‘“Glossary Islands” as sites of the “Abroad” in post-colonial literature: towards a new methodology for language and knowledge relations in Keri Hulme’s The Bone People and Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby.’

The publication of Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby in 2013 drew attention once more to the issue of how post-colonial scholars might best engage with English-language literary texts also containing a glossary of Indigenous words. This issue emerged first with the publication of Keri Hulme’s The Bone People in 1984. This article argues that, to date, scholars like Simon During and Eve Vincent have perpetuated a binary either/or approach to the interpretation of these glossaries. The result of this approach has been that either the pre-colonial Indigenous language or the colonial/post-colonizing English language has been privileged as the locus of linguistic power in the text. One problem with this approach is that it does not adequately represent the complex historical, cultural and political circumstances of post-colonial and multi-cultural nations like Australia (setting of Mullumbimby) and New Zealand (setting of The Bone People) as these link to matters of language. Another problem is that this binary approach restrains a close reading of the differences between different types of such glossaries, and of the nuanced relationship of a glossary to the text it accompanies. In place of this approach, this article proposes a new methodology that works with Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey’s notion of “tidalectics” as a way of reading island literatures. The neologism “glossary islands” allows another way into considering the function of glossaries in islandic literary texts like Lucashenko’s and Hulme’s. The post-colonial connection between islands and glossaries lies in the fact that they are each an intensified site of knowledge.

Spreading the word: using film to share research findings and knowledge about children with disabilities in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea

While there is increasing international interest in disability inclusive development, people with disability largely remain ‘unseen, unheard and uncounted’ (UN ESCAP 2012:1). Children with disability, particularly, remain excluded from research informing development, and there is a paucity of information that is drawn directly from the self-report of children with disability living in developing countries. This exclusion occurs across all stages of research, including access to research findings. When child research is conducted in such countries, to gain further evidence to support disability inclusive development and advance human rights, researchers must question how findings will be reported back to participants and their communities, and seek a method that is both accessible and culturally relevant. This paper reports on the Voices of Pacific children with disability research project about the human rights of children with disability in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea (PNG), and focuses on film as a dissemination method. Project researchers developed methods to enhance the participation of children with diverse disabilities as informants, and drew upon community development principles to disseminate research findings via film; a method that resonated with the aural and visual story telling traditions of participants.This medium also included accessibility features that have been utilised by local and international audiences.

Every day you learn something : learning for life? Neighbourhood houses, adult learning and transitions to higher education

This book comes from a research project titled ‘Lifelong Learning? Neighbourhood Houses, Adult Learning and Transitions to Higher Education’ (T Ollis, Starr, Ryan, Angwin, & Harrison, 2016). This research has examined adult learning in the context of Neighbourhood Houses in the regions of Geelong and South Western Victoria.The research was conducted in 2015 and 2016 and sought to examine the learning experiences of adult learners who participate in the education programs of Neighbourhood Houses. The focus was on second chance learners and their transition pathways to higher education such as TAFE and University. A second group of learners were identified during the research process – later life learners. These learners were engaging with Neighbourhood Houses for personal interest learning and social and community connection. This small book provides a snapshot of the stories of learners who were involved in this research. It tells the lived stories of the participants, which is important as learning and education are connected with the ongoing development of ourselves as human beings. Learning is essential to our personhood and impacts on adults in terms of their welfare, health and prosperity over a lifetime. Many of the learners’ stories outlined in this book reveal checkered histories of education. Some have experienced learning difficulties, others have experienced family trauma that prevented them from finishing secondary schooling. Some of the stories describe issues related to reskilling or retraining in later life, responding to industry changes and work in the Greater Geelong and South West regions. Others were pursuing recreation and social connection and came to the Neighbourhood Houses to learn crafts, writing, photography and computer literacy skills. In almost all accounts of learning in this book, individuals had experienced less social isolation by being connected to others in the unique social environment of Neighbourhood houses.

Intensive mode learning and threshold concepts

Intensive mode teaching and learning refers to educational activities that occur on fewer days, and longer each day, than a “traditional” unit or module in the discipline. In traditional education, a full-time student would study between four and eight subjects or units per term or per semester at school, TAFE or university. Hence each subject or unit is effectively part-time study, taking up between 10% and 25% of the study hours available in each week. By way of contrast, an intensive mode subject might take between 30% and 100% of the available study hours. Examples include field trips and study tours, during which students devote 100% of the available hours to a single subject. In chemistry, the University of New England and Central Queensland University offer course by distance education, but students are expected to attend compulsory residential schools. During these residential schools, the students participate in chemistry laboratories and tutorials, all day, every day for up to one week.

Shifting practices and frames: literacy, learning and computer games

Digital culture and the online world have profound implications for contemporary notions of literacy, learning and curriculum. The increasing integration of digital culture and technologies into young people’s lives reflects the energy and excitement offered by online worlds. Online forms of text and communication are shaping students’ experience of the world, including expectations and experiences about learning and literacy. While print literacies remain important, for schools to prepare students to participate in critical and agential ways in the contemporary and future world, they need also to teach them to be fully literate in digital and multimodal literacies, and at ease and in control in the online world. Computer games, and other forms of digital games, teach and exemplify multimodal forms of literacy. Schools can capitalize on their potential and work with them productively. Doing so however, entails recognizing the messy complexity of schooling, and the practicalities of classroom lives. This chapter reports on a three year project in five schools concerned with literacy and computer games, and discusses the important role of teachers as on-the- ground leaders in pioneering new conceptions of literacy, and of curriculum change, and the importance of school structures and support to enable such change to happen.

Actas da II International Conference «Learning and Teaching in Higher Education/ Learning Orchestration in Higher Education»

É ponto assente que o desenvolvimento social e económico de um país depende do conhecimento e do nível educativo dos seus cidadãos. Num momento de crise económica profunda em que a sustentabilidade do ensino superior se encontra ameaçada e a sua organização com rumo incerto, importa, mais do que nunca, criar um espaço de reflexão em que a ciência se pronuncie, aproximando e colocando em evidência os contributos que em vários domínios se vão produzindo. Nesta conferência, que se pretende em continuidade com a realizada em 2010, elegemos como tema central a qualidade do ensino e da aprendizagem e, tendo em conta a realidade em que nos inscrevemos, alargamos a discussão aos contextos e aos modelos de organização que os podem consubstanciar. Pode parecer um paradoxo centrar esta conferência na componente mais pedagógica do ensino superior quando toda a pressão de avaliação interna e externa das instituições e dos docentes incide particularmente sobre a produção científica. Mas talvez não. Assumimos que a reflexão de cariz pedagógico continua a não ser uma prática corrente no meio universitário português que, durante gerações, se habituou a um ensino universitário tradicional destinado apenas a uma pequena elite e se alheou dos desafios da massificação de que foi alvo. A ideia de que pedagogia apenas diz respeito à relação do professor com crianças ou jovens até ao ensino secundário permaneceu latente, tornando estéril qualquer discussão que, na perspectiva de alguns, seria desnecessária e até contraproducente no ensino superior. Um novo paradigma terá de ser assumido por um ensino universitário que busca o ideal da excelência, colocando no centro do debate o equilíbrio entre as dimensões pedagógica e investigativa e uma redobrada atenção à sociedade e às mudanças se, verdadeiramente, o que pretendemos é ganhar o desafio da qualidade.

Organizational Cooperation and Knowledge Management in Research and Development Organizations

Organizational Cooperation (OC) is a current concept that responds to the growing interdependence among individuals and teams. Likewise, Knowledge Management (KM) accompanies specialization in all sectors of human activity. Most KM processes are cooperation-intensive, and the way both constructs relate to each other is relevant in understanding organizations and promoting performance. The present paper focuses on that relationship. The Organizational Cooperation Questionnaire (ORCOQ) and the Short form of the Knowledge Management Questionnaire (KMQ-SF) were applied to 639 members of research and development (R&D) organizations (Universities and Research Institutes). Descriptive, correlational, linear multiple regression and multivariate multiple regression analyses were performed. Results showed significant positive relationships between the ORCOQ and all the KMQ-SF dimensions. The prediction of KMQ-SF showed a large effect size (R2 = 62%). These findings will impact on how KM and OC are seen, and will be a step forward in the development of this field.

Some common fallacies about learning and teaching English as a Lingua Franca

Over the past decades, English language teachers have become familiar with several terms which attempt to describe the role of English as a language of international communication. Presently, the term English as a lingua franca (ELF) seems to be one of the most favoured and adopted to depict the global use of English in the 21st century. Basically, the concept of ELF im-plies cross-cultural, cross-linguistic interactions involving native and non-native speakers. Conse-quently, the ELF paradigm suggests some changes in the language classroom concerning teachers’ and students’ goals as far as native speaker norms and cultures are concerned. Based on Kachru’s (1992) fallacies, this article identifies thirteen misconceptions in ELT regarding learning and teach-ing English varieties and cultures, suggesting that an ethnocentred and linguacentred approach to English should be replaced by an ELF perspective which recognizes the diversity of communicative situations involving different native and non-native cultures and varieties of English