Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Problem-based learning

Sofie M. M. Loyens — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:13:22 PDT

Problem-based learning (PBL) represents a major development in educational practice that continues to impact both courses and disciplines worldwide (Schmidt, van der Molen, te Winkel, & Wijnen, 2009a). The chapter first outlines what PBL is and when, why, and how it developed. Next, it discusses what PBL aims to establish. The key elements of PBL are reviewed, followed by empirical research on the effects of PBL. Finally, it concludes the chapter with critical remarks and final notes.

The goal-free effect

Fred Paas — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:22:16 PDT

Research on learning from solving transformational problems has shown that the extent to which a goal is clearly specified to a problem solver as a problem state affects the problemsolving strategy used. Transformational problems are characterized by an initial problem state, a goal state, and a set of operators to transform the initial problem state into the goal state. Under goal-specific conditions novice problem solvers work backward from the goal setting subgoals until equations containing no unknowns other than a desired goal state are encountered (i.e., means-ends analysis). Under nonspecific goal conditions novice problem solvers work forward attaining the desired goal by choosing equations which allow a value for an unknown to be calculated (i.e., history-cued strategy). The goal-free effect refers to the finding that practicing by solving problems with a nonspecific goal imposes a lower cognitive load and leads to better learning than practicing by solving problems with a specific goal.

“Converting the bubble wrap generation into eco warriors”: results on the effectiveness of a co-signed protocol

Peter J. Andersen — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:40:56 PDT

In the face of a global environmental crisis, schools are at the forefront of the campaign to influence the young on how to live more sustainably. However, paradoxically, the very children that they are attempting to convert into eco warriors are being bubble wrapped by their parents and the institutions that are attempting to convert them. This paper will analyse the evolvement of environmental education in Australia, and the dilemma that it faces in trying to equip the bubble wrap generation with action competence. One means of empowering the young to become eco warriors is through positioning them as change agents, influencing their families on ways to live more sustainably. This paper will explore a research project that tests the effectiveness of a Protocol, co-signed by a group of fourteen-year-old students and their families. The findings of this research shed light on the ability of a Protocol to bring about intergenerational influence between students and their families; the reception that such a tool has on the students and family members; and the implications for further research and practices.

Computer literacies and Australian Indigenous communities: sharing, scaffolding, and supporting in an online learning environment

Michelle Eady — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:05:12 PDT

Current reports indicate literacy rates among adult Indigenous Australians remain low despite years of improvement initiatives. Synchronous learning technology has potential to provide literacy and training to Indigenous learners living in remote communities. Although considerable research has been devoted to the area of internet-based learning in general, there is less research in the area of online synchronous learning opportunities for remote Indigenous learners. This paper offers insights gained from a unique research project that empowered members of a remote Indigenous community through a hands-on opportunity with synchronous technology where learners shared their strengths, and saw potential for their own futures.

Crocodiles and polar bears: A cross cultural comparison of adult learning in remote Indigenous communities

Michelle Eady — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:05:11 PDT

This presentation compares and contrasts the context of adult learning for two groups of adult Indigenous students, one from the northern Australian tropics and one from far Northwestern Ontario. It also examines the ways that technology is used to try and bridge the distance between Indigenous adult learners' goals and educational opportunities. From this comparison we conclude that the educational gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous learners in Canada is closing, while the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is widening. We reflect on the reasons why Indigenous adult learners in Northwestern Ontario are being better served in comparison to their counterparts in the Northern Territory of Australia and the lessons we can learn from this.

Hooked on learning: connections at a distance

Michelle Eady — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:05:11 PDT

This session will have you thinking about using technology in your classroom in ways you haven't before. Good Learning Anywhere is facilitated by the Sioux Hudson Literacy Council (SHLC) and funded by the government of Ontario, Canada. It now reaches 35 remote Aboriginal communities. In collaboration with School of the Air in South Australia, SHLC expanded to focus on connecting children in Northern Ontario and South Australia and provide them with learning experiences including Aboriginal Learning. Connected Learning, Literacy and Numeracy Skills whilst getting the students "Hooked on Learning".

Aboriginal literacy: bridging the distance to learning

Michelle Eady — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:00:29 PDT

The Sioux Hudson Literacy Council is making groundbreaking strides to reach adult Aboriginal learners who reside in remote, isolated communities of Northwestern Ontario, Canada. This literacy organization services learners within the community and surrounding area. The 35 communities, which have a total population of approximately 35,000 people, are often only accessible by plane in the summer months and ice roads during the winter. The Aboriginal community members have not had the privilege of strong, structured educational backgrounds and have not had the opportunity to improve their existing literacy and employability skills. There are currently programs in these communities offered to high school and college students via video- and audio-conferencing. It appears however, that individuals who would benefit the most, the people who need assistance to attain the literacy levels required to achieve success at the high school and college levels are those who have had few educational opportunities. Over the last three years, the Sioux Hudson Literacy Council has been offering solutions for the literacy learner at a distance. We have created a unique website with direct links to synchronous online classrooms and offers a solution to the growing number of Indigenous learners who have little or no education.(Website:www.siouxhudsonliteracy.com)

Our journey continues and we have discovered many challenges and issues surrounding the obtaining and retaining of both online learners in Northwestern Ontario. This presentation will deliver some research findings, insights and experiences from our progressive work to reach Aboriginal distance learners in the remote, isolate communities of Ontario Canada's North.

Perspectives on literacy needs and technology approaches in Indigenous communities

Michelle Eady — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:00:28 PDT

Michelle Eady presented at last year's ACAL conference in Gold Coast and although she didn't "catch" any waves, she definitely made some. Her current research reflects a successful online literacy program in Canada that reaches remote adult Indigenous literacy learners. This presentation will discuss the findings of the first phase of her design-based research approach and share the findings of how practitioners (many of them ACAL members) and community members feel about literacy needs and technology in their respective positions and Indigenous communities.

Using mobile phones to augment teacher learning in environmental education

Brian Ferry — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:26:59 PST

This study contributes to the professional development of teachers in the use of mobile phones to inform their pedagogy. The focus is on how action learning sets helped preservice teachers (PST) to effectively use mobile phones to augment their understanding of the impact of their teaching of an environmental education unit in local primary schools. These school-based, action learning sets consisted of groups of four to six PST allocated to the five schools that participated in the study. For six weeks the twenty-two participating PST worked in pairs to teach a class for two hours per week. During this time the PST had access to mobile phones that had an inbuilt camera, Excel, Word, audio recording, video recording, Internet, email and other web features. These phones were used to support and inform the teaching of an environmental education unit that had as it focus waste and energy management. The findings indicated that in this context, the action learning sets provided a vehicle for sustained and targeted professional growth. Besides providing evidence of teacher learning and a record of teaching dilemmas that arose, the mobile phones were used to send supportive SMS messages among PST immediately before or after teaching.

Health imperatives in primary schools across three countries: Intersections of class, culture and subjectivity

Janice Wright — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:56 PST

In this paper we want to focus on the impact of the new health imperatives on young children attending primary schools because the evidence from both our own and others work suggests that younger and younger children are talking in very negative and disturbing ways about themselves and their bodies. We see this in a context where in the name of getting in early, governments and authorities are targeting primary schools and primary school parents and children for messages about health and weight. Just as ‘obesity’ has become a global concern, we argue that globalisation of risk discourses and the individualisation of risk, the league table on which country is becoming the fattest have impacted on government policies, interventions, schools and children which have much in common. In this paper then we argue first, that there is a problem (it is not one of children becoming fatter, but rather the way in which the ideas associated with the obesity crisis are being taken up by many children), and second, that the ways in which these ideas are taken up are not uniform across or within countries but depends on contexts – national contexts including but not only government policies and campaigns and within countries varies with social and cultural demographics of schools, in ways that are similar across countries.

The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture: A case for awakening subjugated knowledges

Rosie Welch — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:56 PST

In this paper we interrogate the ways nutrition and health have become increasingly influential to children’s everyday life practices and conceptualizations of food. We challenge the orthodoxy of meanings afforded to food that draw a distinct binary between ‘good’/‘bad’ or ‘healthy’/‘unhealthy’; ideas widely promulgated in health texts, popular culture and pedagogical practice. Whilst these dominant medico-scientific discourses are pervasive in accounts of food, they are not the only meanings that permeate the popular cultural and pedagogical landscape; for instance, there has been a burgeoning interest in culinary cooking programs and food sustainability in recent years. In this paper, we use Foucault’s notion of biopower to trace the various ways food is governed through interventions; pedagogised by popular culture; and, taken up in school policies and practices. We draw on interviews with 32 Year 5 students from Australian public and private primary schools. Not surprisingly, the analysis demonstrates how students reiterated food as a practice of ‘temptation’ and ‘risk’, similar to nutrition based knowledge of food circulated in popular culture and health programs. This suggests that other meanings of food are often socially and pedagogically marginalised. We argue that because of the perceived risk attached to food practices, these young people see food as an object of guilt and a reason for self-surveillance. After discussing the results we consider some of the consequences for young peoples’ sense of self and their relationships with food in every day life, particularly in light of the perilous effects of deeming food as ‘good’/‘bad’ from such a young age. As a point of departure we explore some of the subjugated knowledges that can be brought to the table of food pedagogies in schools in order to bring about a broader assemblage of food ‘truths’.

Teachers' knowledge about language: issues of pedagogy and expertise

Pauline Jones — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:55 PST

The new Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has considerable implications for teachers' knowledge about language (KAL) and pedagogic practice. To successfully implement the functionally oriented model of grammar proposed by the Curriculum, many teachers will need to expand their expertise in grammar to understand 'the structures and functions of word- and sentence-level grammar and text patterns and the connections between them' (ACARA, 2009. p. 7). They will also need to apply that knowledge to enhance their students' learning outcomes. This paper describes a small-scale research project involving a group of primary and secondary teachers in a targeted professional learning program. The initial findings have implications for theory and practice. In terms of theory, the research provides one of the first studies of the implementation of the new Curriculum. The case study reported underscores the importance of the implementation phase for the Curriculum and of the need for appropriate professional learning programs. The paper argues that such programs must go beyond a 'train-the- trainer' or 'one size fits all' model. They must be nuanced enough to account for the range of teacher needs in terms of linguistic knowledge and the contexts in which they will enact the Curriculum.

Using 'Slowmation' for intentional teaching in early childhood centres: Possibilities and imaginigs

Marilyn Fleer — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:54 PST

Facilitating collaborative work in tertiary teaching: a self-study

Irina Verenikina — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:54 PST

This paper reports on a self-study undertaken by the author to better understand the educational practices of scaffolding in pre-service teachers’ collaborative group work. The method included student interviews, conversations with a critical friend, and the researcher’s diary. The self-study allowed for fine-tuning theoretical understanding and practical implementation of scaffolding in students’ small group work. While the study confirmed my expectations that facilitation of the students’ group work was useful for them to understand content and develop collaborative skills, the students’ emphasis on the emotional side of scaffolding was a surprising find. It was also interesting to note that the needs of emotional scaffolding in mature age students were different to those of high school graduates, which related to their self-confidence and their understanding of the role of the lecturer in assisting with their academic work.

The influence of the Sport Education Model on developing autonomous instruction

Dana Perlman — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:53 PST

When Chinese learners meet constructivist pedagogy online

Rainbow Chen — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:52 PST

International students have become an important part of many universities, both through the income they provide and the diversity they bring to student populations. Studying in a foreign country can be challenging, requiring students to adapt to unfamiliar educational cultures. With the integration of online technologies into higher education, this can raise an additional set of challenges. This paper presents research that explored Chinese international students’ experiences of studying online at an Australian university, drawing on qualitative data collected from focus groups and interviews with Chinese students, interviews with their Australian teachers and course documentation. The findings indicate a strong culture clash between these students’ educational dispositions, shaped by their previous learning experiences in China, and the online pedagogic practices, which were underpinned by a constructivist approach. This resulted in detrimental educational and psychological consequences, with participants reporting limited development of their knowledge, and feelings of isolation and anomie. The findings suggest that investigating the interplay between learners’ prior and current educational experiences is important in understanding how students experience teaching practices.

Giftedness and gifted education: the need for a paradigm change

Albert Ziegler — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:52 PST

This commentary addresses Subotnik et al.’s target article from the perspective of researchers active in the field of giftedness. First, we self-critically examine the current standing of giftedness research within the scientific community. Second, the authors’ critique of gifted education is sharpened in three respects: (a) gifted identification, (b) effectiveness of gifted education, and (c) credentials of gifted education. Finally, four necessary and productive lines for future research are proposed.

The HAPPY study: Development and reliability of a parent survey to assess correlates of preschool children's physical activity

Trina Hinkley — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:51 PST

The Teenage Expertise Network (TEN): an online ethnographic approach

Nicola Johnson — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:50 PST

Using "Slowmation" to enable preservice primary teachers to create multimodal representations of science concepts

Garry Hoban — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:21:49 PST