Vocational education in science technology, engineering and maths (STEM) : Curriculum innovation through industry school partnerships

Governments have recognised that the technological trades rely on knowledge embedded traditionally in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In this paper, we report preliminary findings on the development of two curricula that attempt to integrate science and mathematics with workplace knowledge and practices. We argue that these curricula provide educational opportunities for students to pursue their preferred career pathways. These curricula were co-developed by industry and educational personnel across two industry sectors, namely, mining and aerospace. The aim was to provide knowledge appropriate for students moving from school to the workplace in the respective industries. The analysis of curriculum and associated policy documents reveals that the curricula adopt applied learning orientations through teaching strategies and assessment practices which focus on practical skills. However, although key theoretical science and maths concepts have been well incorporated, the extent to which knowledge deriving from workplace practices is included varies across the curricula. Our findings highlight the importance of teachers having substantial practical industry experience and the role that whole school policies play in attempts to align the range of learning experiences with the needs of industry.

Staged crime scenes : literature and types

Many things can hamper an investigation. For example, the crime may be a truly random occurrence without links between the victim and the offender, evidence may not be acknowledged or properly collected, and the crime type itself may influence solvability. In other cases still, offenders actively seek to hamper the police investigation in an effort to avoid being caught and going to prison. In fact, the literature on homicide notes that it is not uncommon in many cases of this type for the offender to engage in precautionary acts (Turvey, 2007)...

The use of animation to promote student learning about the importance of mental well-being for tertiary study success

It is now widely acknowledged that student mental well-being is a critical factor in the tertiary student learning experience and is important to student learning success. The issue of student mental well-being also has implications for effective student transition out of university and into the world of work. It is therefore vital that intentional strategies are adopted by universities both within the formal curriculum, and outside it, to promote student well-being and to work proactively and preventatively to avoid a decline in student psychological well-being. This paper describes how the Queensland University of Technology Law School is using animation to teach students about the importance for their learning success of the protection of their mental well-being. Mayer and Moreno (2002) define an animation as an external representation with three main characteristics: (1) it is a pictorial representation, (2) it depicts apparent movement, and (3) it consists of objects that are artificially created through drawing or some other modelling technique. Research into the effectiveness of animation as a tool for tertiary student learning engagement is relatively new and growing field of enquiry. Nash argues, for example, that animations provide a “rich, immersive environment [that] encourages action and interactivity, which overcome an often dehumanizing learning management system approach” (Nash, 2009, 25). Nicholas states that contemporary millennial students in universities today, have been immersed in animated multimedia since their birth and in fact need multimedia to learn and communicate effectively (2008). However, it has also been established, for example through the work of Lowe (2003, 2004, 2008) that animations can place additional perceptual, attentional, and cognitive demands on students that they are not always equipped to cope with. There are many different genres of animation. The dominant style of animation used in the university learning environment is expository animation. This approach is a useful tool for visualising dynamic processes and is used to support student understanding of subjects and themes that might otherwise be perceived as theoretically difficult and disengaging. It is also a form of animation that can be constructed to avoid any potential negative impact on cognitive load that the animated genre might have. However, the nature of expository animation has limitations for engaging students, and can present as clinical and static. For this reason, the project applied Kombartzky, Ploetzner, Schlag, and Metz’s (2010) cognitive strategy for effective student learning from expository animation, and developed a hybrid form of animation that takes advantage of the best elements of expository animation techniques along with more engaging short narrative techniques. First, the paper examines the existing literature on the use of animation in tertiary educational contexts. Second, the paper describes how animation was used at QUT Law School to teach students about the issue of mental well-being and its importance to their learning success. Finally, the paper analyses the potential of the use of animation, and of the cognitive strategy and animation approach trialled in the project, as a teaching tool for the promotion of student learning about the importance of mental well-being.

School and choice : Anethnography of a primary school with bilingual classes

Based on a one-year ethnographic study of a primary school in Finland with specialised classes in Finnish and English (referred to as bilingual classes by research participants), this research traces patterns of how nationed, raced, classed and gendered differences are produced and gain meaning in school. I examine several aspects of these differences: the ways the teachers and parents make sense of school and of school choice; the repertoires of self put forward by teachers, parents and pupils of the bilingual classes; and the insitutional and classroom practices in Sunny Lane School (pseudonym). My purpose is to examine how the construction of differentness is related to the policy of school choice. I approach this questions from a knowledge problematic, and explore connections and disjunctions between the interpretations of teachers and those of parents, as well as between what teachers and parents expressed or said and the practices they engaged in. My data consists of fieldnotes generated through a one-year period of ethnographic study in Sunny Lane School, and of ethnographic interviews with teachers and parents primarily of the bilingual classes. This data focuses on the initial stages of the bilingual classes, which included the application and testing processes for these classes, and on Grades 1─3. In my analysis, I pursue poststructural feminist theorisations on questions of knowledge, power and subjectivity, which foreground an understanding of the constitutive force of discourse and the performative, partial, and relational nature of knowledge. I begin by situating my ethnographic field in relation to wider developments, namely, the emergence of school choice and the rhetoric of curricular reform and language education in Finland. I move on from there to ask how teachers discuss the introduction of these specialised classes, then trace pupils paths to these classes, their parents goals related to school choice, teachers constructions of the pupils and parents of bilingual classes, and how these shape the ways in which school and classroom practices unfold. School choice, I argue, functioned as a spatial practice, defining who belongs in school and demarcating the position of teachers, parents and pupils in school. Notions of classed and ethnicised differences entered the ways teachers and parents made sense of school choice. Teachers idealised school in terms of social cohesiveness and constructed social cohesion as a task for school to perform. The hopes parents iterated were connected to ensuring their children s futurity, to their perceptions of the advantages of fluency in English, but also to the differences they believed to exist between the social milieus of different schools. Ideals such as openmindedness and cosmopolitanism were also articulated by parents, and these ideals assumed different content for ethnic majority and minority parents. Teachers discussed the introduction of bilingual classes as being a means to ensure the school s future, and emphasised bilingual classes as fitting into the rubric of Finnish comprehensive schooling which, they maintained, is committed to equality. Parents were expected to accommodate their views and adopt the position of the responsible, supportive parent that was suggested to them by teachers. Teachers assumed a posture teachers of appreciating different cultures, while maintaining Finnishness as common ground in school. Discussion on pupils knowledge and experience of other countries took place often in bilingual classes, and various cultural theme events were organized on occasion. In school, pupils are taught to identify themselves in terms of cultural belonging. The rhetoric promoted by teachers was one of inclusiveness, which was also applied to describe the task of qualifying pupils for bilingual classes, qualifying which pupils can belong. Bilingual classes were idealised as taking a neutral, impartial posture toward difference by ethnic majority teachers and parents, and the relationship of school choice to classed advantage, for example, was something teachers, as well as parents, preferred not to discuss. Pupils were addressed by teachers during lessons in ways that assumed self responsibility and diligence, and they assumed the discursive category of being good, competent pupils made available to them. While this allowed them to position themselves favourably in school, their participation in a bilingual class was marked by the pressure to succeed well in school.

Post-school needs of young people with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study describes the post-school circumstances and service needs of older teenagers and adults with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, living in Queensland, Australia. The respondents were 95 parents. Results indicated that the majority of the young people lived in the family home and were unemployed. Of those who worked, 56% had unskilled jobs. They were estimated to spend a significant proportion of their time engaged in solitary, technology-based activities, and comparatively little time in employment or socialising. Parents rated employment support as the greatest service priority for their sons and daughters, followed by specialised support to assist with completing post-school education and training, assistance to support the transition from high school to adulthood, and social skills training.

A (im) possibilidade de ressocialização: representações sociais da ressocialização por meio do estudo da população carcerária masculina no Estado do Rio de Janeiro

A presente dissertação tem por objetivo identificar as representações sociais da ressocialização, por meio da escola, de prisioneiros masculinos de presídios situados no Rio de Janeiro. A legislação brasileira tem, entre seus princípios organizadores, o conceito de ressocialização de prisioneiros, ao estabelecer limites de duração da pena e impedir a pena de morte. Entretanto, ao analisarmos as condições carcerárias existentes neste ideário de ressocialização, verificamos que este ideário não possui e nem produz eficácia. A oferta de educação, para presidiários, ocorreu no Brasil a partir de 1967 e atualmente está em vigor a Lei n 12.433, de 29 de junho de 2011, que estabelece uma correlação entre a educação formal e a remição de pena. A dissertação trata de um breve histórico da educação no sistema penal brasileiro, considerando seus limites e potencialidades. O referencial teórico utilizado foi o da Teoria das Representações Sociais como apresentada por Serge Moscovici (1978) em sua pesquisa original sobre as representações sociais da psicanálise. O referencial teórico adotado permitiu a identificação desta espécie de pensamento social em um grupo de presidiários que frequenta a escola no presídio, priorizando a relação entre escola e ressocialização. Foram entrevistados 80 sujeitos do sexo masculino, em presídios da capital do estado do Rio de Janeiro, com a devida autorização do presídio, da Secretaria de Estado da Educação e com o rigor no cumprimento das normas éticas estabelecidas para pesquisa com humanos, especialmente a garantia de anonimato. A representação de comportamento no presídio resume-se ao conceito de enquadramento, que significa uma série de atitudes e de pensamento que permitem a sobrevivência no interior do presídio. A escola foi compreendida, pelos sujeitos, como instituição também determinada pelo enquadramento. Mesmo a escola tendo sido bem avaliada e apresentando perspectivas de futuro para a ressocialização, os sujeitos consideraram que a família é o principal agente de ressocialização à frente da escola. Consideramos que, para os presidiários, a escola pode representar possibilidades de ressocialização, entretanto deve aprimorar suas atividades para o mundo do trabalho e para a constituição de redes sociais de afinidade, com a família lato sensu dos prisioneiros, para que sua eficácia seja real e potente.

One Order, Two Laws: Recovering the 'Normative' in English School Theory

Bain, William, 'One Order, Two Laws: Recovering the 'Normative' in English School Theory', Review of International Studies, (2007) 33(4) pp.557-575 RAE2008

Symbolic violence and the neighbourhood: young working class girls' attitudes to education in Belfast

This article focuses on the experiences of 7-8 year old working-class girls in Belfast, Northern Ireland and their attitudes towards education. It shows how their emerging identities tend to emphasize relationships, marriage and motherhood at the expense of a concern with education and future careers. The article suggests that one important factor that can help explain this is the influence of the local neighbourhood. In drawing upon Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic violence and habitus and Elias' notion of figuration, the article shows how the local neighbourhood represents the parameters of the girls' social worlds. It provides the context within which the girls tend to focus on social relations within their community and particularly on family relationships, marriage and children. It also provides the context within which the girls tend to develop strong interdependent relationships with their mothers that also tend to encourage and reinforce the girls' particular gendered identities. The article concludes by arguing that there is a need for more research on working-class girls and education to look beyond the school to incorporate, more fully, an understanding of the influence of the family and local neighbourhood on their attitudes towards education and their future career aspirations.

All lads together? Racism, masculinity and multicultural/anti-racist strategies in a primary school

This article examines the articulation of racism and masculinity as manifest amongst infant children in a multi-ethnic, inner-city primary school. Drawing upon a year-long ethnographic study of the school, it will highlight some of the inherent problems of multicultural/anti-racist strategies which are not sufficiently grounded in an understanding of racism and how iti complexly interrelates with other systems of inequality, in this case gender. The article will show how many of the racist incidents and processes evident amongst the infant children can only be understood within the context of their expressions of masculinity. With this as a starting point, the article will go on to outline and assess one particular strategy of the school to try and engage older African/Caribbean boys through sports and particularly football. It will be shown how, as a result of this 'multicultural/anti-racist' strategy, a distinct masculine ethos has been created within the school which, ironically, provides a strong context for racist incidents to flourish. The article will conclude by arguing for a more complex and context-specific understanding of racism and will reiterate the concerns of a number of black feminist writers of the early 1980s that strategies to combat racism can only be successful alongside strategies addressing all forms of subordination.

A Transition Study to Support Curriculum Reform

This paper presents details of a project to support the transition from school to university for engineering students in the UK. The initial phases have already been disseminated by the project collaborators. The background, rationale, objectives and outcomes of this latter phase of the project are presented and specific data from a web-based transition diagnostic is discussed which verifies specific learning issues amongst engineering students enrolling in their first year of study. This prompted further investigations into these specific learning issues, which produced relevant data pertinent to enhancing learning through curriculum reform with the ultimate goal of accommodating the transition from school to university, improving the learning experience and increasing retention.

Following instructions in a virtual school: Does working memory play a role?

Accumulating evidence that working memory supports the ability to follow instructions has so far been restricted to experimental paradigms that have greatly simplified the practical demands of performing actions to instructions in everyday tasks. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether working memory is involved in maintaining information over the longer periods of time that are more typical of everyday situations that require performing instructions to command. Forty-two children 7–11 years of age completed assessments of working memory, a real-world following-instructions task employing 3-D objects, and two new computerized instruction-following tasks involving navigation around a virtual school to complete a sequence of practical spoken commands. One task involved performing actions in a single classroom, and the other, performing actions in multiple locations in a virtual school building. Verbal working memory was closely linked with all three following-instructions paradigms, but with greater association to the virtual than to the real-world tasks. These results indicate that verbal working memory plays a key role in following instructions over extended periods of activity.

Preparing students for the transition from college to work /

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived preparedness of college students for the transition from college to full-time employment. The study was concerned with the interest and rationale behind developing a required Exit Course for college students in order to improve the college to work transition. As well, possible content of an Exit Course was evaluated. The importance of addressing college to work transitions is highlighted by two phenomena. First, there are specific employability skills that employers in Canada are seeking in newly hired employees. Second, the provincial government in Ontario is determining college funding based on graduate employment statistics which are measured by graduate satisfaction, graduate employment, and employer satisfaction. The research concentrated on the following stakeholders involved in the transition from college to work: (a) current students, (b) recent graduates, (c) support staff who assist students in college to work transition (Career Educators), and (d) employers. Through qualitative research, including focus groups and interviews, these stakeholder groups participated in the research to determine if the Exit Course was a viable solution to facilitate the transition from college to work. Focus groups were conducted with current students, while one-on-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted with recent graduates, Career Educators, and employers. Common themes elicited from the participants included the following: (a) although students were perceived by the participants of this study to be technically prepared for employment, they were perceived to have weak job search skills and unrealistic expectations of the world of work unless they had received the benefits of a Co-operative Education experience; (b) an Exit Course was seen as a viable solution to the issues involved in college to work transition; (c) an Exit Course should be comprised of skills necessary to obtain and succeed in a job and the course should be taught by individuals with extensive qualifications in this area; and (d) there is a need to develop college and business partnerships to ensure that students are connected to employers. Educators within post secondary institutions, specifically colleges, can benefit from the information provided within this study to gain a better understanding of the perceived level of preparedness of students for the transition from college to work. Suggestions with regard to how to improve this transition were made, with specific reference to the addition of an Exit Course as one possible solution.

Evaluating the Norfolk physical education program with respect to fitness-level improvement

The grades seven and eight physical education program of the Norfolk Board of Education was evaluated with respect to fitnesslevel improvement, an objective of the Ministry of Education for the province of Ontario. The Canada Fitness Award battery of fitness tests was used to measure fitness levels. It was established that in September the students were unfit, and in May they were fit. This indicated that the Norfolk physical education program was effective, with respect to the criterion used for this research. In addition, it was discovered that fitness-level improvement was significantly related to certain variables: teacher qualifications, teaching experience, school, and participation in extracurricular physical activity. Considering the results of the research, it was recommended that the Norfolk Board of Education hire young, qualified physical education teachers; create the position of Physical Education Consultant; and strive to create equitable resources for physical education instruction, in order that the school to which a student belongs no longer will be a determinant of fitness improvement.

Making the transition from secondary to post-secondary education : a retrospective study of students with learning disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate what students with Learning Disabilities perceive are the personal characteristics they possess and services they require to assist them to complete secondary school and to continue their education in a postsecondary setting. Twenty-one students (12 female and 9 male) participated in the study which consisted of an interview and completion of a questionnaire. The central findings were as follows: 1) the participants perceived that personal characteristics were important in secondary school and still remain of importance at th~ postsecondary level; 2) Many of the typical accommodations and services supposed to be provided in secondary schools were not provided to the participants in this study; 3) the participants believed that they had more academic than social problems. Recommendations for future research in this field are based on findings related to the transition of LD students from secondary school to postsecondary education.