I thought to myself: what a long way I’ve come … : teacher writing for professional learning

As governments the world over continue to advocate the importance of teacher professional learning, researchers and practitioners continue to explore ways to enact that learning in meaningful ways. The value of narrative for teacher education has been widely discussed and several studies show that learning is significant when teacher–writers engage in written dialogue. This article is a critical, narrative-based account of the professional learning of Orly, an Israeli teacher. Written reflection and narrative play a crucial mediating role in her learning. This practitioner inquiry explores narrative writing as a means of learning, empowerment and professional renewal for Israeli educators. The author presents multiple ways in which language from a professional learning context can connect with classroom practice and discusses the dialogical nature of this kind of learning.     

Indigenous graduate research students in Australia: a critical review of the research

Over the last decade, there has been a steady increase in the number of Indigenous graduate research students in Australia, yet research and pedagogy has not kept pace with changes underway in the sector. From an extensive search of literature published between 2000 and 2017, 15 papers (representing 10 research projects conducted by seven teams or authors) were identified that addressed Indigenous graduate research student experience. Overall, the literature tends to focus on identifying barriers to completion, noting in particular the impact of financial difficulties, social isolation and racism. A research degree is a key site for the assertion and legitimation of Indigenous knowledges, and it is here that Indigenous students are navigating tensions between legitimated disciplinary practices of the centre and the peripheral status of Indigenous knowledges. We, therefore, adopt Herbert's ‘centre–periphery’ model to interpret the research, arguing that this framework explains the focus on barriers, the neglect of pedagogy centred on academic excellence and student strengths, and research relationships between students and Indigenous communities. Our review identifies the need for a systematic research agenda specifically focused on Indigenous student success at the graduate research level, and looking internationally in order to assess the performance and strategies of Australian higher education providers in comparison to international institutions meeting the aims of First Nations research communities. This approach, we suggest, should move beyond an analysis of the nature of enablers and barriers to focus on Indigenous Higher Degree by Research success.     

Settler grammars and the Australian professional standards for teachers

In 2011, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership introduced new Professional Standards for Teachers, which require that graduate teachers possess knowledge and understanding of Indigenous students and cultures. The authors conducted interviews with 12 non-Indigenous teacher educators at one Australian university in order to understand how these Standards are interpreted and implemented. We adopt Calderon’s framework of settler grammars to interpret the dialectic of presence and absence that teacher educators in our study describe. Extending this frame to an analysis of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, we find that settler grammars function to simultaneously erase Indigenous claims to sovereignty and epistemological equality, whilst promoting a representation of Indigenous people that asserts the primacy of the settler colonial state.     

Parental perceptions of gender differences in child technology use and cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a major health concern for today's youth and a pervasive stressor for adolescents and their families. This study offers qualitative insights into how parents perceive their children's technology use and engagement in cyberbullying based on gender. Eight focus groups were conducted with 48 parents of adolescents ages 10–17. Findings indicated parents perceived their children overuse technology and lack awareness of what cyberbullying is. Specific to gender, parents suggested their daughters use technology for social connection, and parents were more concerned about their daughter's technology use than their son's, which they believed was related to specific interests. In response to cyberbullying scenarios, parents encouraged females but not males to socialize with peers. This is the first qualitative study to obtain an in-depth understanding of the ways in which parents perceive and socialize their children in regard to technology use and cyberbullying scenarios. These results may help school systems, school psychologists, researchers, and parents gain awareness of the gender-stereotypical socialization process that unfolds in parental monitoring of technology use and cyberbullying situations. We conclude by offering suggestions for how school systems and personnel might intervene.     

Disconnections Between Teacher Expectations and Student Confidence in Bioethics

This study examines how student practice of scientific argumentation using socioscientific bioethics issues affects both teacher expectations of students’ general performance and student confidence in their own work. When teachers use bioethical issues in the classroom students can gain not only biology content knowledge but also important decision-making skills. Learning bioethics through scientific argumentation gives students opportunities to express their ideas, formulate educated opinions and value others’ viewpoints. Research has shown that science teachers’ expectations of student success and knowledge directly influence student achievement and confidence levels. Our study analyzes pre-course and post-course surveys completed by students enrolled in a university level bioethics course (n = 111) and by faculty in the College of Biology and Agriculture faculty (n = 34) based on their perceptions of student confidence. Additionally, student data were collected from classroom observations and interviews. Data analysis showed a disconnect between faculty and students perceptions of confidence for both knowledge and the use of science argumentation. Student reports of their confidence levels regarding various bioethical issues were higher than faculty reports. A further disconnect showed up between students’ preferred learning styles and the general faculty’s common teaching methods; students learned more by practicing scientific argumentation than listening to traditional lectures. Students who completed a bioethics course that included practice in scientific argumentation, significantly increased their confidence levels. This study suggests that professors’ expectations and teaching styles influence student confidence levels in both knowledge and scientific argumentation.     

Children's Reasoning About Self-Presentation Following Rule Violations: The Role of Self-Focused Attention

Rule violations are likely to serve as key contexts for learning to reason about public identity. In an initial study with 91 children aged 4–9 years, social emotions and self‐presentational concerns were more likely to be cited when children were responding to hypothetical vignettes involving social‐conventional rather than moral violations. In 2 further studies with 376 children aged 4–9 years, experimental manipulations of self‐focused attention (either by leading children to believe they were being video‐recorded or by varying audience reactions to transgressions) were found to elicit greater attention to social evaluation following moral violations, although self‐presentational concerns were consistently salient in the context of social‐conventional violations. The role of rule transgressions in children’s emerging self‐awareness and social understanding is discussed.     

Conceptualising Intergenerational Lived Experience: Integrating Art–Moving–Well-Being across Disciplines,Communities and Cultures

Art and movement are motivating forces in, through, and beyond education. As populations age, there is an increasing need to support physical and social well-being. Yet, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a reported exponential increase in feelings of loneliness across generations. Complex challenges require trans-disciplinary solutions, and this paper represents a joint effort within and across disciplines, communities and cultures to find ways to ameliorate this silent epidemic. In this paper, we propose a cross-disciplinary conceptual framework where Aboriginal Artists and Knowledge Holders, Teacher Educators, and Physical and Occupational Therapists come together to explore theoretical and pedagogical insights that encompass intergenerational art–moving–well-being practices, reducing feelings of loneliness and improving social connections across generations. There are two main aims of this paper; first, to better understand current studies that report on integrating art–moving–well-being practices, and the effect this has on health and well-being of intergenerational participants (under 10-year-olds, 20+ year olds and 50+ year olds). Second, based on community needs, the long-term aim is to propose a flexible art–moving–well-being conceptual model that is scalable, sustainable and based on social and relational support systems. We propose a model that is flexible and adaptable within and across our local community and beyond. We argue that feelings of loneliness are unique to each individual, and there is a need to connect specific intergenerational programmes with art–moving–well-being practices that readily engage and integrate varied communities and cultures in sustainable ways and thus, contribute to thriving communities.     

Motor control and sequencing of boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) during computer game play

The motor control of 49 unmedicated boys clinically diagnosed with ADHD, case‐matched with 49 non‐ADHD boys, was assessed while playing Crash Bandicoot I, a Sony^TM Playstation platform computer video game. In Crash Bandicoot participants control the movements of a small‐animated figure through a hazardous jungle environment. Operationally defined measures of motor control were designated by (1) the stage of the game completed (ie, the number of obstacles successfully passed) before losing the figure's ‘life’, (2) the level of complexity that the stage represented and (3) the time taken to get to that point during the video game play. These measures were assessed under contrasting conditions of low or high working memory and distracter loads. Four tasks were administered (totalling 12 trials), incorporating both with and without distracter conditions. For those trials with the distracter, a segment of the television show The Simpsons was simultaneously played on a television screen adjacent to the computer game monitor. A 5‐way MANOVA revealed that ADHD boys took less time to complete their trials under the direct condition (ie, no working memory load) on Crash Bandicoot, compared to their matched non‐ADHD peers. When the task required additional working memory, however, the ADHD boys took significantly longer. Cumulative frequency plots of game performance revealed that in terms of the number of obstacles completed, the control participants successfully navigated more obstacles on the low working memory load task than the ADHD participants, but that the performance of the two groups was less distinguishable on the high working memory load task. The findings have implications for assessment and management of children with ADHD.     

Labelling and self‐esteem: the impact of using specific vs. generic labels

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between being labelled either as having dyslexia or as having general special educational needs (SEN) and a child's self‐esteem. Seventy‐five children aged between 8 and 15 years categorised as having dyslexia (N = 26), as having general SEN (N = 26) or as having no learning difficulties (N = 23), completed an age‐appropriate version of the Culture‐Free Self‐Esteem Inventory and a standard test of reading ability. When the self‐esteem scores of the groups were compared (with the discrepancy between reading and chronological age being partialled out), it was found that the self‐esteem scores of those in the ‘general SEN’ group had significantly lower self‐esteem scores than those in both the ‘dyslexia’ group and the ‘control’ group. There was no significant difference between the self‐esteem scores of the ‘dyslexia’ and the ‘control’ group. On the basis of these findings, it is suggested that being labelled as having a general SEN may negatively affect children's self‐esteem because, unlike the label dyslexia, this label offers very little in the way of an explanation for the child's academic difficulties and because targeted interventions are not as available for those with a less specific label.