.

Exporting educational services : an Australian university’s experience in delivering offshore project management programs

Increasingly, Australian universities are facing the challenges of global education. While overseas students studying in Australia provide the primary source of export earnings for educational institutions, a number of institutions, including QUT, are also involved in international trade in educational services by providing services offshore. This paper discusses driving forces behind moves by Australian universities to enter the international education market. It then briefly describes Queensland University of Technology’s internationalisation strategy. The paper concludes with a case study describing how the School of Construction Management has pioneered the development of offshore courses at QUT. The introduction of the Master of Project Management and Graduate Diploma of Project Management programs in Singapore in November 1993 represented QUT’s first experience in this area. With the experience of 18 months of operation, the School now has the opportunity to reflect on the outcomes of this venture and consider future options.

High-challenge teaching for senior English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners in times of change

This paper will present a brief overview of the recent shifts within English and EAL/D (English as an additional language/dialect) curriculum documents and their focus on critical literacy, using the Queensland context as a case in point. The English syllabus landscape in Queensland has continued to morph in recent years. From 2002 to 2009, teachers of senior English and English as an Additional Language (EAL/D) have witnessed no less than four separate syllabus documents that impact on their daily work. The Australian Curriculum, when finally implemented, will also require teachers to navigate and grapple with its particular obligations and affordances. The combined effect of the shifts and tensions between recent policy documents has led to confusion about exactly how to cater for EAL/D learners in mainstream English. We discuss the possible effects of this on teachers as the agents of policy implementation and argue that in spite of such contradictions, EAL/D teachers can productively use syllabus frameworks to craft pedagogy to cater for their EAL/D learners’ language and literacy needs. Following this, we present aspects of the teaching practice of four teachers of senior EAL/D, who provide intellectually-engaging, critical literacy pedagogy that takes into account the language proficiency level of their learners, within the required curriculum. Such practice provides teachers with valuable pedagogic possibilities to meet EAL/D learners’ needs within continually varying policy terrain.

Project managers and technical change : curriculum development in strategic technology management

Traditional business approaches do not take account of the rapid technological developments underpinning today's world. Further understanding the role of technology and its efficient management to build and maintain a competitive edge in business can allow project managers to more successfully manage organisations, and to adapt to and capitalise on, today’s rapidly changing environment. Strategic Technology Management links engineering, science and management principles to identify, choose, and implement the most effective means of attaining compatibility between internal skills and resources of an organisation and its competitive, economic and social environment. This paper reviews the rationale and the development of a new Strategic Technology Management subject in QUT’s Master of Project Management program. It discusses recent developments in the area of technology management from an international perspective, provides details of the curriculum developed and discusses the experience of completing two years of teaching the new program.

Grounding action in visuo-haptic space using experience networks

Traditional approaches to the use of machine learning algorithms do not provide a method to learn multiple tasks in one-shot on an embodied robot. It is proposed that grounding actions within the sensory space leads to the development of action-state relationships which can be re-used despite a change in task. A novel approach called an Experience Network is developed and assessed on a real-world robot required to perform three separate tasks. After grounded representations were developed in the initial task, only minimal further learning was required to perform the second and third task.

School-based experiences : developing primary science preservice teachers' practice

Reviews into teacher education emphasise the need for preservice teachers to have more school-based experiences. In this study, a school-based experience was organised within a nine-week science curriculum university unit that allowed preservice teachers’ repeated experiences in teaching primary science. This research uses a survey, questionnaire with extended written responses, and researcher observations to investigate preservice teachers’ (n=38) learning experiences in two school settings. Survey results indicated that the majority of these preservice teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that school-based experiences developed their: personal-professional skill development (100%); system requirements (range: 81-100%); teaching practices (81-100%); student behaviour management (range: 94-100%); providing student feedback (89-94%); and reflection on practice (92-100%). Qualitative data provided insights into their development particularly for science content knowledge and receiving positive reinforcement on effective teaching behaviours. According to these preservice teachers, the school-based experiences facilitated “teachable moments – having the knowledge or skills to run with students’ questions or ideas” and allowed preservice teachers to “critically reflect between groups to make the task flow better”. Embedding school-based experiences needs to be part of each and every preservice teacher education unit so preservice teachers can develop confidence, knowledge and skills within authentic school contexts.

Integrating a sustainable academic career around scholarly learning and teaching activities

To be scholarly in learning and teaching is rigorous academic work. It demands: currency and command of both discipline subject matter and educational theory; inquiring, methodical, and reflective approaches; the collection, evaluation and documentation of evidence of learning and teaching efficacy; and, optimally, entails participation in and communication among a community of teaching professionals. This chapter examines the author’s own practice in this regard to explicate the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of scholarly and scholarship approaches, as much as the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of that endeavour. In doing so, this meta‐analysis is made ‘community property’, in the same way that Shulman (1993: 6) exhorted we ‘change the status of teaching from private to community property’ so that teaching might be more greatly valued in the academy.

Technology, memory and experience : virtual reality, motion capture and early modern theatre

This paper investigates virtual reality representations of performance in London’s late sixteenth-century Rose Theatre, a venue that, by means of current technology, can once again challenge perceptions of space, performance, and memory. The VR model of The Rose becomes a Camillo device in that it represents a virtual recreation of this venue in as much detail as possible and attempts to recover graphic demonstrations of the trace memories of the performance modes of the day. The VR model is based on accurate archeological and theatre historical records and is easy to navigate. The introduction of human figures onto The Rose’s stage via motion capture allows us to explore the relationships between space, actor and environment. The combination of venue and actors facilitates a new way of thinking about how the work of early modern playwrights can be stored and recalled. This virtual theatre is thus activated to intersect productively with contemporary studies in performance; as such, our paper provides a perspective on and embodiment of the relation between technology, memory and experience. It is, at its simplest, a useful archiving project for theatrical history, but it is directly relevant to contemporary performance practice as well. Further, it reflects upon how technology and ‘re-enactments’ of sorts mediate the way in which knowledge and experience are transferred, and even what may be considered ‘knowledge.’ Our work provides opportunities to begin addressing what such intermedial confrontations might produce for ‘remembering, experiencing, thinking and imagining.’ We contend that these confrontations will enhance live theatre performance rather than impeding or disrupting contemporary performance practice. This paper intersects with the CFP’s ‘Performing Memory’ and ‘Memory Lab’ themes. Our presentation (which includes a demonstration of the VR model and the motion capture it requires) takes the form of two closely linked papers that share a single abstract. The two papers will be given by two people, one of whom will be physically present in Utrecht, the other participating via Skype.

Enhancing the teaching of family and consumer sciences : the role of graphic organisers

In a world of constant and rapid change there are greater demands placed on learners to not only gain content knowledge, but also to develop learning skills and to adopt new strategies that will enable them to produce better and faster learning outcomes. Especially in internationally advancing nations like Kuwait this will be a major challenge of the future. This literature review examines theoretical frameworks that enhance Kuwaiti teachers’ knowledge and skill to adopt culturally relevant reform practices across a number of disciplines and provide guidance in an exploration and use of newer pedagogical tools like graphic organisers. It analyses the effects of graphic organisers on higher order learning and evaluates how they can effect professional development and pedagogical change in Kuwait.

Why teaching about Asia matters in higher education

I commence this opinion piece with specific reference to the Gillard Government's decision to cut funding for the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)in 2011. I then consider impact of this decision on quality teaching in higher education with specific reference to Studies of Asia. In particular, I reflect on the teaching of Asian languages and cultures in Australia since the 1970 Auchmuty report, and conclude that despite the efforts of policy makers, not much has really changed. In doing so, I emphasise the importance of quality teaching in higher education for inspiring students to challenge their cultural assumptions and to prompt them to develop new views of the world.

Integrated literacies : every online player wins a prize

QUT Library’s model of learning support brings together academic literacy (study skills) and information literacy (research skills). The blended portfolio enables holistic planning and development, seamless services, connected learning resources and more authentic curriculum-embedded education. The model reinforces the Library’s strategic focus on learning service innovation and active engagement in teaching and learning. ----- ----- ----- The online learning strategy is a critical component of the broader literacies framework. This strategy unifies new and existing online resources (e.g.: Pilot, QUT cite|write and IFN001|AIRS Online) to augment learner capability. Across the suite, prudent application of emerging technologies with visual communications and learning design delivers a wide range of adaptive study tools. Separately and together, these resources meet the learning needs and styles of a diverse cohort providing positive and individual learning opportunities. Deliberate articulation with strategic directions regarding First Year Experience, assessment, retention and curriculum alignment assures that the Library’s initiatives move in step with institutional objectives relating to enhancing the student experience and flexible blended learning. ----- ----- ----- The release of Studywell in 2010 emphasises the continuing commitment to blended literacy education. Targeting undergraduate learners (particularly 1st year/transition), this online environment provides 24/7 access to practical study and research tools. Studywell’s design and application of technology creates a “discovery infrastructure” [1] which facilitates greater self-directed learning and interaction with content. ----- ----- ----- This paper presents QUT Library’s online learning strategy within the context of the parent “integrated literacies” framework. Highlighting the key online learning resources, the paper describes the inter-relationships between those resources to develop complementary literacies. The paper details broad aspects of the overarching learning and study support framework as well as the online strategy, including strategic positioning, quality and evaluation processes, maintenance, development, implementation, and client engagement and satisfaction with the learning resources.

Assembling dynamic repertoires of literate practices : teaching that makes a difference

This chapter considers how teachers can make a difference to the kinds of literacy young people take up. Increasingly, researchers and policy-makers see literacy as an ensemble of socio-cultural situated practices rather than as a unitary skill. Accordingly, the differences in what young people come to do with literacy, in and out of school, confront us more directly. If literacy development involves assembling dynamic repertoires of practices, it is crucial to consider what different groups of children growing up and going to school in different places have access to and make investments in over time; the kinds of literate communities from which some are excluded or included; and how educators make a difference to the kinds of literate trajectories and identities young people put together.

Media skills for daily life : designing a journalism programme for graduates of all disciplines

This article in the journalism education field reports on the construction of a new subject as part of a postgraduate coursework degree. The subject, or unit1 will offer both Journalism students and other students an intro¬ductory experience of creating media, using common ‘new media’ tools, with exercises that will model the learning of communication principles through practice. It has been named ‘Fundamental Media Skills for the Workplace’. The conceptualisation and teaching of it will be characteristic of the Journalism academic discipline that uses the ‘inside perspective’—understanding mass media by observing from within. Proposers for the unit within the Journalism discipline have sought to extend the common teaching approach, based on training to produce start-ready recruits for media jobs, backed by a study of contexts, e.g. journalistic ethics, or media audiences. In this proposal, students would then examine the process to elicit additional knowledge about their learning. The article draws on literature of journalism and its pedagogy, and on communication generally. It also documents a ‘community of practice’ exercise conducted among practitioners as teachers for the subject, developing exercises and models of media work. A preliminary conclusion from that exercise is that it has taken a step towards enhancing skills-based learning for media work.