Children’s perspectives of play and learning for educational practice

Play as a learning practice increasingly is under challenge as a valued component of early childhood education. Views held in parallel include confirmation of the place of play in early childhood education and, at the same time, a denigration of the role of play in favor for more teacher-structured and formal activities. As a consequence, pedagogical approaches towards play, the curriculum activities that constitute play, and the appropriateness of play in educational settings, have come under scrutiny in recent years. In this context, this study investigates children’s perspectives of play and how they understand the role of play and learning in their everyday activities. This article reports on an Australian study where teacher-researchers investigated child-led insights into what counts as play in their everyday classroom activities. Children (aged 3–4 years) described play as an activity that involved their active participation in “doing” something, being with peers, and having agency and ownership of ideas. Children did not always characterize their activities as “play”, and not all activities in the preschool program were described as play. The article highlights that play and learning are complex concepts that may be easily dismissed as separate, when rather they are deeply intertwined. The findings of this study generate opportunities for educators and academics to consider what counts as “play” for children, and to prompt further consideration of the role of play as an antidote to adult centric views of play.

Development of special fastener elements

A special finite element (FASNEL) is developed for the analysis of a neat or misfit fastener in a two-dimensional metallic/composite (orthotropic) plate subjected to biaxial loading. The misfit fasteners could be of interference or clearance type. These fasteners, which are common in engineering structures, cause stress concentrations and are potential sources of failure. Such cases of stress concentration present considerable numerical problems for analysis with conventional finite elements. In FASNEL the shape functions for displacements are derived from series stress function solutions satisfying the governing difffferential equation of the plate and some of the boundary conditions on the hole boundary. The region of the plate outside FASNEL is filled with CST or quadrilateral elements. When a plate with a fastener is gradually loaded the fastener-plate interface exhibits a state of partial contact/separation above a certain load level. In misfit fastener, the extent of contact/separation changes with applied load, leading to a nonlinear moving boundary problem and this is handled by FASNEL using an inverse formulation. The analysis is developed at present for a filled hole in a finite elastic plate providing two axes of symmetry. Numerical studies are conducted on a smooth rigid fastener in a finite elastic plate subjected to uniaxial loading to demonstrate the capability of FASNEL.

International Society for Applied Ethology. Special issue: a Selection of Papers from the 38th International Congress of the ISAE, Helsinki, Finland, August 2004

Welcome to the latest collection of papers selected from the International Society for Applied Ethology's (ISAE's) annual congress. The ISAE is a multi-faceted scientific society that supports applied research on animals under the influence of humankind. Every year, we aim to invite congress participants who have submitted papers, plenary talks, run workshops, or presented the memorial lecture on theoretical, review or discussion papers of topical interest to contribute to the Special Issue. These papers are peer-reviewed before being published here in Applied Animal Behaviour Science. International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE) Special Issue 2004.

International Society for Applied Ethology. Special issue: a selection of papers from the 39th International Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE), Tokyo, Japan, August 2005

Welcome to the latest collection of papers selected from the International Society for Applied Ethology's (ISAE's) annual congress. The ISAE is a multi-faceted scientific society that supports applied research on animals that are managed by humans. Every year, we aim to invite congress participants who have submitted papers, plenary talks, run workshops, or presented the memorial lecture on theoretical, review or discussion papers of topical interest to contribute to the Special Issue. These papers are peer-reviewed before being published here in Applied Animal Behaviour Science. This year, we have a variety of papers to bring to your attention. The David Wood-Gush Memorial lecture, the keynote address of the congress, was given by Shigeru Watanabe on animal cognition and welfare. His paper highlights how animal's sensory capabilities relate to their welfare. On the topic of human–animal bonds, Stine Christiansen and Björn Forkman explore how animal welfare is assessed in a veterinary context, and how those assessments might be improved by ethologists. Yoshie Kakuma and co-authors report on the discussions from a workshop on the welfare of working and companion dogs in five different countries. Based on their plenary lectures, Michael Cockram discusses the factors that affect farmed animals during road transport and how these might contribute in making decisions to restrict journey times, while Clive Phillips and co-author Danica Peck examine how personality influences the behaviour and interactions between zoo-housed tigers and their keepers. We hope you enjoy these papers. Our sincere thanks go to both the authors and referees, without whom these special issues would not be possible. A selection of papers from the 39th International Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE), Tokyo, Japan, August 2005.

Specialisation versus special interest: The Australian podiatry experience

Background Ensuring efficient and effective delivery of health care to an ageing population has been a major driver for a review of the health workforce in Australia. As part of this process a National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) has evolved with one goal being to improve workforce flexibility within a nationally consistent model of governance. In addition to increased flexibility, there have been discussions about maintaining standards and the role of specialisation. This study aims to explore the association between practitioners’ self-perceptions about their special interest in musculoskeletal, diabetes related and podopaediatric foot care and the actual podiatry services they deliver in Australia. Methods A cross sectional on-line survey was administered on behalf of the Australasian Podiatry Council and its’ state based member associations. Self-reported data were collected over a 3-week interval and captured information about the practitioners by gender, years of clinical experience, area of work by state, work setting, and location. For those participants that identified with an area of special interest or specialty, further questions were asked regarding support for the area of special interest through education, and activities performed in treating patients in the week prior to survey completion. Queensland University of Technology Human Research Ethics approval was sought and confirmed exemption from review. Results 218 podiatrists participated in the survey. Participants were predominately female and worked in private practices. The largest area of personal interest by the podiatrists was related to the field of musculoskeletal podiatry (n = 65), followed closely by diabetes foot care (n = 61), and a third area identified was in the management of podopaediatric conditions (n = 26). Conclusions Health workforce reform in Australia is in part being managed by the federal government with a goal to meet the health care needs of Australians into the future. The recognition of a specialty registration of podiatric surgery and endorsement for scheduled medicines was established with this workforce reform in mind. Addition of new subspecialties may be indicated based on professional development, to maintain high standards and meet community expectations.

Key ideas, research and challenges in early childhood education and care

The Australian government has recognised the importance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in recent years. With over one million Australian children accessing early childhood education provision every day (Productivity Commission, 2014), today’s children are a generation who spend a large part of their early years in some form of out-of-home child care. Early chapters in this text have discussed a range of people, theories and approaches that inform the development of ECEC. Early childhood pedagogical practice is an eclectic mix of these ideas. This chapter begins with an overview of the ways young children learn in early childhood education, highlighting play-based learning as a pedagogical response to our understandings about children. Next the chapter outlines areas that have more recently influenced ECEC including international models of early childhood education, neuroscience, studies of young children, economic research and social justice principles. Drawing on the reflections of educators working in various ECEC contexts, the chapter then presents four topics encountered by educators as part of their everyday work with diverse communities. These topics include: • the educational program for children in the early years • relationships and partnerships with diverse families • professional accountabilities, and • changing constructions of childhood.

Reflecting on Reggio: An evaluation of design intent in an early childhood learning environment

Reggio Emilia is an educational philosophy that encourages teachers, students and their parents to collaborate and actively engage with the environment. This study investigates how the Reggio Emilia design approach was translated architecturally for a kindergarten in an Australian context, and provides insights into the operation of this Reggio kindergarten and the impact that it is now having on the occupants. It evaluates the original architectural design intent of the Reggio Emilia early childhood learning environment against its spatial provision. The relationship that the Reggio Emilia approach facilitates between students and the environment, and the contribution that this approach has on their learning, are also explored. Several key themes emerging from the Reggio values were identified in the literature. These were then used to inform an exploration of the kindergarten spaces and places.. Architects, teachers and a sustainability manager of the kindergarten were interviewed with their experiences constituting the primary data of this study. Using a Grounded Theory methodology, systematic data coding and analysis were then conducted. Themes and concepts that emerged from this process include: differing interpretations of the Reggio Emilia philosophy; motivations for neglect of traditional external structures and play equipment; the impact of education for sustainability; and the positive effects that Reggio Emilia is having on the rest of the institution’s development.

Paremmin tietäjän paikka ja toisin tietämisen tila : Opettajuus (ja tutkijuus) pedagogisena suhteena

The position of knowing better and the space for knowing otherwise. Pedagogical mode of address in teaching (and in research) This book is a study of teaching, research, and expertise – the position of “knowing better” – as a pedagogical relationship. The focus of the study is empirical research of the classroom practices of four primary school teachers in a Finnish comprehensive school, and the interpretative discussions on those practices between the researcher and the teachers. To know, or knowing, is considered an interactive action: it is different ways of knowing and encounters between the better and the other knowledge. In these encounters, the different pedagogical modes of address construct space for interaction and relationships between the speakers in the space. In teaching and researching one is involved in practices connected to power/knowledge systems and conceptions of the hierarchies of different knowledges. Teaching is considered as a special interactive relationship interrelating knowledge and power through the discourses of the culturally and historically constructed school institution, discourses which operate in the practices and narratives of the teaching, teacher, and the pedagogical dialogue. This study uses the feminist poststructural perspective in which the discursive construction of the subject position is considered as an ambivalent process of subjectification and in which such concepts as marginality and otherness are salient. The pedagogical dialogue of these discursive practices address the learner and learning, and space is constructed for different positions, and for thinking and knowing otherwise. The ethnographic data on everyday pedagogical practices of teachers in the school institution was constructed jointly by the researchr, teachers and pupils durint the empirical study. The analysis and interpretations concentrate on the pedagogical practices in teaching and how teachers talk about them. In other words, how do the teachers enter the culturally and historically constructed, institutional space of the teacher in the classrooms of the comprehensive school, how do they take the position of the teacher and what kind of pedagogical address do they use? And, by taking those positions and using different modes of address, how do they position their pupils in the pedagogical interaction? These pedagogical practices are considered as surrounded and modified by the discourses that can be found in the cultural images of a school teacher, the historical and theoretical narratives about teaching and teachers of the school institution, and in the educational policy texts. The same discourses are also repeated, transformed and intertwined in the practices and narratives of the academic institution. These are considered in the study through the positionings of the researcher in the process of empirical research. The researcher and research are constructed in terms of the production of the power/knowledge dynamics. These dynamics are examined in the construction of the theoretical perspective and in the considerations of the methodology, epistemology and ethics of the study.

Marine resources, biophysical processes, and environmental management of a tropical shelf seaway: Torres Strait, Australia-Introduction to the special issue

This special issue of Continental Shelf Research contains 20 papers giving research results produced as part of Australia's Torres Strait Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) Program, which was funded over a three-year period during 2003-2006. Marine biophysical, fisheries, socioeconomic-cultural and extension research in the Torres Strait region of northeastern Australia was carried out to meet three aims: 1) support the sustainable development of marine resources and minimize impacts of resource use in Torres Strait; 2) enhance the conservation of the marine environment and the social, cultural and economic well being of all stakeholders, particularly the Torres Strait peoples; and 3) contribute to effective policy formulation and management decision making. Subjects covered, including commercial and traditional fisheries management, impacts of anthropogenic sediment inputs on seagrass meadows and communication of science results to local communities, have broad applications to other similar environments.

Om naturens förvandlingar : Vetenskap, kunskap och frihet i Rudolf Steiners tidiga tänkande. Idéhistoriska perspektiv på Waldorfpedagogiken

TRANSFORMATIONS OF NATURE Science, Knowledge and Freedom in the Early Thinking of Rudolf Steiner. Perspectives on Waldorf Education in the light of the History of Ideas Waldorf Education is based on the worldview that Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) developed to a wide-ranging anthroposophical movement in the first decades of the 20th century. This thesis takes as its departure the early thinking of Rudolf Steiner that precedes anthroposophy, and its main purpose is to uncover the tradition of ideas represented in Steiner´s early life and which, in different ways, have emerged in the practice of Waldorf Education. Through systematic analysis I attempt to bring to light different aspects of Steiner’s early thinking: his concept of science, his epistemological startingpoints and his philosophy of freedom. By departing from J. W. Goethe’s qualitative concept of science, Steiner strove in his early works to formulate a monistic worldview which appears to be closely related to the Romantic Movement and its philosophy of nature. Characteristic traits of his thinking are, on the one hand, a critique of a one-sided enlightenment and, on the other hand, an aspiration to see the world as a living organic unity. Human beings can, by developing our intuitive faculties, get a deeper understanding of the indissoluble relationship between man and nature. Against this background Steiner´s early thinking can be read as a special kind of romantic development narrative. Steiner’s early thinking also opens the way for romantic perspectives on Waldorf Education. It appears that many central aims and conceptions in Waldorf Education can be illuminated by the epistemological perspective upon which Steiner elaborated early in his life. An organic curriculum, phenomenological didactics and high ideal of freedom can be considered seen as educational applications of conceptions that played an important role in Goethe and his age. Thus, Waldorf Education provides in our contemporary society an exceptional set of educational values: a holistic education with romantic undertones.

How to design educational settings to promote collaborative inquiry: Pedagogical infrastructures for technology-enhanced progressive inquiry

Strategies of scientific, question-driven inquiry are stated to be important cultural practices that should be educated in schools and universities. The present study focuses on investigating multiple efforts to implement a model of Progressive Inquiry and related Web-based tools in primary, secondary and university level education, to develop guidelines for educators in promoting students collaborative inquiry practices with technology. The research consists of four studies. In Study I, the aims were to investigate how a human tutor contributed to the university students collaborative inquiry process through virtual forums, and how the influence of the tutoring activities is demonstrated in the students inquiry discourse. Study II examined an effort to implement technology-enhanced progressive inquiry as a distance working project in a middle school context. Study III examined multiple teachers' methods of organizing progressive inquiry projects in primary and secondary classrooms through a generic analysis framework. In Study IV, a design-based research effort consisting of four consecutive university courses, applying progressive inquiry pedagogy, was retrospectively re-analyzed in order to develop the generic design framework. The results indicate that appropriate teacher support for students collaborative inquiry efforts appears to include interplay between spontaneity and structure. Careful consideration should be given to content mastery, critical working strategies or essential knowledge practices that the inquiry approach is intended to promote. In particular, those elements in students activities should be structured and directed, which are central to the aim of Progressive Inquiry, but which the students do not recognize or demonstrate spontaneously, and which are usually not taken into account in existing pedagogical methods or educational conventions. Such elements are, e.g., productive co-construction activities; sustained engagement in improving produced ideas and explanations; critical reflection of the adopted inquiry practices, and sophisticated use of modern technology for knowledge work. Concerning the scaling-up of inquiry pedagogy, it was concluded that one individual teacher can also apply the principles of Progressive Inquiry in his or her own teaching in many innovative ways, even under various institutional constraints. The developed Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework enabled recognizing and examining some central features and their interplay in the designs of examined inquiry units. The framework may help to recognize and critically evaluate the invisible learning-cultural conventions in various educational settings and can mediate discussions about how to overcome or change them.

A global perspective on psycho-educational assessment

For psychologists in less developed countries, psycho-educational assessment is often challenging due to a lack of specialist training and a scarcity of appropriate, psychometrically robust instruments. This paper focuses on school psychology and psycho-educational assessment in three countries: Bangladesh, China and Iran. Despite differences in demographic and cultural features, these countries share similar issues that restrict the practice of psycho-educational assessment. We conclude that it is important for psychologists in western countries to support professional training and testing practices in less developed countries.

Monikulttuurisuuskasvatus päiväkodin monikulttuurisessa esiopetusryhmässä

This study reports on the realisation of multicultural education in a multicultural pre-school group of one kindergarten. The research questions were: 1) what multicultural goals and contents did the kindergarten´s own pre-school curriculum contain? and 2) how did the pre-school educators´ views on multicultural education appear in their actions in a multicultural pre-school group? The research was conducted by analysing the curricula, interviewing the educators, and observing of the preschool groups. Pre-school education is seen as part of institutionalised education which is defined through culture. Education is considered from the point of view of critical multicultural education, paying special attention to the role of society in the definition of education. The research is a case study, and it concentrates on the interpretation of the working philosophy of one preschool group with respect to its implementation. The target group consisted of 20 6-year-old pre-school pupils in a kindergarten and their four pre-school educators. The research results showed that the kindergarten´s own pre-school curriculum (1997) was in structure and form consistent with the structure and form of the National Core Curriculum for Pre-School Education from 1996. The only difference was in the classification of the various subject fields and objectives. The contents of the two curricula showed hardly any variation, and both of them contained only few goals and contents for multicultural education. According to the interviews, the educational views and learning philosophy of the pre-school educators represented a child-centred point of view that takes into consideration the individual pupil´s needs and skills. This is also one of the basic principles of multicultural education. The principle was not, however, realised in the directed activities of the pre-school group. The heterogeneity of the pre-school group was dealt with by dividing the children into smaller groups, but the contents of the tuition were not differentiated. All children were provided with the same goals and contents. Multicultural education was seen as remote and separate from the overall educational philosophy. The contents of multicultural education were interpreted by the educators as teaching Finnish as a second language and teaching the children their own mother tongue and religion. After the evaluation of the state of the kindergarten´s multicultural education using four different models, I determined that the kindergarten emerged as a representative of the model where multicultural education is seen as something meant for immigrants only. The aim of the model is a rapid integration of the immigrant children with the majority population. Keywords: education, pre-school education, multicultural education, critical multicultural education, language, culture