Reconceptualising professional experiences in pre-service teacher education…reconstructing the past to embrace the future

This paper provides a conceptual framework for developing high-quality professional experiences for pre-service teachers. The paper begins with a discussion of how professional experiences are conceptualised, structured and supervised in each of three orientations, which we have termed traditional, reflective and learning communities. We then describe a number of professional experience initiatives at two Australian universities, which are being reconceptualised around the notion of learning communities. We argue that framing professional experience around the notion of learning communities has the potential to support pre-service teachers to work with their peers and mentor teachers in more collegial and reciprocal ways.     

Increasing explanatory behaviour,problem-solving,and reasoning within classes using cooperative group work

The present study builds on research that indicates that teachers play a key role in promoting those interactional behaviours that challenge children’s thinking and scaffold their learning. It does this by seeking to determine whether teachers who implement cooperative learning and receive training in explicit strategic questioning strategies demonstrate more verbal behaviours that mediate children’s learning than teachers who implement cooperative learning only. The study also sought to determine whether students who receive training in explicit questioning strategies demonstrate more explanatory behaviour than their untrained peers, and, as a consequence, do these same students demonstrate more advanced reasoning and problem-solving skills on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving tasks. The study involved 31 teachers in two conditions, the cooperative + strategic questioning condition and the cooperative condition, and two groups of students from each teacher’s classroom. The results show that the teachers in the cooperative + strategic questioning condition used significantly more mediating behaviours than their peers in the cooperative condition. The study also showed that the children in these teachers’ classes engaged in more elaboration and obtained significantly higher scores on the follow-up reasoning and problem-solving tasks. The study demonstrates the importance of explicitly teaching strategic questioning strategies to children during cooperative learning.     

How mature-age students succeed in higher education: implications for institutional support

This article draws on stories of success in higher education by mature-age students of diverse backgrounds to highlight some key implications for institutional support. We begin by reviewing the post-World War II background of mature-age study in Australian higher education to provide a context for presenting some major findings from a small, in-depth research project. We examine these findings to focus on the role of institutional support in the success of mature-age students, particularly given recent sectoral factors affecting their access and support. The study findings show students’ primary supports were families and friends. Participants all belonged to equity categories as designated by the Australian government, but many did not use institutional supports. Some lacked the confidence to approach staff; others were unaware support services existed or lacked the time to access them. The participants’ stories demonstrate the complex disadvantages experienced by mature-age students. They highlight universities’ need to ensure support services are ‘student-centred’ in order to ensure improved educational and equity outcomes for their mature-age student populations.     

Direct and vicarous effects of social praise on mentally retarded preschool children's attentive behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of social praise on the attentive behavior of reinforced and nonreinforced children. Two pairs of mentally retarded preschool boys served as subjects. Employing a reversal design, one child from each pair was differentially reinforced for attending to manipulative toys. The results revealed that: (a) The intervention procedure increased the attentive behavior of the target subjects. (b) Nonreinforced subjects also increased their attentive behavior during both reinforcement conditions. (c) This “spillover” of reinforcement effect was transient, as the non- target subjects level of attentive behavior decelerated during the final half of each 20-day rekforcement period.     

Teachers' Use of Approval and Disapproval in the Classroom

A review and analysis of the research literature on teachers' classroom use of approval/praise and disapproval/reprimand is provided in an attempt to determine the extent to which teachers typically employ praise in their classroom teaching. There is a considerable degree of agreement across the studies reviewed, carried out in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and St Helena, regarding the ways in which teachers typically deploy approval and disapproval, with some interesting variations. There is little evidence to suggest that teachers, universally, systematically deploy contingent praise as positive reinforcement in spite of the considerable literature testifying to its effectiveness. In particular, praise for appropriate classroom social behaviour is only rarely observed.     

Using participatory action research to study the implementation of Career Development Benchmarks at a New Zealand university

Benchmarks for career development services at tertiary institutions have been developed by Careers New Zealand. The benchmarks are intended to provide standards derived from international best practices to guide career development services. A new career development service was initiated at a large New Zealand university just after the benchmarks were published. This provided an opportunity to develop the new career service by implementing the benchmarks. In this article, we employ a participatory action research approach to study the process. Outcomes of a participatory action research cycle are reported and recommendations for using benchmarks are provided.     

Functional color components used in reading instruction

One hundred ninety third through sixth graders were given either 6, 16, or 26 months of reading instruction with functional color components (FCC) of parts of words. Another 160 children in the same schools did not receive FCC instruction. The results showed that: (a) FCC brought about improvement in reading scores for disability and nondisability children, (b) increasing months of FCC did not bring accelerated improvement in rate of reading, and (c) nondisability children showed greater improvement than did disability children from FCC.     

Expertise and the PhD: Between depth and a flat place

Expertise is under sustained interrogation. We see it in so‐called edu‐scepticism and pessimism about graduates’ apparently diminishing employment prospects, challenges to the role of Higher Education institutions as arbiters of knowledge and post‐truth rhetoric more broadly. This paper examines how the PhD is being discursively positioned in this context. We ask what these changing conceptions of expertise, education and work mean for how PhD‐level expertise is understood. Drawing on a range of sources, from the scholarly to the wider media, we draw together five exemplar models of expertise to expose the transforming ratio between generalist, transferable skills and specialist knowledge. The evident diminution of specialisation raises numerous issues for the PhD as it is increasingly called upon to serve multiple and potentially contradictory needs: an innovation society on the one hand and the discipline on the other. Reconciling the tension between depth and breadth is an important issue for a degree whose hallmark is—or at least has been—depth.     

Exploring the Impact of Assessment on Medical Students’ Learning

Abstract

What and how students learn depend largely on how they think they will be assessed. This study aimed to explore medical students’ perception of the value of assessment and feedback on their learning, and how this relates to their examination performance. A mixed methods research design was adopted in which a questionnaire was developed and administered to the students to gain their perceptions of assessments. Perceptions were further explored in focus group discussions. Survey findings were correlated with students’ performance data and academic coordinators’ perceptions. Students’ perceptions of the level of difficulty of different assessments mirrored their performance in examinations, with an improvement observed in clinical assessments as students progressed through their degree. Students recognised that feedback is important to allow improvements and seek more timely, better quality and personalised feedback. Academic coordinators identified that some of the students’ suggestions are more realistic than others. Students had a positive attitude towards assessment, but emphasised the need for educators to highlight the relevance of assessment to clinical practice.