Developing generic skills at university,during work placement and in employment: graduates' perceptions

This paper presents findings from Stage 4 of the Griffith Graduate Project. Graduates from three Schools within Griffith University were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the contributions that the learning contexts of university, work placement and post‐graduation employment made to the development of their generic skills. All graduates involved in the project had experienced work placement as a formal part of their undergraduate studies. Supplementary data from focus group discussions held with employers and graduates are also included. Findings showed that while graduates recognized the contribution university had made to their generic skills development, they greatly valued the experience of learning in the workplace during placement and subsequently in employment. The importance of teamwork, being given responsibility, and collaborative learning emerged as the most important factors for effective learning in the three contexts under consideration.     

Towards a deconstructed curriculum: Rethinking higher education in the Global North

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to argue for the deconstruction rather than the decolonisation of the neocolonial curriculum. Globalisation facilitates the democratisation of higher education, which is now accessible to more people than ever before, but globalisation also facilitates the expansion of the ideological dominance of the Global North over the Global South by means of the neocolonial curriculum. Contemporary attempts to decolonise Global South curricula are proceeding very slowly. We propose an alternative, the deconstruction of the Global North curriculum, i.e. a radical change to the Global North curriculum that exploits the neoliberal imperative to maximise profit in order to undermine the neocolonial curriculum. We use two case studies – Frantz Fanon and Çi?dem Ka?itçiba?i – to demonstrate how the deconstruction of the Global North curriculum can be achieved, by the prioritisation of theory and practice that are sensitive to context.     

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Acceptability of Teleconsultation

School-based psychological services are typically provided through a triadic model of consultation in which a school psychologist works directly with a teacher or school staff member to address the academic, behavioral, or mental health concerns of a student. With advances in current technology, school psychologists have the capacity to use videoconferencing to engage in their consultative responsibilities. Teleconsultation has the potential to improve the provision of consultative services by increasing school psychologists’ efficiency and providing individuals, especially those in rural areas, access to greater service. The current study evaluated the effectiveness and acceptability of teleconsultation as a means to deliver behavioral consultation services to three teachers and their students. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline across subjects was used. Results showed that consultants could develop a behavioral intervention with a teacher and effectively implement the intervention to improve student outcomes. Teachers also rated teleconsultation as an acceptable means for service delivery.     

Informal STEM: learning with robotics and game design in an urban context

Abstract

This mixed methods study examined how engagement in robotics and game design influenced students’ self-efficacy, STEM attitudes, and computational thinking (CT) skills. Predominantly African-American students engaged in engineering and computer science tasks during informal learning environments. Results revealed students’ self-efficacy scores on computer gaming increased significantly. Focus group data supported these findings, revealing that computer programing was challenging, but students enjoyed the tasks, added elements of culture in some cases, and valued the agency the tasks provided. Focal students were also able to make connections to STEM-related careers. Observational data demonstrated that focal students exhibited substantive CT during robotics and moderate CT during game design. Results support the idea that robotics and game design may be used to broaden underrepresented students’ participation in STEM.     

Stratification of environmental education and education for sustainable development in Australia: an analysis of positions vacant advertisements

Positions vacant advertisements discursively construct employment sectors, employers and employees. This paper uses content analysis, systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis to investigate the discursive construction of environmental education and education for sustainable development through positions vacant advertisements placed with Australian online recruitment agencies. The results suggest a disturbing stratification between environmental education and education for sustainable development with respect to the terms and conditions, and the power dynamics operating in each sector.     

Performance analysis for ordered selection combining schemes in Nakagami-m environments

Ordered statistics is applied in this paper to analyze the performance of ordered selection combining schemes with different modulation receptions operating in Nakagami-m fading environments. The ordered selection combining will be adapted to include the conventional selection combining (SC), the second-order diversity combining (SC-2), and the third-order diversity combining (SC-3). All the results are validated by comparing the special case Rayleigh distribution with the fading figure m=1 in the Nakagami-m distribution. The results show that SC is in performance the worst in both coherent and non-coherent schemes, as expected. The performance differences between SC-2 and MRC, and SC-3 and EGC are not significant when the diversity order L?3, but the differences will increase when L?5.     

A unified approach to average LCR and AFD performance of SC diversity in generalized fading environments

The average level crossing rate (LCR) and average fading duration (AFD) criterions are applied to analyze the selection combining (SC) diversity for wireless communication systems over correlated-Rayleigh and correlated-Rice fading in this paper. The scenarios of the fading channel models are characterized as 4 generalized and experimental distributions, e.g., Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m, and Weibull distributed statistics. Moreover, both of independent and correlated proprieties between branches are also involved for consideration. For purpose of unifying and clarifying the average LCR and AFD performance formulas results from the evaluation for SC diversity, it is not only the results from our research presented, but some of the published results are also cited and illustrated by numerical evaluation again in this study.     

Seeking comfort: How and why preservice teachers use internet resources for lesson planning

This study examined 158 lesson plans at one institution across two teacher education programs, inclusive early childhood and elementary education, to determine the impact of Internet usage as inspiration on preservice teachers’ lesson plans. Fisher’s exact test determined statistically significant differences between the Internet use of preservice teachers in the two programs. The data revealed that the preservice teachers in the elementary education program used more Internet resources when planning lessons compared to the preservice teachers in the inclusive early childhood program. Follow-up interviews suggest that the preservice teachers in the inclusive early childhood program had more practicum field experiences, thus increasing their use of physical resources and reducing their use of Internet resources.     

Responding to Change: Challenges for Professional Education in the Museum Sector

Abstract This paper reflects on the changes confronting educators involved in museum professional development, drawing on the experience gained in working with a wide range of learners, instructors and content issues through the Cultural Resource Management Program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Reflecting the society as a whole, professional education programs are called to respond to the needs of learners, and to institutional priorities for competency development and instructional design and delivery issues. Given the near‐universal pressures on museums and educational institutions, it is hoped that these impressions and perspectives are of broad relevance to a range of academic and professional museum studies programs across Canada and beyond.