Postgraduate coursework in Australia: issues emerging from university and industry collaboration

Coursework masters degrees in Australia have experienced rapid, decentralised growth since deregulation at the end of the 1980s. The result is an extraordinarily high level of diversity and some confusion as to standards, strategic positioning, purpose and educational approaches. Throughout this period of growth, a sense that large-scale (often distance-education based) collaboration between universities and with industry would be beneficial has not always led to successful outcomes. Using a new collaborative, industry-funded postgraduate coursework program as a case study, this paper describes the issues that decision-makers need to address and evaluates the challenges and benefits of the coursework masters in higher education. The outcomes of industry surveys, student interviews and action research suggest that postgraduate coursework can facilitate technology transfer and aid capacity building, through mechanisms similar to ‘mode 2’ research. With some additional systems to ensure sustainability and standards, this could position coursework masters to be uniquely valuable nationally.

对中小企业融资贷款难问题的理性思考

目前,向金融机构贷款难、向民间吸收资本难、向政府争取扶持难、向担保机构争取担保难、想上项目征建设用地难是中小企业发展过程中遇到的一个普遍问题.对此,一方面,金融机构应树立安天下意识、高度重视中小企业发展,坚持职业操守,健全完善金融服务体系,积极主动为企业排忧解难;另一方面,企业则应合理利用好自身资源,苦练内功、凝心聚力做大做强企业,并遵行企业发展的客观规律、循序渐进地提升企业自我发展能力.     

Sexual abuse in young children: its clinical presentation and characteristic patterns

A retrospective record survey was performed using all child clients aged less than 7 years seen at a community mental health center during the period 1982-1984. The total number of 202 children fell into three groups: sexually abused (n = 37), physically abused (n = 35), and nonabused clinical children (n = 130). These groups were compared in order to learn more about sexual abuse in young children. Family background of both abused groups were similar to each other but differed from the nonabused group in having more factors related to family stress than the nonabused group. Clinical presentations of all the children overlapped a great deal symptomatically; however, the sexually abused children had a statistically significant higher frequency of inappropriate sexual behavior than the other two groups. Several characteristics of the abusive patterns suffered by the two abuse groups differed at or near statistical significance: sexually abused children were more often victimized in single acts by nonrelated child perpetrators than were physically abused children.     

An Evaluation of a Children's Safety Training Programme

This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a children's safety training programme,Kidscape, which aims to increase primary school children's ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situation: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult and to pressure from such adults to keep such intimacy secret. Assessments of children's safety awareness were carried out in three schools which used the programme, and in three matched control schools which did not, with children at two age levels, 6 years and 10 years. These assessments of children's awareness were made on three occasions: before, immediately after and 2‐3 months after the training programme for the experimental sample (60 children) and on corresponding occasions for the control sample (60 children). The results revealed a significant improvement in the safety awareness of the experimental (trained) group after training and also a significant difference between the groups, in favour of the trained group. However, an improved performance of the control (untrained) group suggests that factors other than the Kidscape programme itself may influence these differences. Age differences in children's wariness of the four safety situations are also discussed.     

Thinking in action: Some insights from cognitive sport psychology

Historically, cognitive researchers have largely ignored the domain of sport in their quest to understand how the mind works. This neglect is due, in part, to the limitations of the information processing paradigm that dominated cognitive psychology in its formative years. With the emergence of the embodiment approach to cognition, however, sport has become a dynamic natural laboratory in which to investigate the relationship between thinking and skilled action. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore some insights into the relationship between thinking and action that have emerged from recent research on exceptional performance states (e.g., ‘flow’ and ‘choking’) in athletes. The paper begins by explaining why cognitive psychologists’ traditional indifference to sport has been replaced by a more enthusiastic attitude in recent years. The next section provides some insights into the relationship between thinking and skilled action that have emerged from research on ‘flow’ (or peak performance) and ‘choking’ (or impaired performance) experiences in athletes. The third section of the paper explores some practical issues that arise when athletes seek to exert conscious control over their thoughts in competitive situations. The final part of the paper considers the implications of research on thinking in action in sport for practical attempts to improve thinking skills in domains such as business organizations and schools.     

Collaborative learning: A memorable model

Abstract

Reform movements envision schools that will involve greater levels of cooperation and collaboration. Collaborative learning strategies provide a powerful mechanism not only to address affective goals in education but also to enhance students’ cognitive development; to deepen their understanding of concepts; and to press them to examine, articulate, and elaborate their ideas with greater clarity and rigor. Unless teachers have effective means to manage the complex problem solving involved in implementing collaborative learning strategies, the rich possibilities offered will not be realized. This paper proposes a five‐part conceptual framework to guide teachers decision making in order to capitalize on these powerful strategies. The framework incorporates a “G” mnemonic to make the elements memorable.     

How do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? A national survey

A random sample of primary grade teachers from across the United States was surveyed about their instructional practices in handwriting. Nine out of every ten teachers indicated that they taught handwriting, averaging 70 minutes of instruction per week. Only 12% of teachers, however, indicated that the education courses taken in college adequately prepared them to teach handwriting. Despite this lack of formal preparation, the majority of teachers used a variety of recommended instructional practices for teaching handwriting. The application of such practices, though, was applied unevenly, raising concerns about the quality of handwriting instruction for all children. Preparation of this paper was supported by the Center to Accelerate Student Learning, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs Grant H324V980001.     

Developing inclusive schools: the pivotal role of teaching assistants in promoting inclusion in special and mainstream schools in Northern Ireland

This paper focuses on the vital part played by teaching assistants in developing inclusive practices in Northern Ireland schools. In the case of mainstream schools, this means assisting with the integration of pupils with learning difficulties in regular classrooms. In the case of special schools, teaching assistants are required to have the knowledge and skills both to cope with children and young people who have a broad range of intellectual, physical and emotional difficulties, and to promote inclusion and participation beyond the school environment. However, the teaching assistant's position with respect to qualifications, professional development, conditions of employment and career structure, considering the greatly increased and varied demands placed upon them, has not been satisfactorily resolved at national level over some 30 years. By obtaining the views of practitioners in special and mainstream schools in Northern Ireland, the paper shows that the twin needs remain of improving teacher training and in-service training in the management of other adults in the classroom, and of enabling teachers to clarify fully the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistant to promote an inclusive learning environment.     

Education,democracy and social change: Venezuela’s education missions in theory and practice

The ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ in Venezuela is conceptualised as a pedagogical project that aims to develop ‘twenty-first century Socialism’ through state-grassroots collaboration in the reorganisation of political space in order to develop participatory, democratic institutions and processes. The cornerstones of this project to deepen and expand democracy in and through education are the adult Education Missions, set up in parallel to existing educational structures, and with an explicit focus on socio-political education and community projects aimed at promoting a new hegemony based on active grassroots citizenship. While the struggle to extend democracy in and through education is not unique to Venezuela, the conceptualisation of democracy as protagonist and participatory, and the explicit links made between education and democratic social change within the broader framework of twenty-first century socialism, makes Venezuela a dynamic site to revisit and reinvigorate classical debates as to the role of education in promoting democratic social change. Based on 15 months of empirical research, this paper examines the extent to which adult education in Venezuela is contributing to the development of a counter-hegemonic movement to build socialism for the twenty-first century.