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'First know your students', is a well-known saying in teaching. But do Australian universities really know their students? In this paper we present findings from research conducted in remote and very remote Australia where Aboriginal higher education students and educators were asked about their learning and teaching needs, and their views on things the sector could do to better support them in their journey into and through university. They shared with us experiences and thoughts about their ways of learning in face-to-face and online contexts, in particular the role of cultural security; community partnerships; Aboriginal knowledges; pathways and transitions; and student assessment and support strategies. The depth and richness of the skills, knowledges, and capacities of Aboriginal learners, and indeed of the communities in which they reside and study are vital foundations for participation, retention and completion. However, respondents related that in the main, these attributes are not acknowledged by metropolitan-based course designers nor university administrations. We conclude that learning experiences and university operations that are designed to embrace these students' strengths and to work in and with their communities, are more likely to retain Aboriginal students and facilitate their participation and success, enabling beneficial outcomes for all university students and ultimately society as a whole.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has been identified as a keystone teaching and learning area for developing students' knowledge and skills on interdisciplinary critical thinking and problem solving (We use the term 'interdisciplinary' because discipline knowledge and methods were integrated from different disciplines in the project that used a synthesis of approaches). The position held by various government, industry and education stakeholders is that STEM learning, through different stages of education, will enable students to achieve their full potential. Underpinning this research was a response to an expressed school community need articulated through a primary school Principal's desire to integrate STEM learning into the classroom. Consequently, three primary schools from the mid north coast and north coast regions, New South Wales (NSW), Australia were involved in this research. In particular, the project facilitated teacher professional learning through authentic teaching and learning experiences coupled with transferable teaching and assessment strategies for the classroom. The rural and remote settings of the schools was influential in the design of the program. The methodology drew on Technacy Genre Theory to frame the interdisciplinary learning domains: Science (hypothesis testing literacies); Technology (digital microscope and robotics literacies); Engineering (food systems and biotechnology literacies) and Mathematics (data collection and statistics literacies). The findings indicated the teachers benefited through the development of effective strategies that led to successful outcomes on interdisciplinary teaching and learning and built up their confidence, knowledge and skills involved in the implementation of a STEM program into their primary school classrooms.

In this article we report on the monitoring of pre-service teachers' experiences of their course at a regional university in NSW, Australia. The intention of this research project was to engage with pre-service teachers to gauge their perceptions and their awareness of their developing teacher knowledge and skills. Our aim was to gather more comprehensive and meaningful data than that generated by standard, centrally administered, student evaluation surveys. Our research was conducted across four consecutive years to gather third-and final (fourth) year students' expectations for, and reflections on, their secondary education course. Drawing from the extant literature, and set against a context of shifting political agendas surrounding teacher education, the surveys were designed to capture the student voice. Key findings included the perceived need for increased behaviour management strategies, the inclusion of more 'practical' assessment tasks, and improved university-to-school transitions, including sustained professional learning agendas.

Over recent years, considerable effort has been put into increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) participation in higher education. While there are signs that enrolments are increasing, the sustained engagement and successful completion of higher education remains challenging, particularly in remote locations. With this in mind, a collaborative research project among researchers from three northern Australian tertiary education institutions was designed to understand student perspectives, particularly from remote contexts, about their engagement and success towards completion in higher education. Based on a qualitative research design situating Indigenist/interpretive research within a critical realism metatheory, we present findings from the study, based in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and unpack implications for higher education provision in remote contexts. The findings point to the unique challenges faced by students who live in the Kimberley--and perhaps in other remote locations around Australia. In order to meet these needs, we suggest that tertiary education providers must tailor provision to ensure that engagement with Aboriginal students is relational and culturally safe.

In the Australian higher education sector, the challenges to successful engagement and retention experienced by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students and communities are considerable. They persist despite many well-intentioned attempts to address this issue and to strengthen equity in participation in the sector. Implicated in this is the absence of a culturally-informed data quality framework for the sector, and the resulting persistence of associated issues such as confusion with data ownership; consistency; standards; usage; and storage. In this paper we argue it is essential that rigorous inquiry be carried out into the type and nature of data required or sought in the higher education sector on, for and with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This inquiry must involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, researchers, evaluators and communities to bring into effect their aspirations for data sovereignty including stewardship and ownership of data, and for culturally beneficial outcomes relating to the use and application of data. It also mandates a collaborative approach with existing government and independent organisations, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers from higher education institutions, working together towards the development and implementation of an agreed-upon and decolonised Indigenous data framework for the sector.

This article reports on action research conducted at a primary school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research responded to an expressed school aspiration to foster greater understanding of local Aboriginal culture, historical perspectives and knowledge systems within the school. An exploratory model was developed using a mixed methods approach to investigate nonAboriginal teacher perceptions and self-efficacy with teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content specified in the Australian Curriculum. A Bush Tucker Garden was established as a 'Pathway of Knowledge' acting as a vehicle for collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal stakeholders. Through their participation in this project the teachers were brought together with local Gumbaynggirr Elders, creating a space for the sharing of social capital. Teacher cultural knowledge and understanding was strengthened, enriching the student's learning experience. The findings are of relevance to primary school teachers, curriculum stakeholders and education providers in the broader field of Aboriginal education.

The Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme-Tertiary Tuition (ITAS-TT) has provided Australian government funding for one-to-one and group tutorial study support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending Australian universities since 1989. It has been a central plank supporting Indigenous university students in their studies. However, evaluation of the scheme has identified quality limitations, under-utilisation, administrative burdens, and eligibility issues, and criticised the deficit or low academic expectations assumptions inherent in the scheme. In the 2016-2017 Budget the Australian government modified ITAS into an Indigenous Student Success Program. Reporting on research undertaken at a time of impending changes to funding arrangements and the continuation of ITAS, this paper builds on recent research into the transition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders into higher education. The paper investigates the scheme through the perspectives of ITAS tutors and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students receiving ITAS tutoring in two regional universities in New South Wales. Qualitative research found that ITAS tutoring has enabled many students to manage their transition through university and complete their studies. Students and tutors identified limitations in the scheme in terms of guidelines, institutional expectations, access to learning management systems, and the timing of support. The study outcomes suggest that ITAS provides valuable support but has become static, and is not keeping up with developments in online learning and administration.

This paper brings together recent statistics relating to the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education. A number of key statistical realities relating to their enrolment into, retention during, and completion of, their university courses are depicted. Foremost among these realities is that despite initiatives over recent years to redress their under-representation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' participation in higher education remains significantly below the population parity rate. This paper also warns about the need to exercise care about definitions, sources, measurement, collection, interpretation and analysis of data in the higher education field relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It concludes that successful transitions to university involve not just success in enrolling more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, but in improving their retention and completion rates, and moreover, the qualities of their engagements and experiences in university life during their journey through higher education.

This article describes a venture that arose out of an exciting opportunity for a partnership between a regional university's school of education and an exceptional local high school in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It presents the findings of a continuous program of "shadowing" by pre-service teachers of mentor teachers in schools throughout the university teaching session, and the authors' and students' experiences and reflections about this very successful program.

Innovating in a higher education teaching context is never a straightforward matter. There are many factors influencing how, what, and when we teach, and the students' experiences of these things. This is especially so in the context of pre-service teacher education, forever evolving in response to rapidly changing technological, political and socio-cultural landscapes. In this paper we relate and reflect on the innovation of utilising the 3D immersive virtual world of Second Life in two secondary education units of study. We discuss and interrogate our own and our students' experiences when we used Second Life to teach in during the first unit, and to teach about in the second. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

The historical development of food education in secondary schools in New South Wales Australia is a compelling yet under-researched area of interest. This review starts by exploring how food curricula have evolved since the 1700s to the present day juxtaposed on socio-economic and political factors. This review is interested in the role secondary food education may play in "supplying" people into professional studies towards a career as a food technologist. Accordingly this review compares contemporary secondary food curriculum with related curricula in the higher education sector and establishes a marked dissonance between the two. The implications of this are then put forward. The drive to empower students to be enterprising and innovative twenty first century problem solvers in relation to food design through the interdisciplinary nature of food science is discussed, despite the uncertainty as to what degree Food Technology in schools is currently promoting these life-long and life-wide abilities in students. The authors suggest the lack of a theoretical underpinning may be holding the subject back from becoming a robust discipline. For this reason this review puts forward a conceptual framework for the study of food. The following review is relevant to secondary and higher education food education stakeholders (teachers, academics, curriculum developers, professional food industry) and higher education providers nationally and internationally, as the way in which food education is presented in secondary schooling is not contained to the Australian context alone.

The growth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in Australian higher education from 1959 to the present is notable statistically, but below population parity. Distinct patterns in government policy-making and programme development, inconsistent funding and political influences, together with Indigenous representation during the last 50 years have shaped the higher education participation of Australia's Indigenous populations. In this article, the authors identify a constant ideological flux between welfare, equity and economic priorities in successive Australian government approaches impacting on equal opportunities for Indigenous Australians in higher education. Maintaining and increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in higher education requires a continued focus on targets for higher education enrolments, governance and working with Indigenous educators.

While the essay is the default assessment tool of the Humanities in upper secondary and tertiary education, it is a text type that has been slowly bled of communicative purpose. It is suffered by students, taught according to restrictive formula and ignored in the literature. Evidence from the tertiary sector, employers and public examinations suggests that students are struggling to become effective writers in this form. This paper advocates the need to apply renewed critical attention to the educational potential of argumentation, rhetoric, dialogic teaching, functional linguistics and multiliteracies. It is proposed that essay-writing can be revitalised with attention to argument as a mode of discourse with the academic essay as one possible realisation of this way of thinking and communicating. In this way a school-wide orientation to argumentation, expressed in a wide variety of argumentative writing, can re-energise essay-writing as a form. Finally, elements from the Australian Curriculum are examined in this context.

A major challenge for researchers and urban planning practitioners is how to obtain meaningful and influential contributions on urban and environmental planning activities from children and young people within the constraints of adult policy and practice. The key elements of this challenge concern traditional methods of communication between "experts" and children and young people in rationalist planning settings, versus emerging research in relation to children's and young people's views and agency around civic participation. This article will address the work of a number of researchers and practitioners who have grappled with the inherent tensions of making planning practice and urban design more inclusionary, while facilitating and respecting children and young people's civic participation. This article also advocates the advantages and strengths of their participation in planning and urban design processes.With a focus on two exploratory programs developed by the authors in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, this article will demonstrate how the sharing of knowledge and skills between planning and design professionals and children and young people can lead to more meaningful and influential contributions from them. The programs examined were informed by leading practice both in Australia and internationally, and have assisted to develop children and young people's sense of spatial competence, and their confidence and efficacy in their local environment, contributing ultimately to their wellbeing. They have also supported the establishment of youth leadership groups with the confidence and skills to contribute to ongoing local government urban and environmental planning activities.

This article scrutinizes the dichotomy of the uneasy and easy partnerships that exist between digital technology and visual arts education. The claim that by putting computers into schools "we have bought 'one half of a product'... we've bought the infrastructure and the equipment but we haven't bought the educational piece" (McKenzie, 1999 as cited in Joyce, 2005, p. 52) is considered. Despite the ease with which many art educators have embraced technologies and tools for artistic practice in their classrooms in the past, maximizing the Internet and information communications technology usage in the visual arts classroom has been somewhat problematic. This issue and the largely absent "educational piece" of the product, that is, art made for the Internet and purpose built for Internet-as-gallery, are addressed.

This article reports on a research project that investigated the aspirations of primary and secondary school students about access to, and participation in higher education. The research was undertaken at schools in low socio-economic status regional and rural areas of north-eastern New South Wales. The paper discusses the background to the research and the methodologies used. It reports findings on the impact and intersections of demographics, financial factors, geographic location, and cultural and social capital in relation to the formation of students' perceptions, choices and decisions about participation in higher education. (Contains 1 table.)

This research was designed to investigate innovative practices associated with child-friendly cities initiatives in the United Kingdom and Italy and how civics and citizenship initiatives are being applied into practical programmes of exploration and learning in geography and environmental education. The Child-Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) of the United Nations Children's Fund was launched in 1996 at the UN Conference on Human Settlement (Habitat II). At this conference it was declared that the well-being of children is the key indicator of a healthy habitat, a democratic society and good governance committed to children's rights. The CFCI was closely allied to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which the right of children and young people to participate in the life and decision-making of their communities became a human right. Child-friendly cities initiatives have provided a framework and a myriad of programmes in which to create ways for children and young people to develop and exercise citizenship and participation skills. These projects assist young people to investigate issues relevant to their social and spatial worldviews, to interact with local government and community resources, to develop research skills and to promote the development of spatial competence and confidence. (Contains 3 figures and 4 notes.)