Native English speaking teachers and Taiwanese English teachers' professional identity

The study found that Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) helped Taiwanese English teachers define their weaknesses, strengths, roles and values through relationality. NESTs brought competing discourses to the profession. In addition, team teaching has become a site of tension threatening Taiwanese English teachers in activating their professional agency.

Videoconferenced and face-to-face psychological supervision

Behavioural measures confirmed a greater teaching focus in early videoconferenced sessions, while speech style was consistently less interactive, compared with face-to-face. Overall supervision relationships felt closer in person, but some participants preferred the protection of distance. A positive attitude facilitated adaption to the videoconferencing modality for effective supervision.

S(t)imulating learning : pedagogy, subjectivity and teacher education in online environments

Australian higher education increasingly relies on flexible modes of delivery as a means of attracting and retaining students in a highly competitive global education market. While education is among those disciplines that have been most actively involved in the shift from face-to-face to online learning and teaching, the transition for many teacher educators is fraught with tensions and contradictions. For some, teaching online is seen as primarily a cost-cutting exercise on the part of universities, and has little to do with improving the quality of student learning. For others, the online environment offers multiple pedagogic possibilities that have yet to be fully explored. Yet others consider online environments as problematic, posing challenges to pedagogic and peer relationships that are generally seen as integral to 'good' teaching. This paper draws on an empirical study of teacher education faculties in five Australian universities, and analyses excerpts from interviews about learning and teaching with teacher educators, educational designers and faculty management. We argue that understanding how teacher educators constitute learner and teacher subjectivities through their beliefs about and approaches to pedagogy is crucial to the future of online tertiary education. In particular, we consider how teacher educators' attitudes toward and approaches to online learning and teaching are predicated on their perceived subject positions as either 'stimulating' or 'simulating' particular kinds of learning interactions.

Technographic research in online education : context, culture and ICT consumption

Technologically-mediated learning environments are an increasingly common component of university experience. In this paper, the authors consider how the interrelated domains of policy contexts, new learning cultures and the consumption of information and communication technologies might be explored using the concept of technography. Understood here as a term referring to “the apprehension, reception, use, deployment, depiction and representation of technologies” (Woolgar, 2005, pp. 27-28), we consider how technographic studies in education might engage in productive dialogues with interdisciplinary research from the fields of cultural and cyber studies. We argue that what takes place in online learning and teaching environments is shaped by the logics and practices of technologies and their role in the production of new consumer cultures.

The development of teaching skills to support active learning in university science (ALIUS)

This paper describes an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded project for which Learning Design is encompassed in the broadest sense. ALIUS (Active Learning In University Science) takes the design of learning back to the learning experiences created for students. ALIUS is not about designing a particular activity, or subject, or course, but rather the development of a method, or process, by which we have re-designed the way in which learning occurs in large university classrooms world wide.

Building professional capital : New Zealand social workers and continuing education

In a qualitative study of the engagement of New Zealand social workers in continuing professional education the construct "professional capital", a form of symbolic capital, explains complex links between perceived status within institutional settings and the aspirations of practitioners. Strategies for developing greater engagement in scholarship and research are recommended.

The impact of learning in the workplace policy on differing ICT degrees

At Victoria University, the release of a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy has been introduced to ensure that graduates are job and career ready. The policy underlines the importance of workplace contextual learning in all course deliveries and is scheduled for progressive implementation by 2010. For each degree, the policy mandates that a minimum of 25% of program content and assessment must be related to work integrated learning.

Compliance with the 25% shift poses significant challenges for its implementation upon all undergraduate programs since the policy is expected to impact upon program structures, unit deliveries, assessment practices, and course administrations. In particular, there has been an extensive review of existing approaches to learning and teaching in the programs that deliver information and communications technology (ICT) degrees across business and science faculties. This paper describes the current Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Business in Information Systems programs identifying similarities and differences between the two offerings with respect to their learning in workplace components. It explores possible synergies between the two programs that could be capitalized upon to implement the LiWC policy and details the challenges to both faculties in mounting a coordinated response.

Judgement, reflexivitiy and interdisiciplinarity : reframing construction management education

A core skill of the construction management professional is decision making. Disciplinary content knowledge provides the basis for effective decision making, but is largely insufficient in contexts where projects demand a responsive and flexible approach to scenarios as they evolve and change. As Beckett and Hager suggest, ‘professional practice requires a much richer set of phenomena – a capacity to make judgements, sensitivity to intuition and an awareness of the purposes of the actions are all involved ‘(2002: 12). This paper begins by exploring judgement to develop a conceptual model for initiating and developing decision making skills for construction management professionals. The capacity to respond to change in a structured and self aware manner is examined through the concept of reflexivity, a concept borrowed from sociology. Reflexivity is an individual’s capacity to be aware, responsive and adaptability to constant changing and evolving environments. Coupled with this is the challenge for all built environment professionals in the need to integrate knowledge and processes from various specialist knowledge domains, particularly design domains. The conceptual model is then refined by synthesising concepts from interdisciplinary research.

The aim of this paper is to describe a framework to analyse and review current undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs offerings from Deakin University in the School of Architecture and Building. Following Boud and Falchikov (2007) this framework starts with practice, that is, the actual ‘doing’ of construction management as the basis for shaping curriculum development.

Liberating from literalness : making space for meaningful forms of abstraction

There is a need for some alternative approaches to the way that undergraduate teacher education programs have traditionally been delivered. Our warrant for this assertion is derived, in the first instance, from the work of Aronowitz and Giroux who have argued that there are many different signs of a crisis of cognition within all levels of education. Twenty years later the conditions that they described seem even more entrenched. This paper argues for a fresh inquiry into the deeper logics of learning and teaching, by drawing primarily on the work of James, Dewey, Kierkegaard, Britzman and Mackay. There is also a brief inclusion of anecdotes from some initial applications of these theories into our own practice.

Cultivating teachers' knowledge and skills for leading change in schools

Australian policy initiatives and state curriculum reform efforts affirm a commitment to address student disengagement through the development of inclusive school environments, curriculum, and pedagogy. This paper, drawing on critical social theory, describes three Australian projects that support the cultivation of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills for critical reflection and leading change in schools. The first project reports on the valued ethics that emerged in pre-service teacher reflections about a Service-learning Program at a university in Queensland. The second project reports on a school-based collaborative inquiry approach to professional development with a focus on literacy practices. The final project reports on an initiative in another university in Victoria, to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal in Victoria, through the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT). These case studies illustrate how critical reflection and development of beliefs, knowledge and skills can be acquired to better meet the needs of schools.

Universiti Sains Malaysia, sustainability and the struggle for a vital centre in education

The agenda of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) aims to engage the problems of values and ethics in the context of knowledge production and teaching in universities. In this sense, USM is seeking to re-imbue the soul of higher education by articulating a normative ’vital centre’ to the mission of USM by means of cultural respect,sustainability and commitment to the bottom billions that is the critical touchstone for reforming pedagogical practice in USM.

Children's literature in a global age : transnational and local identities

This essay explores the concept of transnationalism, defi ning this term in relation both to the lived experience of transnational subjects, and to transnational texts for children. It argues that rhetorics of globalization have over-emphasized the impact and signifi cance of global cultural and economic fl ows, although the production of children’s books is to some extent shaped by the internationalization of publishing houses and markets. The concept of transnationalism provides a way of thinking about how children’s texts address and are informed by diverse, complex infl uences, sometimes from a variety of cultures and languages. Transnationalism is not a new phenomenon but is visible in colonial texts which are shaped both by the particular, local ideologies of colonial nations, and also by the common concerns and interests of such nations. The essay draws on two contemporary texts to illustrate the workings of transnationalism: the fi lm Howl’s Moving Castle, and Shaun Tan’s picture book The Arrival. It concludes by considering the concept of transnational literacy as a way of approaching scholarship and teaching in children’s literature.

Contemporary management

Contemporary Management, by local author Di Waddell is the second, local adaptation of the US market-leading management text by Jones and George. This unique text follows a nonprescriptive, real-world approach to management and is written in an accessible style allowing for flexibility in both teaching and learning.

Used at both an undergraduate and postgraduate level, Contemporary Management has a concise structure designed to meet the needs of trimesters and 12 week teaching schedules. The uncluttered internal design alongside the modern treatment of the topic makes this text significantly different to other texts in the market.

It offers updated content to reflect the impact of the GFC and the increasing significance of diversity, culture and ethics. There are all new in-chapter case studies, new Australian videos and a full range of excellent online resources. Also, this edition includes a new end of book section containing two unique integrated case studies exploring tourism management in Australian tourism destinations: Skyrail in Cairns and Flinders Island, Tasmania.

Benchmarking journalism courses with a focus on graduate employability : case Studies from three Australian universities

Benchmarking is commonly perceived as a key part of quality assurance and enhancement, and universities have had limited success to date in benchmarking, nationally or internationally, in matters concerning teaching and learning. This is partly due to the paucity of comparable quantitative indicators. The challenges are even greater when benchmarking is at course (program) level. As part of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council fellowship (Benchmarking partnerships for graduate employability), a process was designed to enable course leaders to engage in collaborative and confidential benchmarking at course level, with a particular focus on graduate employability (or, more specifically, the assurance of graduate capability development and achievement). Among the 24 benchmarking partners were three course leaders in undergraduate journalism. This paper describes their collective experiences and some of the outcomes of the benchmarking exercise. It also highlights some of the challenges of benchmarking in a discipline where graduates may follow a range of career paths, and where technology means professional practice is evolving at a very rapid pace. Given these underpinning uncertainties, discussions around employability and appropriate graduate capabilities are best had face to face with adequate time for establishing common understandings. This has also been a focused way of building capacity and scholarly networking.