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In Australia, the recognition of the importance of induction for beginning teachers has been present for over three decades. In 2016, the first set of guidelines was introduced to implement beginning teacher induction: "Graduate to proficient: Australian Guidelines for teacher induction into the profession." However, reports of variations and inconsistencies in beginning teacher induction were widespread before the release of the guidelines. This article examines the historical context that led to the release of national guidelines and looks at recent research regarding beginning teacher induction to ascertain whether there have been any significant changes in the conduct of induction in the five years since the release of the guidelines, 2016-2020. Through a case study of beginning teacher induction, this article illustrates the extent to which the guidelines are being implemented, the experiences of the teachers undergoing beginning teacher induction in schools, and the ensuing policy implications. The findings indicate that a lack of policy-driven, mandatory guidelines and oversight by regulators and school systems has led to little change in the implementation of induction, specifically in New South Wales (NSW) schools.

The nexus between digital technologies, engagement and learning is often cited as being correlational, but is widely misunderstood. Research is clear that engagement can lead to better academic outcomes and improved learning, but less clear about the role of digital technologies in engaging students and the impact of digital technologies on student learning. Recent research suggests that in light of the increase in digital technologies in education that we must recognize the inherent challenges in increased use of digital technologies. In this article a small-scale case study was conducted to ascertain the level of student engagement and distraction during lectures. The study was repeated for two different cohorts of teacher education students to establish consistency of results. The authors sought to determine the level of academic engagement by having students record the number of digital distractions they encountered throughout the lecture. The students self-reported their distractions during a ~100 min lecture. The researchers found consistency between the two cohorts when looking at the number of self-reported distractions per student. The findings suggest that technology was a major distraction and further could be seen, due to the number of distractions, to be causing disengagement. In this article the authors use this case study to start a conversation about the possible perils of digital technologies with regard to engagement and learning and what this means in a future that may be dictated by technology-enhanced learning.

The transition into higher education from secondary school is a challenging change for many students. This transition and the problems students face as a result, can affect their ability to succeed. Universities recognise the transition to university as a significant feature of student engagement and learning. The current article explores an already established assessment model as a tool to help acculturate first-year students to tertiary assessment practices. The author has moulded a model of self and peer assessment that has been utilised at all levels of schooling, as a specific means to help students engage, not only with content, but also with the administrative processes of assessment. Over the course of a number of weeks, undergraduate education students, in their first semester of university study, were subjected to Authentic Self and Peer Assessment for Learning (ASPAL) model, which sought to illustrate study skills, encourage collaboration, promote autonomy and illustrate to students how assessment can drive learning. The current article presents a case for the use of the ASPAL model of assessment as a transition pedagogy that can help students better understand assessment at the tertiary level and enhance student success.

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The induction of beginning teachers is an imperative process in enculturating teachers to their new careers and helping them overcome the hurdles in the early years of teaching and the registration processes teachers undergo. Although induction practices in Australia have become more common in recent years, the data shows there is still much work to do. The current article presents a collective case study of six induction programs, which sought to ascertain the nature of beginning teacher induction in the independent school sector in NSW. Although difficult to generalise across the entire schooling sector, it is likely that the cases selected provide a snapshot of the variety and inconsistency of induction programs in independent schools across the state. The implications of the findings are significant in that they support structured induction of beginning teachers that may require bureaucratic oversight to ensure that beginning teachers have the best opportunity to become highly qualified career professionals.

Evidence based decision making is essential for enabling improved student learning. Teacher motivations and beliefs about the types and use of data are critical determinants of decision making. Our research explored the types of data teachers use and consider valuable when measuring improvement in student learning. Findings from 294 teachers from 44 schools in the Catholic (non-government) sector in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, found that data are used to inform the sequence of learning and to identify and address student needs. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources are applied to make claims of improvement. Factors such as ability, gender, school role, and school sector (primary or secondary) impact the selection and use of data. Our recommendations include the need to focus on professional learning to develop practising and preservice teachers' data literacy skills, ranging from statistical literacy to the identification and selection of appropriate data to substantiate claims of improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The literature has expounded on the impacts of international service-learning (ISL) in teacher education as positively affecting everything from improving academic achievement to developing a greater moral and ethical sense. Other studies have examined the role of cultural competence and dimensions of power between those providing and receiving service. Purpose: This paper examines a decade-long ISL immersion program to understand the outcomes on students in three key areas that have received attention in the literature: motivation, employment, and academics. Methodology: A longitudinal case study comprising a cross-section of students who were asked to reflect on their immersion experiences, which took place from 2011 to 2020. Reflective journals completed during and directly after each immersion supplemented the survey data. Findings: While much of the data supports previous studies regarding the impacts of ISL, there are some anomalous findings, especially in the longer-term effects of ISL within teacher education. While participants' perceptions of the impacts were significant, evidence of that impact was lacking. Implications: Although short-term impacts of the immersion were more significantly noted, students perceived the impact for more extended periods than previously thought. However, the evidence to suggest that these perceptions are realizable is lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011 the authors created a model of self- and peer-assessment known as Authentic Self and Peer Assessment for Learning (ASPAL) in an attempt to better engage seemingly disengaged students in their undergraduate coursework. The model focuses on authentic assessment tasks and engages students by involving them in every step of the process from the creation of the criteria on which they will be marked, through to providing exemplars of work, pilot marking and providing peer feedback. This article examines the ASPAL process with regard to whether or not the students are better engaged in their studies as a result of taking part in this process. Although the results are not definitive, the present study shows that the majority of students who undertook the process found it beneficial and were open to try it again. This article seeks to open a discussion as to the capacity for a specific model of self- and peer-assessment to better engage students in their learning and discern the reasons why students found the model engaging so as to better inform future applications of the model and how it can be applied to a wider audience.

The accurate estimation of aboveground net herbaceous production (ANHP) is crucial in rangeland management and monitoring. Remote and rural rangelands typically lack direct observation infrastructure, making satellite-derived methods essential. When ground data are available, a simple and effective way to estimate ANHP from satellites is to derive the empirical relationship between ANHP and plant-absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR), which can be estimated from the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). While there is some evidence that this relationship will differ across rangeland vegetation types, it is unclear whether this relationship will change across grazing management regimes. This study aimed to assess the impact of grazing management on the relationship between ground-observed ANHP and satellite-derived APAR, considering variations in plant communities across ecological sites in the shortgrass steppe of northeastern Colorado. Additionally, we compared satellite-predicted biomass production from the process-based Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) model to our empirical APAR-based model. We found that APAR could be used to predict ANHP in the shortgrass steppe, with the relationship being influenced by ecosite characteristics rather than grazing management practices. For each unit of added APAR (MJ m−2 day−1), ANHP increased by 9.39 kg ha−1, and ecosites with taller structured herbaceous vegetation produced, on average, 3.92–5.71 kg ha−1 more ANHP per unit APAR than an ecosite dominated by shorter vegetation. This was likely due to the increased allocation of plant resources aboveground for C3 mid-grasses in taller structured ecosites compared to the C4 short-grasses that dominate the shorter structured ecosites. Moreover, we found that our locally calibrated empirical model generally performed better than the continentally calibrated process-based RAP model, though RAP performed reasonably well for the dominant ecosite. For our empirical models, R2 values varied by ecosite ranging from 0.49 to 0.67, while RAP R2 values ranged from 0.07 to 0.4. Managers in the shortgrass steppe can use satellites to estimate herbaceous production even without detailed information on short-term grazing management practices. The results from our study underscore the importance of understanding plant community composition for enhancing the accuracy of remotely sensed predictions of ANHP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid growth in outdoor recreation may have important and varied effects on terrestrial mammal communities. Few studies have investigated factors influencing variation in observed responses of multiple mammal species to recreation. We used data from 155 camera traps, in western Alberta (Canada), and a hierarchical Bayesian community modelling framework to document 15 mammal species responses to recreation, test for differential responses between predators and prey, and evaluate the influence of local context. Factors characterizing context were trail designation (i.e., use by motorized vs non-motorized), management type, forest cover, landscape disturbance, and season. We used three measures to characterize variation in recreation pressure: distance to trail, trail density, and an index of recreation intensity derived from the platform Strava. We found limited evidence for strong or consistent effects of recreation on mammal space use. However, mammal space use was better explained by an interaction between recreation and the influencing factors than by either on their own. The strongest interaction was between trail density and management type; mammals were more likely to avoid sites near a higher density of trails in areas with more restrictive management. We found that responses to recreation varied with the trail designation, although there were not clear or consistent differences between responses to trails designated for motorized vs. non-motorized use. Overall, we found that responses were species- and context-dependent. Limiting the density of trails may be important for reducing negative impacts to mammals within conservation areas. We show that using multiple measures of recreation yields more insight into the varied effects of human disturbances on wildlife. We recommend investigating how different characteristics of recreation (noise, speed, and visibility) influence animal behaviors. Multispecies monitoring and modelling across multiple landscapes that vary in recreation pressure can lead to an adaptive management approach to ensuring outdoor recreation coexistence with wildlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which international immersion programs affect participants can be influenced by and attributed to their experiences in the host country or community. Embedded critical experiences allow participants to immerse themselves within the breadth and depth of humanity, thus fostering connections and relationships. Further, critical experiences can heighten emotions and disrupt values discourse. A mini-ethnographic case study of 20 Australian preservice teachers' immersion in Kenya explored the impact of embedded critical experiences on participants' values, emotions, and relationships. Analysis of participants' journals, researcher's field notes and recorded debrief sessions identified key themes: emotions are heightened; values are questioned; relationships build community through positive connections; and relationships and understanding are at the core of teaching. Embedded critical experiences allowed for points of comparison across the data, which illustrated that while the participants valued the immersion for many reasons, the cultural interface of those experiences had the most significant impact [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report pure-rotational N2–N2, N2–air, and O2–air S-branch linewidths for temperatures of 80–200 K by measuring the time-dependent decay of rotational Raman coherences in an isentropic free-jet expansion from a sonic nozzle. We recorded pure-rotational hybrid femtosecond/picosecond coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (fs/ps CARS) spectra along the axial centerline of the underexpanded jet, within the barrel shock region upstream of the Mach disk. The dephasing of the pure-rotational Raman coherence was monitored using probe-time-delay scans at different axial positions in the jet, corresponding to varying local temperatures and pressures. The local temperature was obtained by fitting CARS spectra acquired at zero probe time delay, where the impact of collisions was minimal. The measured decay of each available Raman transition was fit to a dephasing constant and corrected for the local pressure, which was obtained from the CARS-measured static temperature and thermodynamic relationships for isentropic expansion from the known stagnation state. Nitrogen self-broadened transitions decayed more rapidly than those broadened in air for all temperatures, corresponding to higher Raman linewidths. In general, the measured S-branch linewidths deviated significantly in absolute and relative magnitudes from those predicted by extrapolating the modified exponential gap model to low temperatures. The temperature dependence of the Raman linewidth for each measured rotational state of nitrogen (J ≤ 10) and oxygen (N ≤ 11) was fit to a temperature-dependent power law over the measurable temperature domain (80–200 K) and extrapolated to both higher rotational states and room temperature. The measured and modeled low-temperature linewidth data provided here will aid low temperature gas-phase pressure measurements with fs/ps CARS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning teacher induction is becoming an increasingly popular process in acculturating teachers to their new careers. The problems that teachers face early in their careers are well known, and effective and ongoing induction is one of the foremost practices for alleviating the pressures that teachers face early in their careers. While induction practices have become more common in recent years, there are still no mandated structures for inducting teachers into the profession throughout Australia. In a collective case study of six different programs in independent schools in Sydney, Australia, the author showcases one case in particular that illustrated best practice when matched against other well-known, successful international programs. In the current article the induction program is viewed in light of best practice internationally, and best practice criteria that have been ascertained from a selection of local, national and international reports and an international review of induction programs. The article showcases what best practice looks like from the perspective of the teachers who have undertaken the program and the school leadership who implemented the program.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a proof of concept of a collaborative peer-, self- and lecturer assessment processes. The research presented here is part of an ongoing study on self- and peer assessments in higher education. The authentic assessment for sustainable learning (AASL) model is evaluated in terms of the correlations between sets of marks. The article provides an explanation of the assessment process, and analyses sets of marks as a means of justifying the validity of the process. The results suggest that students, even those with no prior experience in peer- or self-evaluation, in their first year of tertiary study, under the right conditions, are able to accurately judge their own work and make reasonably accurate judgements of the work of their peers. While previous studies have expounded the benefits of self- and peer assessments in tertiary study, undertaking a prescribed process, such as AASL, has a further implication in allowing others to replicate the process with reasonable assuredness of the validity of the process across various fields of study.

Although induction programmes are widely held to alleviate the pressures beginning teachers face early in their careers, what happens when beginning teachers do not receive adequate induction? While the research advocates effective and ongoing induction to acculturate new teachers to their careers, there is little research on the effects of unsuccessful induction on the teachers who undertake such programmes. The author is a long-standing advocate for beginning teacher induction, it is important to note that simply implementing a programme does not guarantee success. While induction practices have become more common in recent years, there are still no mandated structures for inducting teachers into the profession throughout Australia, although guidelines are forthcoming. This article showcases the types of programmes that some schools have implemented in the wake of "mandated" induction and the impacts that these programmes have on the teachers who undertake them. The negative effects on teacher morale and efficacy, when they are not supported in the early years of their careers, are highlighted to justify the importance of effective and ongoing induction. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to understand and interpret the ways in which the participants of the programmes experienced their induction. This analysis along with the content analysis of the interviews with the school's leadership and a document review of the policies and procedures of induction provided detailed insight into the nature, purpose, strengths and shortcomings of the programmes in question.