Liminal moments : designing, thinking and learning

This paper provides a contextual reflection for understanding best practice teaching to first year design students. The outcome (job) focused approach to higher education has lead to some unanticipated collateral damage for students, and in the case we discuss, has altered the students’ expectations of course delivery with specific implications and challenges for design educators. This tendency in educational delivery systems is further compounded by the distinct characteristics of Generation Y students within a classroom context. It is our belief that foundational design education must focus more on process than outcomes, and through this research with first year design students we analyse and raise questions relative to the curriculum for a Design and Creative Thinking course—in which students not only benefit from learning the theories and processes of design thinking, conceptualisation and creativity, but also are encouraged to see it as an essential tool for their education and development as designers. This study considers the challenges within a design environment; specifically, we address the need for process based learning in contrast to the outcome-focused approach taken by most students. The authors base their reflections on teaching design students at a university in Queensland, Australia.

School libraries and teacher-librarians : evidence of their contribution to student literacy and learning

International research provides compelling evidence that school libraries and teacher-librarians make a significant contribution to student literacy and learning outcomes. After summarising previous research, this article presents recent research focused on Gold Coast schools. These new Australian findings present an evidenced based snapshot of school libraries and teacher-librarians, from the principals’ perspective. They indicate that school NAPLAN scores for reading and writing were generally higher when student-to-library staff ratios were lower (i.e. better) and when the school employed a teacher-librarian. In light of the National Plan for School Improvement, the findings are of potential interest to education authorities, policy makers, school leadership teams, teacher-librarians, teachers, parents and researchers. They offer evidence to inform policy development and strategic planning for school libraries and professional staffing.

Mixing higher education teaching and learning with mobile devices and social media

The use of mobile devices and social media technologies are becoming all-pervasive in society: they are both transformative and constant. The high levels of mobile device ownership and increased access to social media technologies enables the potential for ‘anytime, anywhere’ cooperation and collaboration in education. While recent reports into emerging technologies in higher education predict an increase in the use of mobile devices and social media technologies (Horizon Report, 2013), there is a lack of theory-based research to indicate how these technologies can be most effectively harnessed to support and enhance student learning and what the impacts of these technologies are on both students and educators. In response to the need to understand how these technologies can be better embraced within higher education, this study investigated how first year education students used mobile devices and social media technologies. More specifically, the study identified how students spent most of their time when connected online with mobile devices and social media technologies and whether the online connected time engaged them in their learning or whether it was a distraction.

Information and Learning Experiences in the Cube: Vision, Implementation and Interaction

Executive Summary This project has commenced an exploration of learning and information experiences in the QUT Cube. Understanding learning in this environment has the potential to inform current implementations and future project development. In this report, we present early findings from the first phase of an investigation into what makes learning possible in the context of a giant interactive multi-media display such as the QUT Cube, which is an award-winning configuration that hosts several projects.

An evaluation of different features and learning models for anomalous event detection

The huge amount of CCTV footage available makes it very burdensome to process these videos manually through human operators. This has made automated processing of video footage through computer vision technologies necessary. During the past several years, there has been a large effort to detect abnormal activities through computer vision techniques. Typically, the problem is formulated as a novelty detection task where the system is trained on normal data and is required to detect events which do not fit the learned ‘normal’ model. There is no precise and exact definition for an abnormal activity; it is dependent on the context of the scene. Hence there is a requirement for different feature sets to detect different kinds of abnormal activities. In this work we evaluate the performance of different state of the art features to detect the presence of the abnormal objects in the scene. These include optical flow vectors to detect motion related anomalies, textures of optical flow and image textures to detect the presence of abnormal objects. These extracted features in different combinations are modeled using different state of the art models such as Gaussian mixture model(GMM) and Semi- 2D Hidden Markov model(HMM) to analyse the performances. Further we apply perspective normalization to the extracted features to compensate for perspective distortion due to the distance between the camera and objects of consideration. The proposed approach is evaluated using the publicly available UCSD datasets and we demonstrate improved performance compared to other state of the art methods.

Technological tools for science classrooms : choosing and using for productive and sustainable teaching and learning experiences

In this age of rapidly evolving technology, teachers are encouraged to adopt ICTs by government, syllabus, school management, and parents. Indeed, it is an expectation that teachers will incorporate technologies into their classroom teaching practices to enhance the learning experiences and outcomes of their students. In particular, regarding the science classroom, a subject that traditionally incorporates hands-on experiments and practicals, the integration of modern technologies should be a major feature. Although myriad studies report on technologies that enhance students’ learning outcomes in science, there is a dearth of literature on how teachers go about selecting technologies for use in the science classroom. Teachers can feel ill prepared to assess the range of available choices and might feel pressured and somewhat overwhelmed by the avalanche of new developments thrust before them in marketing literature and teaching journals. The consequences of making bad decisions are costly in terms of money, time and teacher confidence. Additionally, no research to date has identified what technologies science teachers use on a regular basis, and whether some purchased technologies have proven to be too problematic, preventing their sustained use and possible wider adoption. The primary aim of this study was to provide research-based guidance to teachers to aid their decision-making in choosing technologies for the science classroom. The study unfolded in several phases. The first phase of the project involved survey and interview data from teachers in relation to the technologies they currently use in their science classrooms and the frequency of their use. These data were coded and analysed using Grounded Theory of Corbin and Strauss, and resulted in the development of a PETTaL model that captured the salient factors of the data. This model incorporated usability theory from the Human Computer Interaction literature, and education theory and models such as Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) TPACK model, where the grounded data indicated these issues. The PETTaL model identifies Power (school management, syllabus etc.), Environment (classroom / learning setting), Teacher (personal characteristics, experience, epistemology), Technology (usability, versatility etc.,) and Learners (academic ability, diversity, behaviour etc.,) as fields that can impact the use of technology in science classrooms. The PETTaL model was used to create a Predictive Evaluation Tool (PET): a tool designed to assist teachers in choosing technologies, particularly for science teaching and learning. The evolution of the PET was cyclical (employing agile development methodology), involving repeated testing with in-service and pre-service teachers at each iteration, and incorporating their comments i ii in subsequent versions. Once no new suggestions were forthcoming, the PET was tested with eight in-service teachers, and the results showed that the PET outcomes obtained by (experienced) teachers concurred with their instinctive evaluations. They felt the PET would be a valuable tool when considering new technology, and it would be particularly useful as a means of communicating perceived value between colleagues and between budget holders and requestors during the acquisition process. It is hoped that the PET could make the tacit knowledge acquired by experienced teachers about technology use in classrooms explicit to novice teachers. Additionally, the PET could be used as a research tool to discover a teachers’ professional development needs. Therefore, the outcomes of this study can aid a teacher in the process of selecting educationally productive and sustainable new technology for their science classrooms. This study has produced an instrument for assisting teachers in the decision-making process associated with the use of new technologies for the science classroom. The instrument is generic in that it can be applied to all subject areas. Further, this study has produced a powerful model that extends the TPACK model, which is currently extensively employed to assess teachers’ use of technology in the classroom. The PETTaL model grounded in data from this study, responds to the calls in the literature for TPACK’s further development. As a theoretical model, PETTaL has the potential to serve as a framework for the development of a teacher’s reflective practice (either self evaluation or critical evaluation of observed teaching practices). Additionally, PETTaL has the potential for aiding the formulation of a teacher’s personal professional development plan. It will be the basis for further studies in this field.

Small acts of resistance : the role of intergenerational collaborative drawing in early childhood teaching and learning

This chapter focuses on ‘intergenerational collaborative drawing’, a particular process of drawing whereby adults and children draw at the same time on a blank paper space. Such drawings can be produced for a range of purposes, and based on different curriculum or stimulus subjects. Children of all ages, and with a range of physical and intellectual abilities are able to draw with parents, carers and teachers. Intergenerational collaborative drawing is a highly potent method for drawing in early childhood contexts because it brings adults and children together in the process of thinking and theorizing in order to create visual imagery and this exposes in deep ways to adults and children, the ideas and concepts being learned about. For adults, this exposure to a child’s thinking is a far more effective assessment tool than when they are presented with a finished drawing they know little about. This chapter focuses on drawings to examine wider issues of learning independence and how in drawing, preferred schema in the form of hand-out worksheets, the suggestive drawings provided by adults, and visual material seen in everyday life all serve to co-opt a young child into making particular schematic choices. I suggest that intergenerational collaborative drawing therefore serves to work as a small act of resistance to that co-opting, in that it helps adults and children to collectively challenge popular creativity and learning discourses.

Shaping lecturers’ beliefs about teaching and learning in higher education in the Pacific

The aim of this study was to describe the educational experiences shaping the teaching and learning beliefs held by a group of beginning lecturers in higher education at various tertiary institutions in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). A total of sixty three essays written by participants in an online course on teaching in higher education comprised the data for the study. A modified version of narrative analysis was used. This is a powerful methodology in qualitative research that can provide remarkable insights into individuals’ beliefs. The critical experiences that were thought to shape their beliefs in teaching and learning were identified and discussed in the light of relevant literature. The participants described a range of influences that shaped their beliefs about teaching and learning including realisation about the need to work harder and know more, the importance of independence, support systems, curriculum, qualities of a teacher, teaching and learning process, teaching and learning strategies, and learning environments. This information was useful in teaching these students and for further courses.

Liminal moments : designing, thinking and learning

This paper provides a contextual reflection for understanding best practice teaching to first year design students. The outcome (job) focussed approach to higher education has lead to some unanticipated collateral damage for students, and in the case we discuss, has altered the students’ expectations of course delivery with specific implications and challenges for design educators. This tendency in educational delivery systems is further compounded by the distinct characteristics of Generation Y students within a classroom context. It is our belief that foundational design education must focus more on process than outcomes, and through this research with first year design students we analyse and raise questions relative to the curriculum for a Design and Creative Thinking course—in which students not only benefit from learning the theories and processes of design thinking, conceptualisation and creativity, but also are encouraged to see it as an essential tool for their education and development as designers. This study considers the challenges within a design environment; specifically, we address the need for process based learning in contrast to the outcome-focused approach taken by most students. With this approach, students simultaneously learn to be a designer and rethink their approach to “doing design”.

Achieving superior SME performance : overarching role of marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities

While most studies examine the effect of marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities (often separately) on performance, this study develops a unified model to investigate the combined effect of these capabilities on performance. This study further examines the complementary effect of these capabilities on performance. This study draws on the resource-based view theory to examine 171 manufacturing SMEs. The findings suggest that marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities are positively related to SME performance. In addition, these capabilities interact with one another to create great synergy in achieving SME performance.

Conceptualising the learning organisation : creating a maturity framework to develop a shared understanding of the library's role in literacy and learning

Although they sit outside the formal education sector, libraries are intrinsically centres of learning where people can engage with knowledge and ideas and acquire the literacy skills that are essential for active participation in an increasingly digital society. In Australia, National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA) has acknowledged the need to not only better understand the general concept of the library as a learning institution, but also to help the individual NSLA libraries specifically identify their capabilities in this arena. The NSLA Literacy and Learning project aimed to improve the members' organisational comprehension and practice as learning institutions and to help them conceptualise their ability to deliver literacy and learning programmes that will benefit their staff and their communities. The NSLA concept of learning institution encompassed two discrete lenses: the internal lens of the library's own organisational understanding and practice, and the external lens of the clients who engage in the literacy and learning programmes delivered by the library. The ultimate goal was to develop a matrix which could enable libraries to assess their perceived levels of maturity as learning institutions along a continuum of emerging to active capabilities. The matrix should also serve as a tool for shared understanding about the NSLA's own strategic directions in the literacy and learning space. This case study documents the evolving process of developing a learning institution maturity framework for libraries that considers individual, team and organisational learning, as well as clients' interactions with the organisation, with the goal of producing a framework that has the potential to measure the value of learning and growth in both the library's staff and the library's communities