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This paper documents the development of an online qualitative questionnaire to be used with teachers of young children experiencing parental separation and divorce. The questionnaire forms the first phase one of a larger project where it will be used to determine teachers' thoughts, opinion, and beliefs regarding their preparedness for working with children experiencing parental separation and divorce. Development and structure of the questionnaire has been informed by a previous study whereby teachers disclosed their professional learning needs for working with children and families experiencing parental separation and divorce. The modules in the questionnaire reflect the modules in the online professional learning tool. The categories of teachers' professional learning needs are--(1) knowledge of the phenomenon, (2) working with children, and (3) working with families. Usefulness of the questionnaire was determined using Brookfield's theory of the critically reflective practitioner. I reflected on my own experiences, sought feedback from colleagues who trialed the questionnaire, and made comparisons with the literature. These data were synthesized to conclude the useful of the questionnaire to determine teachers' perception of their preparedness for working with children experiencing parental separation and divorce.

This research study provides a comparative understanding of instructional design e-practice in an Australian and an American university. This comparative study identifies information relating to the current status of instructional design e-practice that will be of assistance to Australian universities to improve their existing online programs. The study investigated two universities using a quantitative methodological approach. Participants were students, lecturers and admins of one Faculty in an Australian university and one Faculty in an American university engaged with e-learning programs. The instructional design variables, namely clarifying expectations, personalization, learning scenarios, organizing resources and accuracy of materials were investigated for e-practice. The results showed that there were no significant differences in evaluation of the sub factors between Australian and American students and lecturers. American admins evaluated the sub factors of personalization, organizing resources, and accuracy of materials higher than Australians; however, Australian admins evaluated the sub factor of clarifying expectations higher than the Americans. The evaluations of instructional design practice and its sub factors were above average in general in both countries; however, the sub factor of organizing resources was evaluated as poor in the Australian sample and poor and average in the American sample. This indicates that this sub factor needs to improve in both countries. [For the complete proceedings, see ED579335.]

This paper reports on an intervention program, "Prepare 2 Learn", that was designed taking into account a range of components from other successful intervention programs. The program is focussed on year 6 students from a school in Melbourne, Australia, who are falling approximately 6 months behind with the hope that extra help at an early stage may result in them reaching the required standard and realising their potential. While the students' academic results moved substantially a more pleasing result was the noticeable improvement in the students' approaches to their learning.

Mathematical knowledge of pre-service teachers is currently "under the microscope" and the subject of research. This paper proposes a different approach to teacher content knowledge based on the "big ideas" of mathematics and the connections that exist within and between them. It is suggested that these "big ideas" should form the basis of teacher planning but it is acknowledged that this represents a "cultural change." The proposal is supported by results from a project that involved pre-service teachers in their final mathematics education unit. Results suggest that a focus on the "big ideas" of mathematics has the potential to change teacher planning and enhance content knowledge.

It is essential that pre-service teacher educators address pre-service teacher numeracy but with careful consideration as it incorporates more than mathematics skills. Numeracy also involves disposition towards mathematics--attitudes, confidence and mathematics anxiety; that is, the level of willingness to use mathematics skills. As part of an emphasis on developing pre-service teacher numeracy, a new first year unit was introduced. Pre-service teachers were given tools to investigate their competence, attitudes towards, confidence with, and anxiety regarding mathematics. This paper outlines the changes that were identified in the numeracy of these pre-service teachers at the completion of the unit.

These proceedings contain the papers of the 13th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2016), October 28-30, 2016, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by the University of Mannheim, Germany, and endorsed by the Japanese Society for Information and Systems in Education (JSISE). The CELDA conference aims to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. These proceedings contain the following keynote lectures: (1) From Digital to Double Blended Learning (Jeroen J. G. van Merrienboer); and (2) Open Educational Resources: Educational Technology as a Driver for Educational Reform? (Michael Kerres). Full papers in these proceedings include: (1) A Service-Learning Project Using Crowdfunding Strategy: Students' Experience and Reflection (Jessnor Elmy Mat-jizat and Khalizul Khalid); (2) Towards a Theory-Based Design Framework for an Effective E-Learning Computer Programming Course (Ian S. McGowan); (3) An Ontology for Learning Services on the Shop Floor (Carsten Ullrich); (4) The Impact of Technology Integration upon Collegiate Pedagogy from the Lens of Multiple Disciplines (Joan Ann Swanson); (5) A Learning Support System Regarding Motion Trigger for Repetitive Motion Having an Operating Instrument (Hiroshi Toyooka, Kenji Matsuura, and Naka Gotoda); (6) Task-Based Assessment of Students' Computational Thinking Skills Developed through Visual Programming or Tangible Coding Environments (Takam Djambong and Viktor Freiman); (7) Framework for Intelligent Teaching and Training Systems--A Study of the Systems (Nikolaj Troels Graf von Malotky and Alke Martens); (8) Mobile Device Usage in Higher Education (Jan Delcker, Andrea Honal, and Dirk Ifenthaler); (9) Features Students Really Expect from Learning Analytics (Clara Schumacher and Dirk Ifenthaler); (10) Music Technology Competencies for Education: A Proposal for a Pedagogical Architecture for Distance Learning (Fátima Weber Rosas, Leticia Rocha Machado, and Patricia Alejandra Behar); (11) Increasing Students' Science Writing Skills through a PBL Simulation (Scott W. Brown, Kimberly A. Lawless, Christopher Rhoads, Sarah D. Newton, and Lisa Lynn); (12) The Effect of Choosing versus Receiving Feedback on College Students' Performance (Maria Cutumisu and Daniel L. Schwartz); (13) The Impact of Middle-School Students' Feedback Choices and Performance on Their Feedback Memory (Maria Cutumisu and Daniel L. Schwartz); (14) Numerical Acuity Enhancement in Kindergarten: How Much Does Material Presentation Form Mean? (Maria Lidia Mascia, Maria Chiara Fastame, Mirian Agus, Daniela Lucangeli, and Maria Pietronilla Penna); (15) A Video Game for Learning Brain Evolution: A Resource or a Strategy? (Luisa Fernanda Barbosa Gomez, Maria Cristina Bohorquez Sotelo, Naydu Shirley Roja Higuera, and Brigitte Julieth Rodriguez Mendoza); (16) Communication Vulnerability in the Digital Age: A Missed Concern in Constructivism (Fusa Katada); (17) Online Learners' Navigational Patterns Based on Data Mining in Terms of Learning Achievement (Sinan Keskin, Muhittin Sahin, Adem Ozgur, and Halil Yurdugul); (18) Amazed by Making: How Do Teachers Describe Their PBL Experience (Dalit Levy and Olga Dor); (19) Group Work and the Impact, If Any, of the Use of Google Applications for Education (Jannat Maqbool); (20) Fractangi: A Tangible Learning Environment for Learning about Fractions with an Interactive Number Line (Magda Mpiladeri, George Palaigeorgiou, and Charalampos Lemonidis); (21) Evaluation of Learning Unit Design with Use of Page Flip Information Analysis (Izumi Horikoshi, Masato Noguchi, and Yasuhisa Tamura); (22) Einstein's Riddle as a Tool for Profiling Students (Vildan Özeke and Gökhan Akçapinar); (23) Exploring Students' E-Learning Effectiveness through the Use of Line Chat Application (Tassaneenart Limsuthiwanpoom, Penjira Kanthawongs, Penjuree Kanthawongs, and Sasithorn Suwandee); (24) Factors Affecting Perceived Satisfaction with Facebook in Education (Penjuree Kanthawongs, Penjira Kanthawongs, and Chaisak Chitcharoen); (25) Interactive Video, Tablets and Self-Paced Learning in the Classroom: Preservice Teachers' Perceptions (Anthia Papadopoulou and George Palaigeorgiou); (26) Cognitive Design for Learning: Cognition and Emotion in the Design Process (Joachim Hasebrook); (27) Investigating the Potential of the Flipped Classroom Model in K-12 Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Maria Katsa, Stylianos Sergis, and Demetrios G. Sampson; (28) Learning Analytics to Understand Cultural Impacts on Technology Enhanced Learning (Jenna Mittelmeier, Dirk Tempelaar, Bart Rienties, and Quan Nguyen); (29) Widening and Deepening Questions in Web-Based Investigative Learning (Akihiro Kashihara and Naoto Akiyama); (30) Year 9 Student Voices Negotiating Digital Tools and Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in a Bilingual Managed Learning Environment (Ulla Freihofner, Simone Smala, and Chris Campbell); (31) Purposeful Exploratory Learning with Video Using Analysis Categories (Meg Colasante); (32) Building a Learning Experience: What Do Learners' Online Interaction Data Imply (Mehmet Kokoç and Arif Altun); (33) Rules for Adaptive Learning and Assistance on the Shop Floor (Carsten Ullrich); and (34) Participation and Achievement in Enterprise MOOCs for Professional Learning (Florian Schwerer and Marc Egloffstein). Short papers included in these proceedings include: (1) Connectivist Communication Networks (Ingolf Waßmann, Robin Nicolay, and Alke Martens); (2) Learning and Skills Development in a Virtual Class of Educommunications Based on Educational Proposals and Interactions (Maria Cristina Bohorquez Sotelo, Brigitte Julieth Rodriguez Mendoza, Sandra Milena Vega, Naydu Shirley Roja Higuera, and Luisa Fernanda Barbosa Gomez); (3) The Relationship among ICT Skills, Traditional Reading Skills and Online Reading Ability (I-Fang Liu and Hwa-Wei Ko); (4) Towards Concept Understanding Relying on Conceptualisation in Constructivist Learning (Farshad Badie); (5) E-Learning in Chemistry Education: Self-Regulated Learning in a Virtual Classroom (Rachel Rosanne Eidelman and Yael Shwartz); (6) Relationship of Mobile Learning Readiness to Teacher Proficiency in Classroom Technology Integration (Rhonda Christensen and Gerald Knezek); (7) Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Internet Residency: Implications for Both Personal Life and Teaching/Learning (Linda Crearie); (8) A Portfolio for Optimal Collaboration of Human and Cyber Physical Production Systems in Problem-Solving (Fazel Ansari and Ulrich Seidenberg); (9) Innovative Collaborative Learning Strategies for Integrated Interactive E-Learning in the 21st Century (Barbara Son); (10) Educational Criteria for Evaluating Simple Class Diagrams Made by Novices for Conceptual Modeling (Mizue Kayama, Shinpei Ogata, David K. Asano, and Masami Hashimoto); (11) Digital Natives and Digital Divide: Analysing Perspective for Emerging Pedagogy (Uriel U. Onye and Yunfei Du); (12) E-Learning System Using Segmentation-Based MR Technique for Learning Circuit Construction (Atsushi Takemura); (13) Students' Google Drive Intended Usage: A Case Study of Mathematics Courses in Bangkok University (Krisawan Prasertsith, Penjira Kanthawongs, and Tan Limpachote); (14) An Empirical Study on the Impact of Self-Regulation and Compulsivity towards Smartphone Addition of University Students (Penjira Kanthawongs, Felicito Angeles Jabutay, Ruangrit Upalanala, and Penjuree Kanthawongs); (15) Adaptive Game Based Learning Using Brain Measures for Attention--Some Explorations (Jelke van der Pal, Christopher Roos, Ghanshaam Sewnath, and Christian Rosheuvel); (16) Evaluation of the Course of the Flight Simulators from the Perspective of Students and University Teachers (Feyzi Kaysi, Bünyamin Bavli and Aysun Gürol); (17) Development of Critical Thinking with Metacognitive Regulation (Yasushi Gotoh); (18) Enacting STEM Education for Digital Age Learners: The "Maker" Movement Goes to School (Dale S. Niederhauser and Lynne Schrum); (19) New Scenarios for Audience Response Systems in University Lectures (Daniel Schön, Stephan Kopf, Melanie Klinger, and Benjamin Guthier); (20) Academic Retention: Results from a Study in an Italian University College (Maria Lidia Mascia, Mirian Agus, Maria Assunta Zanetti, Eliano Pessa, and Maria Pietronilla Penna); and (21) Learning How to Write an Academic Text: The Effect of Instructional Method and Reflection on Text Quality. Reflection papers in these proceedings include: (1) Teachers' Attitude towards ICT Use in Secondary Schools: A Scale Development Study (Mehmet Kemal Aydin, Ali Semerci, and Mehmet Gürol); and (2) Inventing the Invented for STEM Understanding (Alicia Stansell, Tandra Tyler-Wood, and Christina Stansell). An author index is included. Individual papers contain references.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a small pilot study in which an heuristic was used to enable principals to reflect on the confidence they have in their existing leadership knowledge and how they might add to that knowledge in the future. The motivation for the study arose from a literature review of strategies for leadership development which showed up the lack of attention paid in research to principals' agency in the pursuit of their own learning. This contrasts starkly with the dominance in the literature of principals' reliance on education systems or authorities which, at present, make most decisions about principals' learning in leadership development programs. The piloting of the heuristic acts as a means of shifting the emphasis from system to self, thus empowering individuals to take more responsibility for their own future leadership learning needs. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the attitudes of School Administrators to the relationship between formal school registration and school improvement. It concerns a mandatory inspection-type registration process for all Non-Government Schools in Western Australia. Part of the aim of this registration process was to help schools improve twelve educational and administrative aspects. These were: (1) School Governance, (2) School Financial Viability, (3) Enrolments & Attendance, (4) Number of Students, (5) Instructional Time, (6) School Staff, (7) School Infrastructure, (8) School Curriculum, (9) Student Learning Outcomes, (10) Care for Students, (11) Disputes and Complaints, (12) Legal Compliance. A questionnaire based on these twelve aspects was designed with five items per aspect (60 items total), conceptually ordered from easy to hard, and given to 110 administrators. It was completed by 65 administrators for a useable, response rate of 59%. The data were analysed with the Rasch model computer program RUMM2030 which accommodated the small numbers by estimating parameters even when some response cell frequencies are zero or low. It does this by re-parameterising the thresholds into principal components (not the factor analysis kind), but components that make up the structure of the threshold parameters where there are data. The frequencies are not used directly, but rather functions of the frequencies are used as the sufficient statistics for these parameters and the thresholds are recovered from these. A unidimensional, linear scale, School Administrators' Beliefs That Actual School Improvements Were Due to Formal School Registration, was created with 48 items. The Person Separation Index of 0.86 was highly satisfactory. The item-trait interaction was 83.76, df = 96 with p = 0.81 supporting the creation of a unidimensional scale. The results showed that there was a group of items that administrators said were relatively easy to say that actual school improvements were due to formal registration and another group that administrators said were very hard to say that actual school improvements were due to formal registration. This study produced a new Rasch measurement for a key aspect of school improvement. It provides new insight into the policy and practice of school registration. (Contains 6 tables and 6 figures.)

This paper presents an investigation into the attitudes of School Administrators to the relationship between formal school registration and school improvement. It concerns a mandatory inspection-type registration process for all Non-Government Schools in Western Australia. Part of the aim of this registration process was to help schools improve twelve educational and administrative aspects. These were: (1) School Governance, (2) School Financial Viability, (3) Enrolments & Attendance, (4) Number of Students, (5) Instructional Time, (6) School Staff, (7) School Infrastructure, (8) School Curriculum, (9) Student Learning Outcomes, (10) Care for Students, (11) Disputes and Complaints, (12) Legal Compliance. A questionnaire based on these twelve aspects was designed with five items per aspect (60 items total), conceptually ordered from easy to hard, and given to 110 administrators. It was completed by 65 administrators for a useable, response rate of 59%. The data were analysed to create twelve Guttman Scales. In a Guttman Scale the items are aligned from easy to hard horizontally and the person scores are arranged vertically from high (top) to low (bottom) by items. If the data were to fit a Guttman pattern accurately, then the pattern of person responses for each item would be in a perfect steptype arrangement. If a person scores high on the hardest item, then that person scores high on all the other easier items. If a person scores low on the easiest item, then that person will score low on all the other harder items. In a practical situation, as was the case for these twelve Guttman Scales, the response patterns were not in perfect step-type arrangement, but they were all very acceptable. The response patterns fit a Guttman pattern, giving strong evidence for a unidimensional scale. The twelve Guttman Scale scores were then used to calculate 66 zero-order, effectively different inter-correlations (Pearson Product-Moment Correlations) between and amongst the twelve aspects of formal registration. The results showed that there were items that administrators said were relatively easy to say that actual school improvements were due to formal registration and other items that administrators said were very hard to say that actual school improvements were due to formal registration. This study produced new Guttman Scales and many interesting correlations for a key aspect of school improvement. It provides new insight into the policy and practice of school registration. (Contains 7 tables.)

Emotions play an important part in learning and are known to influence human development. The positive emotions of enjoyment and interest are thought to contribute to learning in distinctive ways, yet this distinction tends to be blurred in some learning research. This paper explores the role these two emotions play in the development of children's statistical literacy. It focuses on the responses of 220 middle-school children to just six self-descriptions, three assessing interest and three assessing enjoyment. Analysis of these responses suggests that the two emotions are difficult to differentiate empirically, but that differences in reported levels of enjoyment and interest may depend on students' perceptions of competence in the specific tasks with which they are engaged. Implications of this for teachers and researchers are discussed.

This paper reports the impact of a collaborative professional experience model on pre-service secondary mathematics teachers' perspectives and practices within a learning community. Nine pre-service teachers made 12 school visits over one year to observe and co-teach problem-solving lessons in two Year 8 classes. They discussed the lesson with the teacher and the university supervisor, and posted reflective comments to an online forum. Data from questionnaires, interviews, and reflections indicate participation in the learning community helped pre-service teachers link theory and practice, learn from each other, and become more reflective.

Researchers have argued that there are strong links between primary school students' competence with fraction concepts and operations and their algebraic readiness. This study involving 162 Years 5/6 students in three primary schools examined the strength of that relationship using a test based on familiar fraction tasks and a test of algebraic thinking utilising number relations and equivalence. A strong relationship was found between the two, and with some fraction tasks embodying high potential to anticipate algebraic thinking.

Pedagogical content knowledge is widely considered an essential and complex facet of mathematics teacher knowledge, but little research has focused on PCK at the senior secondary level. This study explores some of the complexities of PCK in a teacher's lesson for senior secondary students by analysing data from lesson observation, the teacher's own commentary on the lesson, and students' perceptions of the teacher's knowledge and actions. Findings suggest that classroom norms relating to the kinds of problems students are typically required to solve can affect priorities about what is taught, so that what is attended to and valued by students may impact on teachers' PCK demands.

The purpose of this study was to inform the deliberations of a policymakers' working group by investigating what key actors in the materials' marketplace are doing to align digital and print-based materials with the Australian Curriculum and what steps need to be taken to deliver aligned materials to schools. Content analysis method was used to review research literature about the materials' marketplace, the publishing industry, and the procurement, selection and use of materials. Survey method was used to investigate the experiences of a sample of publishers in aligning their products with the Australian Curriculum. Case study method was used to study the backgrounds, current status and environmental interactions of the Australian Curriculum Connect and the Curriculum into the Classroom projects. The results of the study showed that four key attributes characterize the materials' marketplace. The marketplace is dominated by a small number of foreign companies, but small publishing companies play an important role as niche publishers. The adequate supply of materials is dependent on whether individual schools use book-list, book-hire or class-set systems as a basis for procuring new materials. Selection procedures are decentralized, highly differentiated, unsystematic and dependent on demographic characteristics affecting individual schools. Teachers depend in their instructional practice on using teacher-developed resources derived from photocopying print-based materials. Within the interactions of publishers' production and marketing strategies, the Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing, established by the Australian Publishers Association, have enhanced publishers' role in developing high quality materials, and publishers are using a range of techniques to align materials with the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Government has invested funds in developing a repository of digital materials, delivering the materials by means of an online platform and conducting an extensive series of studies to evaluate students' use of learning objects. The Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment has developed and implemented various digital materials in the Curriculum into the Classroom project as the principal means for implementing the Australian Curriculum in Queensland schools. The delivery chain, however, is impeded by the lack of a comprehensive and effective means of providing evaluative information about the alignment of digital and print-based materials with the Australian Curriculum to help teachers make informed decisions in selecting materials. The conclusion sets out recommendations referring to the roles of key actors in a plan to improve delivery of materials as they proceed through a complex set of interactions between publishers' production and marketing strategies, selectors' decision-making processes, and consumers' patterns of use. The following are appended: (1) Sample of Australian Publishers of Curriculum Materials; and (2) Survey of Publishers of Curriculum Materials.

Exploring why more boys than girls continue to study higher levels of mathematics in senior school when there appear to be no gender differences in achievement in earlier years is worthy of investigation. There are potentially many reasons why this occurs including career aspirations, interest, and attitudes. One factor explored in this study was the gender composition of classes in Years 7 to 9. Data were collected from students in a single-sex boy's school, a single-sex girl's school and a coeducational school. Data revealed differences in attitude to mathematics with girls in the single-sex school having the most positive attitudes and girls in the coeducation setting having the least positive attitudes.

The practices of effective primary school teachers including students with Down syndrome in their mathematics classes are largely unexplored and many teachers feel unprepared to teach students with intellectual disabilities. A study with cohorts in Victoria and the ACT is underway and here we report a subset of findings concerning the support teachers claim to require. There was an identified need for mathematics specific resources and strategies but a strong endorsement of inclusion as an appropriate practice in primary mathematics. [This research was conducted as a partnership between ACER Foundation and Australian Catholic University with generous funding from Gandel Philanthropy.]

The Total Survey Error (TSE) paradigm provides a framework that supports the effective planning of research, guides decision making about data collection and contextualises the interpretation and dissemination of findings. TSE also allows researchers to systematically evaluate and improve the design and execution of ongoing survey programs and future investigations. As one of the key aims of a TSE approach is to find a balance between achieving a survey with minimal error and a survey that is affordable, it is unlikely that a considerable number of enhancements to regular programs of research can be made in a single cycle. From an operational perspective, significant alterations to data collection processes and procedures have the potential to create more problems than they solve, particularly for large-scale, longitudinal or complex projects. Similarly, substantial changes to the research approach can have an undesired effect on time series data where it can become difficult to disentangle actual change from change due to methodological refinements. The University Experience Survey (UES) collects feedback from approximately 100,000 undergraduate students at Australian universities each year. Based on previous reviews of the UES, errors of measurement appeared to make less of a contribution to TSE than the errors of representation that were associated with the survey. As part of the 2013 and 2014 collections, the research design was modified to directly address coverage errors, sampling errors and non-response errors. The conceptual and operational approach to mitigating the errors of representation, the cost effectiveness of the modifications to the research design and the outcomes for reporting will be discussed with practical examples from the UES. A bibliography is included.

Declining participation rates in advanced mathematics courses and STEM-related occupations has been an issue in Australia for some time, particularly for females. As students continue to disengage with mathematics and complain about its usefulness, it is important to explore what we can do to stem the tide of departing students. One area worthy of investigation is students' interest in mathematics including whether they are able to name a mathematical role model in their lives. Forty-three students in Years 7 to 9 from three schools were asked to name people they knew who were interested in mathematics. There was a strong bias towards male figures (44 to 17), particularly fathers and male peers.

The mathematics curriculum leader plays an important role in leading the mathematics curriculum in primary schools. They experience successes and face challenges associated with this leadership role. The perceptions that 25 mathematics leaders held about the successes and challenges they experienced whilst participating in a school mathematics project are reported. Main successes included improved mathematics planning practices using key ideas, transformed cultures concerning mathematics education, and greater use of quality tasks. The main challenge related to sustaining improvements and maintaining the profile of mathematics in school improvement agendas after involvement in the project.

Grades 5/6 students in Melbourne reported the valuing of "achievement," "open-endedness," "relevance," "humanism," "ICT," and "openness" most in mathematics learning. Although prior research suggested that students in East Asia valued "achievement" most as well, there was an observed difference in the nature of this valuing in Australia. Knowledge of what students value reveals the pedagogical potential of values, and also allows teachers to identify values related to effective mathematics learning. Values alignment facilitates further work with these values.