ASERA : brief histor(y/ies)

This collection of historical accounts provides diverse perspectives on the structure and culture of the community of researchers who participate in activities of the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA). It describes the formation of the Association, and identifies major changes and challenges for the ever growing and internationalisation of its membership.

Exploring the resistance : an Australian perspective on educating for sustainability in early childhood

Climate change and sustainability are issues of global significance. While other education sectors have implemented education for sustainability for many years, the early childhood sector has been slow to take up this challenge. This position paper poses the question: Why has this sector been so slow to engage with sustainability? Explanations are proposed based on a review of research literature and the authors’ long engagement in seeking to bring early childhood education and education for sustainability together. The imperative is for the early childhood sector to engage in education for sustainability without delay and to ‘get active’ for a sustainable future.

Homework for refugee middle school students with backgrounds marked by low levels of engagement with English school literacy

Homework presents many challenges for refugees from Africa who are arriving in Australian schools with histories of little, no or severely interrupted schooling. This is evident in the emergence of school- and community-based homework help, clubs and tutoring programs for the students. The aim of this article is to describe the homework support options accessed by eight students from Burundi, Rwanda, Eritrea and Sudan who participated in a study of pedagogy for middle school-aged African refugees, and the views on homework of their parents and teachers. The article shows some tensions between family and school expectations and the dilemmas that arise for teachers in a broader context of public concern about and official policy statement on excessive and repetitive homework. It is argued that application of policy guidelines needs to account for disadvantages that potentially accrue to students who cannot design their own independent study programs. Further, it is suggested that integration of skills and meaning-based pedagogy inherent in recent approaches to literacy education has potential for ensuring that students receive the forms of homework they require.

Engaging with the promises of education : African refugee students in Australian secondary schools

The research reported in this paper investigated the engagement of students who arrived in Australian secondary schools as refugees from Africa. Enrolment of large cohorts of refugees from Africa is a relatively new phenomenon in the English-speaking West. The literature provides evidence that emotional engagement with the promises of schooling is strong for many of the young African refugees. Students envision successful professional careers as doctors, engineers, lawyers, and IT experts; they envision returning to their country as professionals able to help the people. The question investigated in this paper is: How does schooling in Australia impact on young African refugees’ education and career aspirations? Engagement is understood in Bourdieuian terms as dispositions to be and to become an educated person. This is a disposition which entails fundamental belief in the value of the stakes of schooling. The data analysed in the paper were produced in a study undertaken in the state of Queensland where 5000 of the 39 000 African refugees who have arrived in Australia since 2000 have settled. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and their parents and teachers after arrival in an intensive language school, and then after transition to a regular secondary school. The findings show both the durability and malleability of educational dispositions in conditions of dramatic social change occasioned by refugee experience. Engagement in the stakes of schooling is both built and eroded as students flee their homelands for countries of refuge. Previously unimaginable educational dreams are possible for some; but for others, long-held dreams become unattainable. The paper concludes with recommendations for better supporting young people through this re-shaping of self.

Intercultural conversation : building understanding together

Classroom talk has long been recognised as central to student learning. Efforts are made therefore to 'stretch', 'extend' or 'push' English-language learners' (ELLS') linguistic and conceptual development by promoting more complex instructional talk. Conversation is a two-way activity, yet the focus is often directed to the ELL. To address this gap, this article suggests ideas for developing the capabilities of all students -- ELLS or otherwise -- for instructional conversations in mainstream classrooms where English is used by some as a first or only language, and by others as a second language.

Defining an Identity : The Evolution of Science Education

Research in science education is now an international activity. This book asks for the first time, Does this research activity have an identity?-It uses the significant studies of more than 75 researchers in 15 countries to see to what extent they provide evidence for an identity as a distinctive field of research.-It considers trends in the research over time, and looks particularly at what progression in the research entails.-It provides insight into how researchers influence each other and how involvement in research affects the being of the researcher as a person.-It addresses the relation between research and practice in a manner that sees teaching and learning in the science classroom as interdependent with national policies and curriculum traditions about science. It gives graduate students and other early researchers an unusual overview of their research area as a whole. Established researchers will be interested in, and challenged by, the identity the author ascribes to the research and by the plea he makes for the science content itself to be seen as problematic.

Report on Innovation Working Group : The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project. Dresden, Saxony

This document reports on the Innovations Working Group that met at the 10th International Conference “Models in Developing Mathematics Education” from the 11-17th September 2009 in Dresden, Saxony. It briefly describes the over arching and consistent themes that emerged from the numerous papers presented. The authors and titles of each of the papers presented will be listed in Table 2.

Students’ perceptions of a blended web-based learning environment

The enhanced accessibility, affordability and capability of the Internet has created enormous possibilities in terms of designing, developing and implementing innovative teaching methods in the classroom. As existing pedagogies are revamped and new ones are added, there is a need to assess the effectiveness of these approaches from the students’ perspective. For more than three decades, proven qualitative and quantitative research methods associated with learning environments research have yielded productive results for educators. This article presents the findings of a study in which Getsmart, a teacher-designed website, was blended into science and physics lessons at an Australian high school. Students’ perceptions of this environment were investigated, together with differences in the perceptions of students in junior and senior years of schooling. The article also explores the impact of teachers in such an environment. The investigation undertaken in this study also gave an indication of how effective Getsmart was as a teaching model in such environments.

Promoting interdisciplinarity through mathematical modelling

This article presents one approach to addressing the important issue of interdisciplinarity in the primary school mathematics curriculum, namely, through realistic mathematical modelling problems. Such problems draw upon other disciplines for their contexts and data. The article initially considers the nature of modelling with complex systems and discusses how such experiences differ from existing problem-solving activities in the primary mathematics curriculum. Principles for designing interdisciplinary modelling problems are then addressed, with reference to two mathematical modelling problems— one based in the scientific domain and the other in the literary domain. Examples of the models children have created in solving these problems follow. A reflection on the differences in the diversity and sophistication of these models raises issues regarding the design of interdisciplinary modelling problems. The article concludes with suggested opportunities for generating multidisciplinary projects within the regular mathematics curriculum.

Integrating engineering model eliciting activities in elementary school curricula

This paper argues for a future-oriented, inclusion of Engineering Model Eliciting Activities (EngMEAs) in elementary mathematics curricula. In EngMEAs students work with meaningful engineering problems that capitalise on and extend their existing mathematics and science learning, to develop, revise and document powerful models, while working in groups. The models developed by six groups of 12-year students in solving the Natural Gas activity are presented. Results showed that student models adequately solved the problem, although student models did not take into account all the data provided. Student solutions varied to the extent students employed the engineering context in their models and to their understanding of the mathematical concepts involved in the problem. Finally, recommendations for implementing EngMEAs and for further research are discussed.

Introducing Engineering Education in the Middle School

This paper first describes a new three-year, longitudinal project that is implementing engineering education in three middle schools in Australia (grade levels 7-9). This important domain is untapped in Australia. Hence, as a starting point, we conducted a context analysis to help situate engineering education in a school system. We report on this analysis with respect to findings from one of two literature-based surveys that gathered middle-school student responses in mathematics (n=172) and science (n=166) towards understanding their dispositions for engineering education. ANOVA indicated gender differences for 3 out of 23 items in both mathematics and science. In addition, the majority of students agreed or strongly agreed with 17 of the 23 survey items, however, there were some differences between mathematics and science. We conclude the paper with some recommendations for establishing engineering education in schools, including the development of partnerships among engineering and education faculties, school systems, and industry to develop contemporary engineering resources to support school-level mathematics, science, and technology.

Cases from the technology disciplines

This document is a collection of ‘cases’ adapted from interviews with supervisors of higher degree research students from the technology disciplines. The supervisors come from a wide range of sub disciplines and represent many levels of experience. We follow in this document Hammond and Ryland’s (2009)2 suggested ranking of supervision experience:  No completions – No experience or new supervisors, with no doctoral completions as principal supervisor  Experienced – 1 to 5 doctoral completions as principal supervisor  Very experienced – over 6 doctoral completions as principal supervisor The cases focus attention on thinking about supervision as a teaching and learning practice; a dimension of higher degree research supervision that is increasingly being recognized as important. They are offered as prompts for individuals and groups of supervisors in thinking about their supervision as a teaching and learning practice.