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In this paper, I take a simple game-theoretic view of educational production within universities to frame a discussion of pedagogical power, effort, and influence in Australian higher education. After introducing the stylised game structure, I first compare the role of teachers in Australian universities to that of university teachers elsewhere in the world, in terms of Australian academics' power in pedagogical affairs relative to the power of the higher-education institutions within which they operate. I then review some existing empirical evidence using Australian data that sheds light on the role of both teacher inputs and student inputs in creating educational outcomes, and discuss some new evidence on students' perceptions of teacher influence. The paper concludes with some recommendations for changes to the current system designed to improve student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, as in many countries across the world, our educational landscape is being shaped by an ever-increasing focus on the "globalized educational policy discourse" (Lingard, 2010) of standardised, 'high-stakes' testing, and the subsequent quantitative measuring and ranking of children, classes, schools, districts, states, and countries. Through this paper, we explore our research conducted with children, teachers and parents within a culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse public school community. The paper draws on the voices of teachers, parents, and children who were co-researchers in Clare's case study research at the school (using emergent, arts-informed methods (Clark & Moss, 2001; Cole & Knowles, 2008; Somerville, 2008)), and Sophie's teaching and teacher-research experiences (using pedagogical documentation (Rinaldi, 2006)). We explore the children's perspectives on how they were developing individual and collective subjectivities, how they conceived of difference and connection, and the ways they worked with difference to create a community of belonging in this highly diverse context. We also analyse the ways in which the teachers and school community sought to actively challenge hegemonic constructions of the "successful" student subject through discourses of trust, difference and connectedness. Shaped by a theoretical framework informed by the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), this paper highlights the ways this school community may disrupt "normalised" conceptualisations of pedagogical practices and contribute to the research literature that offers hope in opening up lines of flight to re-imagine possible subjectivities for teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher education sector is increasingly reliant upon casual (‘sessional’) staff for teaching and marking purposes. While this practice has been little examined in the past, over the last few years increasing attention has been paid to the quality of marking, mainly because students and academic staff alike are becoming increasingly likely to question examples of poor practice. Hence, many universities in Australia are now attempting to introduce stricter procedures relating to marking. Despite current concerns, there is little published research on marking practices in Australian universities. This paper adds to the body of knowledge by reporting on two pieces of empirical research into the use of casual markers. A project at Charles Sturt University comprised focus groups of, respectively, students, lecturers and markers, and a survey of distance education students. Research at the University of South Australia focused on pedagogical issues relating to marking, comparing the approaches of permanent lecturing staff with those of sessional markers. The results of these projects provide a useful insight into areas of current concern to university staff and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early years' (primary grade) classrooms in Australia repeated patterns are commonly explored as an early introductory activity to mathematics. Most young students have an extensive knowledge of and exhibit success in copying, continuing, creating and transferring patterns into other media. By contrast, research indicates one of the most difficult concepts with which students grapple in their later years of elementary school is the notion of ratio. This paper reports on a design (teaching) experiment conducted over a fourlesson period in two classrooms comprising 51 students whose average age was 9 years and 6 months. The focus of these lessons was using students' knowledge of repeating patterns, an understanding that traditionally remains in the precinct of early years, to scaffold the introduction of ratio. The theoretical frameworks that underpinned the classroom interactions and learning were the socio-constructivist theory of learning, inquiry-based discourse and the simultaneous use of multi-representations to build new knowledge. The results show that after a short intervention period, repeating patterns can act as effective bridges for introducing the ratio concept. They also show that particular representations and teacher actions assisted students to identify ratio, recognize equivalence between particular ratios, and begin to represent these ideas in abstract notation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated teachers' purposes and approaches to communication for connectivity and integration of learning, informed by two research questions which examined teachers' approaches to connecting with those responsible for students' learning and integration when they are in the workplace; and what outcomes teachers expected to achieve through such communication. An online survey was completed by 95 vocational education and training (VET) teachers from Queensland, Australia, and the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland. The findings show that teachers are well-connected and achieve multiple purposes when communicating with industry supervisors. Their main purposes of communication are to coordinate and cooperate to improve arrangements for students' learning, and to a lesser extent, to co-construct curricula. Communication to co-design learning activities and scenarios would further enhance the connectivity and integration. This research contributes to a gap in literature on teachers' purposes for communicating for connectivity and integration of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitality is the feeling of being alive, vigorous, and energetic, and is an important indicator of overall motivation and wellbeing. Studio music instruction holds rich potential for creating feelings of vitality through close relationships, the potential for developing skills, and a shared endeavor of artistic expression. But they also have the potential to deplete vitality – through controlling teaching, a poor quality relationship, or harsh criticism from the teacher. The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among student and teacher behavior, rapport, and students' experiences of subjective vitality in the context of university-level applied performance lessons. Participants were six undergraduate instrumental music majors and their teachers located at universities in the United States and Australia, who were selected because they provided the highest (three participants) and lowest (three participants) scores on a measure of subjective vitality completed immediately following a studio music lesson. A lesson was recorded for each student-teacher participant pair, coded for the frequencies of 35 lesson behaviors, described with a qualitative contextual commentary, and rated for evidence of rapport and physical proximity. Clear differences emerged between the high and low vitality lessons with regard to questioning, feedback, modeling, student performance, and student talk. Teachers of high vitality students spent most or all of the lesson within close proximity to their student, and showed stronger rapport than teachers of low vitality students. The findings suggest that students' vitality may depend on important differences in styles of teacher-student engagement and the quality of student-teacher relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the role of schools' psychosocial safety climate ( PSC) in teachers' psychological outcomes. We proposed that PSC would moderate the effects of teachers' daily job demands on their fatigue and work engagement, and also the effects of teachers' daily recovery on fatigue and engagement. Sixty-one Australian school teachers completed a diary that was repeated three times over the course of approximately 8 months. Each diary ran for five consecutive days, measuring daily self-reports of job demands, recovery, fatigue, and engagement ( N = 915 data points), while perceived PSC was measured once per diary. Multilevel analyses indicated that PSC moderated the relationships between job demands and fatigue, as well as job demands and engagement. This suggests that perceived PSC could act as a buffer against deleterious impacts of daily job demands. PSC also moderated the relationships between recovery and fatigue, and recovery and engagement. This indicates that higher levels of perceived PSC in schools could amplify the benefits of daily recovery for teachers. PSC also exerted a main effect on both fatigue and engagement. These results offer insight into the mechanisms by which PSC may act as a buffer to protect worker mental health, and highlight the importance for school management to promote PSC within their organization. Practitioner points Psychosocial safety climate in organizations may buffer workers from the negative psychological outcomes associated with job demands., Psychosocial safety climate in organizations may boost the psychological benefits that workers gain from achieving good daily recovery outside of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent data show that only 15% of Australian adolescents participate in adequate amounts of physical activity (PA) and those students from Asian and Middle-Eastern backgrounds in Grades 6-12 are significantly less active than their English-speaking background peers. Schools have recently been recognised as the most widely used and cost-effective setting for promoting PA among youth and one domain within schools where PA can occur regularly for all youth, regardless of cultural background or socio-economic status, is during physical education (PE). Methods: This study describes changes in physical activity (PA), lesson context and teacher interaction in physical education over the first two years in culturally and linguistically diverse secondary schools. Grade 7 PE classes in six schools were randomly observed using systematic direct observation (n = 81) and then followed up over the same period (n = 51) twelve months later. Results: There was no significant decline in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during PE (MD= -4.8%; p=.777), but a significant decline and medium negative effect in time spent in vigorous physical activity (VPA) (MD= -7.9%; p = .009) during PE was observed. Significant declines and large negative effects over time in percentage of PE time spent in management (MD = -8.8%; p<.001) and the number of observations where teachers promoted PA (MD= -20.7%; p < .001). Conclusions: The decline of VPA and teacher promotion of PA in culturally and linguistically diverse schools is of concern. Given the declines in VPA and the increases in time spent in game play, further research is needed to ascertain whether PE instruction could be improved by focussing on skill instruction and fitness in a games-based PE instruction model. Further research for increasing teacher promotion of PA during PE is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing adoption of the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) system state-wide in New South Wales, Australia, it was of interest to determine the readiness of behaviour specialists to conduct Functional Behaviour Assessments (FBA) as part of the third tier of School-wide PBS provision. This article presents the findings from a survey conducted with 86 behaviour specialists employed by NSW DET in metropolitan Sydney. Seventy four participants (86%) reported some form of training in FBA, 85 (99%) had used indirect assessments, all reported using direct assessment methods, and, 40 (46.5%) had written a FBA based behaviour intervention plan (BIP). Suggestions for priority training and preferred delivery options are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]