Unvarnished Documentation: A Dialogue Between Teacher and Parent in Understanding a Child's “Bad” Behavior

Teachers are often asked to fill out progress reports that include check marks indicating if a child has met certain criteria. While this document offers a superficial glance at knowing a child, it is often the only kind of “assessment” a parent receives. The authors, a daycare teacher and a parent of Rosa, “the mean girl” in the daycare, show how the teacher's daily, unvarnished observations of Rosa and her daycare peers are written and shared publicly in a way that not only helps Rosa's mother gain profound new understandings of her daughter but also helps create a trusting community.     

Critical action learning: a method or strategy for peer supervision of coaching practice

This paper deals with the on-going practice of a critical action learning set who come together to meet their needs for coaching supervision as a group of executive coaches working from, and within, the University sector in South Wales. The reasons for the successes of, and the challenges around, this practice of four years standing have been articulated using an academic backdrop. The use of multi-factorial supervision has been heralded as being able to give a more rounded form of supervision which, despite its challenges, has, in this example, stood the test of time. Further data are required to try to understand if this form of supervision provides better coaching to the executive field in South Wales and beyond, and what can be learnt from the practice of supervision in general.     

Le Roiest Mort; Vive le Quoi? Croham and the Death of the UGC

The Croham report has its roots in the Jarratt report on university efficiency; its first fruit is the White Paper on Meeting the Challenge. Croham's message has been significantly transformed, and the last important vestiges of the classical UGC system removed. Detailed examination of both documents nevertheless suggests that not all virtue has gone from the system and that there might yet be hope that the more autocratic wedges inserted by the White Paper will not be driven home. In part this will depend on the universities themselves as well as on the UGC's successor.     

Electrical futures past

Futurist writing about technology emerged in the late 19th century at the same time as new kinds of electrical technology were making utopian futures seem practically attainable. Electrical writers and novelists alike thus borrowed from the popular "science" fiction of Jules Verne, Edward Bellamy and others to try to create self-fulfilling prophecies of a future in which electrical gadgets and machines met all major practical needs of civilization. To the extent that many parts of our world are populated by the hardware that they forecast, they succeeded in their goal.     

Regulation of professional sport in a changing broadcasting environment: Australian club and sport broadcaster perspectives

Broadcasting is undergoing massive changes with technology introducing new delivery opportunities and thereby more broadcasters into the equation. Emerging technology in the sport broadcasting environment is complicated by the existing league and broadcasting regulations. League-based regulations impact on income distribution and product distribution, while broadcasting regulations, largely imposed by the elected Federal Government of the day, are enacted to ensure that commercial and public interests are being supported. Introducing a stakeholder interest-based approach, the regulation affecting professional sport clubs and broadcasters was examined in order to identify how they would respond to the regulation imposed on them in the emerging broadcasting environment.In depth interviewing of senior managers of Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) clubs as well as sport broadcasters was undertaken with the data analysed, and emergent themes recorded. Results indicate that league, broadcaster and government regulations impact on the clubs and broadcasters in a variety of ways, with clubs facing regulation from the league and the broadcasters, while the broadcasters and league face regulation from the government legislation enacted. The results indicate that these organisations need to be aware of the conditions that arise from the existing and emerging broadcast regulatory environment in order to better understand and respond to it.     

Beyond the ‘good teacher’: guiding pre-service teacher reflections on culturally diverse students

This article explores how reflective practice may be facilitated among pre-service teachers preparing to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. The significance of the mentor teacher’s ability to reveal her/himself as a reflective practitioner in order to promote student reflection is well documented. The article specifically addresses one teacher educator’s approach to offering mentor support with a focus on reflective practices related to cultural diversity. She explores how her ethnographic doctoral study on the classroom participation of adult South Sudanese students in different Australian learning environments has informed her own practice as a teacher, and ways in which her teaching philosophy and values were influenced by the sustained reflection needed to complete the study. By making explicit an aspect of her reflective practice, she aims to add to the growing body of literature on how to engage pre-service teachers meaningfully in reflection on their own classroom practice, especially in relation to teaching to diversity.