Physical education curriculum reform in China : a perspective from physical education teachers
- Authors: Jin, Aijing
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Vol. 18, no. 1 (2013), p. 15-27
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- Description: Background: Among the many changes occurring across Chinese society in the early years of the 21st century has been the construction and implementation of a new national curriculum which includes physical education (PE) as one of the main subject areas. Unlike the old PE curriculum with its sports performance-oriented criteria, the new curriculum puts the emphasis upon health and fitness, which is reflected in the change of name from 'physical education' to 'physical education and health' (HPE). The concept of the new HPE curriculum challenges many aspects of traditional PE theory and practices, and requires PE teachers to change their professional perspectives and pedagogic approaches. As a result, the curriculum reform progresses with difficulty.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate how PE teachers understand, interpret, perceive and respond to the curriculum reform and to identify some key blockers that might prevent PE teachers from actively implementing the new HPE curriculum.Participants: Eighteen primary and secondary school PE teachers participated in the study. They were all full-time teachers with at least ten years' teaching experience. Participants were chosen with a view to establishing a degree of gender balance and providing a diversity of school contexts spanning the different socio-economic strata that exist across the area of China in which the research was conducted.Research design: The research was conducted using a qualitative, case-study research framework. Eighteen practicing PE teachers in a coastal city in the Northeast of China were interviewed. This is one of the designated experimental zones for Chinese curriculum reform.Data collection: Data collection included analysis of government educational reform policies and other curriculum reform documents, as well as a review of the relevant academic literature. Informal talks were held with PE teachers and a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. All interviews were audio-taped with the consent of the informants and each interview took approximately 60 to 90 minutes, depending on the interest of the participants and the natural pace with which the interview moved.Data analysis: The key issues and themes were identified from the interview data through a process of coding. The themes emerged from a search for regularities, recurring ideas, experiences and thoughts mentioned and shared by groups of participants.Findings: All eighteen PE teachers expressed their support for the fundamental goal of putting more emphasis upon health promotion in the new HPE curriculum. It is fair to say that the interviewed teachers, viewed as a group, overwhelmingly endorsed the broad direction of the new HPE curriculum. However, the data reveals a number of structural, personal and cultural factors that might prevent PE teachers from actively implementing the new HPE curriculum. © 2013 Copyright Association for Physical Education.
Place matters: pedagogies of food, ecology and design
- Authors: Green, Monica
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Environmental Education Research Vol. 19, no. 2 (2013), p.
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- Description: This study uses theories of place inhabitation, relationships to food, place ecologies, and place-based pedagogies to examine the educational value of food gardens and related environmental and health initiatives in primary (elementary) schooling in Australia. It assumes that food gardens and their school ground contexts are important ecopedagogical sites for renewing children’s relationships with proximal, everyday places. The study highlights how schools are engaging with socioenvironmental challenges through pedagogical frameworks that support education for sustainability. These frameworks are significant in that they position children as active agents who experience deep levels of embodied learning. A key premise of the thesis is that young learners are experientially capable of developing an ecoethical awareness if they are to become ecologically proactive subjects and citizens. Empirical work drew on case study approaches and arts-based auto-ethnographic methodologies to identify the pedagogical potential of food gardens and school ground ecologies. Fifty-three children aged 8–12 years, three gardening/environmental education teachers and three principals from three Australian primary schools (2×Victoria; 1×Tasmania) worked ethnographically with the researcher during 2007–2009. Data were primarily derived from semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Other key sources included children’s mapping work, field notes, photos, and the researcher’s journal. Key features of the data collection were: many of the students participated in ‘walking interviews’ that encouraged garden- and school ground-based stories at sites of their choice, coupled with 15 days of participant observation of garden and classroom-based lessons to provide further contextualization. Analysis of interviews and lessons involved a ‘storyline’ approach to interpreting findings. Theoretically informed discussions of the empirical data highlight the following: across the three schools, recognizing the role and significance of teachers’ work and the value of integrated approaches to pedagogy are central requirements for designing, implementing, and evaluating place-oriented curricula. In each case study, relational pedagogies of connection and responsibility afford learning opportunities that can bring children into deepened contact with local places and people. Collectively, the initiatives undertaken by the schools and their wider communities are ‘positive’ and ‘hopeful’, and their examples show how school garden-based ecopedagogies can play a critical role in the renewal of more sustainable people–place relations.
Promoting the development of children's emotional and social wellbeing in early childhood settings : How can we enhance the capability of educators to fulfil role expectations?
- Authors: Temple, Elizabeth , Emmett, Susan
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australasian Journal of Early Childhood Vol. 38, no. 1 (2013), p. 66-72
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- Description: This article discusses the expectations implicit in both Early Years Learning and National Quality Frameworks regarding the role of early childhood educators in promoting the development of children's social and emotional wellbeing. There is a specific focus on factors that may impact on the ability of early childhood educators to successfully adjust their practice to meet these expectations. Suggestions are made in relation to the training and education of pre-service teachers and the professional development of the current early childhood workforce to ensure that all early childhood educators are able to promote the development of social and emotional wellbeing in children. Copyright 2013. All rights reserved by Early Childhood Australia Inc.
- Description: 2003011108
School Centres for Teaching Excellence (SCTE): understanding new directions for schools and universities in health and physical education
- Authors: Lynch, Timothy
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education Vol. 4, no. 3 (2013), p. 249-266
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- Description: This paper critically analyzes a community collaborative approach for implementing Health and Physical Education (HPE) lessons within Gippsland primary schools (Victoria, Australia). The rural community collaborations reflected upon are embedded within the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) ‘School Centres for Teaching Excellence’ (SCTE) initiative and are timely with the current curriculum reform in Health and Physical Education. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on and share the experiential learning offered where the curriculum is relevant, engaging, contemporary, physically active, enjoyable and developmentally appropriate for all stakeholders; namely university pre-service teachers, primary school children and primary teachers. It is envisaged that through sharing the various dynamics involved in a SCTE program, educators may benefit and subsequently consider the suitability and possibility of establishing similar collaborations within their context.
The Student experience
- Authors: Devlin, Marcia , Larkin, Helen
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Educating Health Professionals: Becoming a University Teacher p.
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Whose side are you on? Advocacy ethnography : Some methodological aspects of narrative portraits of disadvantaged young people, in socially critical research
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education Vol. 26, no. 1 (2013), p. 1-20
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- Description: This paper is primarily interested in opening up a strategy to counter the increasing silencing of perspectives resulting from the press towards "evidence-based" forms of research. We argue that all researchers have interests, declared or otherwise. What we advance in the paper is an approach to ethnography that is inclusive of the lives, perspective, experiences, and viewpoints of the least powerful. Methodologically we demonstrate something of how we have explored the intellectual craft and possibilities of portraiture as a way of advancing the notion of advocacy ethnography. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
Why children join and stay in sports clubs : Case studies in Australian, French and German swimming clubs
- Authors: Light, Richard , Harvey, Stephen , Memmert, Daniel
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport, Education and Society Vol. 18, no. 4 (2013), p. 550-566
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- Description: This article builds upon research on youth sport clubs conducted from a socio-cultural perspective by reporting on a study that inquired into the reasons why children aged 9-12 joined swimming clubs in France, Germany and Australia. Comprising three case studies it employed a mixed method approach with results considered within the framework of Côté and colleagues' Development Model of Sport Participation (DMSP). It identifies the importance of parents, the social dimensions of experience in the clubs and of appropriate competition in attracting the children to the clubs and keeping them there. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: 2003011094
Young people and structural inequality : beyond the middle ground
- Authors: Farrugia, David
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Youth Studies Vol. 16, no. 5 (2013), p. 679-693
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- Description: This paper draws on recent debates about the work of Ulrich Beck to explore the conceptual promise of concepts such as individualisation and reflexivity for understanding contemporary youth inequalities. The aim of the paper was to suggest a theory of reflexivity that views reflexive practices as one of the ways that inequalities operate in modernity. The argument is made in three stages. In the first, debates about the meaning of reflexivity for understanding young people's identities are reviewed, foregrounding suggestions for dialogue and synthesis between the individualisation thesis and the work of Bourdieu. Taking this as a starting point, the paper then reviews changing themes in the literature on young people's identities and the structuring of their biographies amidst conditions of social change, arguing that reflexivity is an important feature of young people's identities, and that reflexive practices articulate classed inequalities under conditions of 'structured fragmentation'. The paper then argues that reflexivity is a means by which the dispositions of the habitus are realised and reworked in practice. The paper concludes by emphasising that reflexive practices are oriented towards local structural conditions, and are one of the ways in which economies of cultural capital operate in late modernity. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: 2003011218
'Getting a job' : Vocationalism, identity formation, and critical ethnographic inquiry
- Authors: Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Educational Administration and History Vol. 44, no. 3 (2012), p. 203-219
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
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- Description: This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that it is acceptable to have the bifurcation in which some young people work with their hands and not their minds. Furthermore, vocational education and training by itself cannot resolve the fundamental causes of poverty, unemployment, and economic inequality. This article draws on Australian research to describe the insights from a critical ethnographic inquiry in which young people themselves are key informants in making sense of 'getting a job'; how they regard the labour market; the kind of work they find desirable/undesirable; the spaces in which they can see themselves forging an identity as future citizens/workers - and how answers to these questions frame and shape viable, sustainable, and rewarding futures for all young people, not just the privileged few. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.
Absorptive capacity in strategic alliances with Chinese firms: Implications for strategic management education
- Authors: Lynch, David , Mardaneh, Karim , Tian, Feng
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Strategic Management Education Vol. 8, no. 4 (2012), p. 267-281
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- Description: Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a dynamic competence underpinning an organisation’s competitive advantage. Nowhere has the role of acquiring and developing knowledge been more tested than in the growth of Chinese firms. Supported by technology, knowledge and capital transfers by alliance partners, such firms have underpinned the Chinese economy’s unprecedented growth. But, how did this occur and should strategy educators reconsider how business education pedagogy incorporates ACAP? This paper explores ACAP’s influence on knowledge transfer performance, based on businesses from China’s Guangdong and Shanghai provinces (n=151). This paper reports on an empirical analysis of ACAP’s determinants using logistic regression and cluster analysis. This analysis found a close relationship between ACAP, organisational factors and social integration mechanisms in collaborative ventures. This study found that ACAP is an important, but complex phenomena, which needs to be recognised as such in Strategic Management education.
- Description: C1
Alternative settings - alternative teachers? Reflections on teaching outside the mainstream
- Authors: Dyson, Michael , Plunkett, Margaret
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Joint AARE-APERA conference,Australian Association for Research in Education p. 1-12
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- Description: While alternative educational settings in Australia have expanded over the past two decades, there has been little formal research conducted into teacher perceptions of what it means to teach outside the mainstream. This paper outlines part of a longitudinal study involving the School for Student Leadership (SSL), an alternate educational setting in Victoria, Australia, which offers residential programs for Year 9 students. The SSL began operating in 2000 as the Alpine School situated at Dinner Plain and since then two further campuses have been added. A research partnership between Monash University Gippsland and the SSL began in 2001, with this component commencing in 2009 involving a mixed methods study consisting of both surveys and interviews. The focus of this paper is the qualitative findings resulting from interviews with 33 teachers across the 3 campuses. While a small body of literature relating to environmental and experiential education (Brown, 2006, Schartner, 2000, Simmons, 1988, Smith-Cabasto & Cavern, 2006) from a teaching perspective does exist, none really captures the breadth of the type of program offered through the SSL, which does not sit in isolation from broader educational, social and global discourses. While there is an ongoing debate about how we should educate young people there are some points of general agreement. One is that we live in a world of rapid global, technological and social change and education should equip young people to deal with these changes. This particular research provided an opportunity to seek teachers' perceptions about whether this goal was easier to achieve in a non-traditional setting. A particular focus was on participants' current perceptions about their role as 'teacher' and whether it differed depending on the setting. The findings provided interesting insights about the focus of the teachers that choose to become involved, with most suggesting that they were searching for more meaningful ways to connect their pedagogy and practice. They also felt that mainstream settings rarely provided opportunities for the development of substantive relationships with students. There was an acknowledgement that the alternate setting of the SSL did provide a greater opportunity for equipping students to deal with change but this also required teachers to respond differently, shifting the emphasis from content to context and from being a teacher to being an educator, facilitator or mentor.
Australian clinician's views on interprofessional education for students in the rural clinical setting
- Authors: Jacob, Elisabeth , Barnett, Tony , Missen, Karen , Cross, Dorothy , Walker, Lorraine
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Research in Interprofessional Practice and Education Vol. 2, no. 2 (2012 2012), p. 219-229
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- Description: Background: Collaboration between education providers and clinical agencies to develop models that facilitate cross-disciplinary clinical education for students is essential to produce work-ready graduates. Methods and Findings: This exploratory study investigated the perceptions of and opportunities for interprofessional education (IPE) from the perspectives of 57 clinical staff from three regional/rural health services across Victoria, Australia. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire, interviews, and focus group discussions with staff from 15 disciplinary groups who were responsible for clinical education. Although different views emerged on what IPE entailed, it was perceived by most clinicians to be valuable for students in enhancing teamwork, improving the understanding of roles and functions of team members, and facilitating common goals for patient care. While benefits of IPE could be articulated by clinicians, student engagement with IPE in clinical areas appeared to be limited, largely ad hoc, and opportunistic. Barriers to IPE included: timing of students’ placements, planning and coordination of activities, resource availability, and current regulatory and education provider requirements. Conclusions: Without the necessary resources and careful planning and coordination, the integration of IPE as a part of students’ clinical placement experience will remain a largely untapped resource.
Conceptualising and measuring student engagement through the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) : A critique
- Authors: Hagel, Pauline , Carr, Rodney , Devlin, Marcia
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol. 37, no. 4 (2012), p. 475-486
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- Description: Student engagement has rapidly developed a central place in the quality agenda of Australian universities since the introduction of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE). The AUSSE is based on one developed in the USA. The main arguments given for adopting this survey in Australia are that it provides a valid instrument for measuring engagement and that it enables international comparisons. However, the survey instrument and scales have been adopted with little scrutiny of these arguments. This paper examines these arguments by considering different perspectives of engagement, examining the importance of contextual differences and evaluating the AUSSE engagement scales in the light of both. The paper concludes that the AUSSE results should be used by universities and policy-makers with caution. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
Departing: the benefits of pathways and university study
- Authors: Levy, Stuart
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Student Voices in Transition: The Experiences of Pathways Students p. 291-318
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Ecopoetic practice : Writing the wounded land
- Authors: Wattchow, Brian
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies Vol. 12, no. 1 (2012), p. 15-21
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- Description: In this article the author discusses the experience of poetic writing as a form of autoethnographic practice. Poetic writing, more than other textual forms, offers considerable potential to represent the journey toward "empathetic insidedness" between author, culture, and a sense of place. The author draws examples from his recently published collection of poems titled The Song of the Wounded River. The poems were first drafted on a long canoe journey down the river to the old farm pioneered by the author's ancestors over a century ago. In an ecopoetics of place the writer strives to reconcile differences between past, present, and future and between their experiences of inner and outer landscapes. In an echo of Romanticism the ecopoet writes to heal the world's wounds through singing the land. Seen in this light poetry and empathy provide the counterbalance to science and rationality. Both are needed to sustain the human relationship with the Earth. Humans damage places not because they fail to understand them, but because they are yet to feel for them, like kin. This article draws together and discusses the physical search for place, the act of poetic writing, and the cultural significance of this kind of work. © 2012 SAGE Publications.
Examining Assumptions About Teacher Educator Identities by Self-study of the Role of Mentor of Pre-service Teachers
- Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Brandenburg, Robyn
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Studying Teacher Education Vol. 8, no. 2 (2012), p. 169-182
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- Description: The role of university-based mentors providing support for pre-service teachers (PSTs) on professional experience placements has long been an element of teacher education programs. These mentors often face challenging situations as they confront their own assumptions about teaching and learning, while also supporting PSTs who may be experiencing stressful placements in classrooms. In this article, we examine the learning undertaken by two teacher educators participating in a professional experience mentor program in a regional university in Australia. The research was conducted as a self-study in two phases. The first phase involved gathering data (email correspondence, mentor entry and exit surveys, meetings) and discussions throughout 2010; the second phase was a retrospective analysis of 10 critical emails. Identification and analysis of our assumptions revealed both the dominant categories of assumptions that underpinned our beliefs and practices, and the tensions and challenges we faced in our roles as mentors. Data analysis generated five themes that characterized our experiences as mentors: (1) ideals and reality; (2) emotions and assumptions; (3) transition to new leadership roles; (4) transitions as transformative experiences; and (5) tunnel vision. By systematically examining our practice, we developed a deeper understanding of the powerful ways that taken-for-granted assumptions influence our practice; we have also exposed the crucial influence of emotions and transitions on the growth of our professional identities. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
Home
- Authors: Earl, Catherine
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Student Voices in Transition: The Experiences of Pathways Students Chapter 8 p. 213-249
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Literacy Trails : A whole-of-community program to encourage literacy and numeracy awareness for children in preschool and early primary
- Authors: Ollerenshaw, Alison
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australasian Journal of Early Childhood Vol. 37, no. 3 (2012), p. 147-153
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- Description: This article describes the evaluation outcomes of an innovative, communitybased educational initiative to enhance and promote the awareness of literacy and numeracy in young children in two regional communities in Moorabool Shire, Victoria. With the support of committed educational and community partners (through the Moorabool Best Start Partnership), the Moorabool Literacy Trails were first established in 2006 to promote and nurture children's awareness of literacy and numeracy, and to encourage active participation in the Trails by facilitating local community involvement. In 2010 an evaluation of the program used a mixed, qualitative and quantitative methodology (surveys and interviews with teachers, parents, community participants, program partner representatives) to examine the program's effectiveness in promoting literacy and numeracy awareness for children in their early years, and also whether the program is an effective catalyst for increasing community awareness and capacity. There was strong evidence that the project achieved its aims, as quantified by the continued interest in the program through the large numbers of children participating and the continued commitment to the project by its partners and the local community. This whole-of-community approach helps to promote important educational principles for children and their parents. This program has large appeal at many different levels and offers great potential for similar educational programs to be adapted and/or transferred to other communities and regions.
- Description: 2003011111
Making a difference by embracing cooperative learning practices in an alternate setting: an exciting combination to incite the educational imagination
- Authors: Dyson, Michael , Plunkett, Margaret
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Classroom Interaction Vol. 47, no. 2 (2012), p. 13-24
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- Description: This paper outlines a study of an alternate approach to educating Year 9 students in a residential setting. The School for Student Leadership (SSL) in Victoria, Australia, provides a nine-week program focusing on leadership, relationship-building and self-awareness. The philosophy of the school, which has continually evolved since its inception in 2000, appears to have strong connections with the principles of cooperative learning, while also being influenced by theories relating to experiential and service learning and adolescent leadership development. A mixed methods approach was used to collect data through surveys and focus group interviews relating to student perceptions of their educational experience at the SSL. The qualitative findings presented in this paper suggest that all five elements of cooperative learning, as theorized by Johnson and Johnson (1989; 2009), feature in students' discussions of their experiences and that cooperative learning within this context provides a unique platform for the development of positive attitudes toward learning and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Place and sustainability literacy in schools and teacher education
- Authors: Somerville, Margaret , Green, Monica
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: The Joint Australian Association for Research in Education and Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association Conference p. 1-14
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- Description: The development of sustainability literate teachers has been identified as a key challenge for the implementation of education for sustainability in Australian schools (Skamp, 2010)and elsewhere (Nolet, 2009). This paper reports on the first year of a participatory action research project that investigates the learning of school teachers, teacher educators, school children and teacher education students, in relation to the integration of place-based sustainability education across the curriculum of a low SES primary school. The methods of data collection included digital visual and audio recorded observations and reflections by teacher educators; reflective observations, focus groups, and interviews with teachers and principals; and the collection of student artefacts from school and teacher education students. A number of different conceptual and theoretical lenses are brought to the analysis of this data including 'thinking through country'; sustainability literacies and new technologies; and contemporary theories of space, place and body. In this baseline paper, the overall findings are summarised under the categories of the participating groups: - teacher, teacher educator, school student, teacher education student, and the school/place/community nexus.