Contemporary Art and the Role of Interpretation: Reflections from Tate Modern's Summer Institute for Teachers

Recent research indicates that the taught curriculum in art and design secondary school education pays scant attention to meaning‐making in visual art. This article explores possibilities for teaching interpretation through a report on an action‐research project based on Tate Modern's Summer Institute for Teachers. In doing so it argues for the value and necessity of interpretation as a taught skill.     

Developing a measure to understand young children’s Internet cognition and cyber-safety awareness: a pilot test

Abstract

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children’s access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children’s understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being ‘online’. Without an understanding of children’s thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and pedagogically appropriate cyber-safety education. This study developed and pilot-tested an interview schedule that focuses on the Internet thinking and cyber-safety awareness of Australian children aged 4–5 years. The schedule is informed by sociocultural theory, cyber-safety education research and approaches for researching with young children. The schedule shows potential to elicit children’s understandings of the Internet and cyber-safety awareness. Adjustments are required to allow more contextualised responses from children.     

An Innovative Higher Education Course to Meet Industry's Needs

This paper describes the development and implementation of a multilevel undergraduate degree course in technology management designed to meet identified needs of manufacturing industry. The program has a number of innovative features, including flexible entry and exit points and three levels of award, and is delivered in the workplace with the aid of a computer managed learning system and self paced learning materials supported by electronic mail and workplace tutorials. A feature crucial to its success is extensive collaboration with industry, a partnership with a technical and further education college, and cooperation between applied science and business faculties. An evaluative account of the implementation of the program in two motor vehicle manufacturing plants during 1990, and a discussion of the implications of the findings of the evaluation are also included.     

Young children learning about well-being and environmental education in the early years: a funds of knowledge approach

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children’s interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor and highly packaged food in the early childhood setting. This paper reports preliminary findings from a pilot randomised trial examining the interconnectedness of sustainability, well-being and popular-culture in early childhood education. Planning, assessment documentation and summaries from twenty-four learning experiences implemented by six educators over a six-week period were analysed using a deductive approach. Twenty well-being and environmental education topics were identified and shown to be generated by the educators when considering the children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ on popular-culture inspired food products. We argue that topics derived from children’s engagement with popular-culture may help educators to create an integrated approach to curriculum provision. This may impact child weight and facilitate obesity prevention and environmental sustainability as children create stronger connections between these content areas and their everyday choices and practices.     

Development of adolescents' self-perceptions, values, and task perceptions according to gender and domain in 7th- through 11th-grade Australian students

Latent growth models estimated developmental trajectories for adolescents' math and English self-perceptions (perceived talent, success expectancies), values (intrinsic, utility) and task perceptions (task difficulty, effort required). A longitudinal cohort-sequential study included 1,323 participants spanning Grades 7 to 11, with Occasion 1 mean ages 13.19, 12.36, and 14.41, respectively, for Cohorts 1, 2, and 3. Self-perceptions and values declined through adolescence, and ratings about difficulty and effort required increased. Gender differences favored boys for math and girls for English, with little evidence for gender intensification or gender convergence hypotheses. Explanations reference socialization and social-cognitive developmental theories and features of the curricula, with domain-specific patterns implying domain-specific explanations. Existing research is extended by modeling a broadened set of social-cognitive constructs within the Australian context.     

Release monitoring of single cells on a microfluidic device coupled with fluorescence microscopy and electrochemistry

A method for monitoring the biological exocytotic phenomena on a microfluidic system was proposed. A microfluidic device coupled with functionalities of fluorescence imaging and amperometric detection has been developed to enable the real-time monitoring of the exocytotic events. Exocytotic release of single SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells was studied. By staining the cells located on integrated microelectrodes with naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde, punctuate fluorescence consistent with localization of neurotransmitters stored in vesicles was obtained. The stimulated exocytotic release was successfully observed at the surface of SH-SY5Y cells without refitting the commercial inverted fluorescence microscope. Spatially and temporally resolved exocytotic events from single cells on a microfluidic device were visualized in real time using fluorescence microscopy and were amperometrically recorded by the electrochemical system simultaneously. This coupled technique is simple and is hoped to provide new insights into the mechanisms responsible for the kinetics of exocytosis.     

Three‐year results of the Friendly Schools whole‐of‐school intervention on children's bullying behaviour

A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio‐ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self‐report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1968 eight to nine‐year‐olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate that intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self‐reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole‐of‐school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.     

Visible pedagogic work: parenting,private tutoring and educational advantage in Australia

This article explores parents’ use of private tutoring services for their primary school children in Sydney, Australia's largest city. Using Bernstein's theories of invisible and visible pedagogies, we look, through the eyes of a small group of middle-class Chinese-background interviewees, at the tensions between certain pedagogic forms associated with private tutoring and schooling in contemporary contexts of educational competition. We show how some parents are openly seeking more explicit, visible forms of instruction through using private tutoring, to compensate for the perceived ‘invisible’, pedagogically progressive approach of Australian primary schooling. We argue that these parents’ enlistment of supplementary tutoring is a considered approach to their identification of a mismatch between (apparently) relaxed, child-centred classroom practices, and the demands of the more traditional examinations that regulate entry points to desired educational sites such as academically selective high schools and prestigious universities. Our findings show how paid tutoring is a contemporary pedagogic strategy for securing educational advantage, not just a ‘cultural’ practice prevalent among certain migrant communities, as it is often characterised. We suggest that an analytic focus on pedagogy can help connect issues of class, culture and competition in research on home–school relationships, offering a productive way for the field to respond to the tensions these issues engender.