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Background: This study explored the challenges around enacting change in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subject at an Australian higher education institution and examined key elements required to ensure change. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the barriers and levers driving change during the collaboration of discipline experts, in both science and education disciplines and professional staff across education and science faculties to change the delivery of an existing subject within a science faculty, from traditional lectures to an active learning approach. Sample: Participants from the education faculty and science faculty formed the participant interview pool of five academics for this study. Design and Methods: Research design of semi-structured interviews of participants was conducted to answer the research questions. Instruments were used to test the research questions, such as factors to facilitate and support change to teaching a science subject and the elements required for successful interdisciplinary collaboration for bringing about change to the teaching of a science subject. Thematic analyses were conducted on the data responses to answer the research questions. Results: The findings revealed that participants found that factors such as time, resources, understanding of and commitment to the proposed change represented potential barriers to change in the subject. The existence of multiple, time-sensitive champions, additional human resources and a collaborative network of participants, however, were identified as some of the key elements that supported enacting changes to a science subject. Conclusions: The findings of the study provide insights into interdisciplinary collaborations enacting changes to the teaching of a science subject. For instance, the need for establishment of a dynamic network of participants engendered with multiple interdisciplinary expertise, as well as the need for a change champion and implementation champion, throughout the curriculum redesign, planning and implementation phases of the change.

This systematic quantitative literature review explores the use of story in early childhood religious education to inform the research question "What are the pedagogical benefits of using story in religious education in the early years of primary school?" Searches were conducted across multiple databases and individual journals for publications dated from 1970 to 2019. Literature on the key areas of: (1) early childhood; (2) story; and (3) religious education were analysed to understand their unique perspectives and ways they overlap and connect, with an emphasis on seeking literature which connected all three areas. The study revealed the areas of religious education, the use of story and the field of early childhood as three distinct areas of research with connection points, and gaps in the literature connecting the pedagogical use of story for religious education in early primary education. The literature identifies the use of story as effectively engaging and connecting children to religious education in a pedagogically appropriate way for the early childhood age group. Further to this, benefits were found not only in faith development and biblical literacy, but also in learning, literacy development, empathy, and engagement with differing worldviews. The Australian context was a focus of the literature review providing insight for religious education in Christian schools which may be applied to other contexts in public schools, or internationally.

The idea of computational thinking as skills and universal competence which every child should possess emerged last decade and has been gaining traction ever since. This raises a number of questions, including how to integrate computational thinking into the curriculum, whether teachers have computational thinking pedagogical capabilities to teach children, and the important professional development and training areas for teachers. The aim of this paper is to address the strategic issues by illustrating a series of computational thinking workshops for Foundation to Year 8 teachers held at an Australian university. Data indicated that teachers' computational thinking understanding, pedagogical capabilities, technological know-how and confidence can be improved in a relatively short period of time through targeted professional learning.

Neoliberalism exults the ability of unregulated markets to optimise human relations. Yet, as David Graeber has recently illustrated, it is paradoxically built on rigorous systems of rules, metrics and managers. The potential transition to a market-based tuition and research-funding model for higher education in Australia has, not surprisingly, been preceded by managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation (rendered hereafter as "MMB") in the internal functioning of universities in the last decade. This article explores the effects of MMB on the lives of academics, the education of students, and the culture and functioning of universities. By examining some of the labour activities of academics, work scheduling and time use, we demonstrate that MMB reduces the efficiency and quality of academic teaching, research and administration. Even more worrying, by qualitatively assessing the language, values and logic increasingly present in the academic culture of higher education in Australia, we show that MMB does not simply fail to improve universities or accurately assess academic achievement, it replaces the core values of education with hollow bureaucratic instrumentalism.

In this article, the authors suggest a number of ways in which NAPLAN could be made into a more engaging and enriching experience for both teachers and students. They highlight the importance of making productive errors in the interests of furthering learning. The authors share the journey they have taken as they attempted to get their teeth into NAPLAN, to consider what they might learn from it, how they might use what they learn, and how teachers might best prepare for the NAPLAN assessment, at the same time as "teaching well."

The continued engagement of the professional workforce as supervisors is critical for the sustainability and growth of work-integrated learning activities in university degrees. This study investigated factors that influence the willingness and ability of clinicians to continue to supervise clinical exercise physiology work-integrated learning opportunities and makes recommendations for future supervision engagement. Themes identified from a supervisor survey were: staffing and time availability; administrative processes and support; student quality, knowledge and attitudes; student learning experiences; supporting the profession; service benefit; clinical personal benefit; funding; workplace support; staff qualifications and experience; prior positive experiences; future recruitment; facilities and infrastructure; and supporting the university. The responses resulted in five key recommendations for future enhanced and sustainable placement supervision. These were: adoption of efficient supervision structures; development and use of a competency checklist; enhanced recognition of supervision; standardized placement paperwork and assessment tools; and broadening of placement scheduling.

This case study explored how students disaffected with their school experience were scaffolded during their participation in a middle-school mathematics classroom. Of particular interest were the level of student engagement in discussion about the mathematics being presented by the teacher and the approach to doing mathematics being displayed by the students. It was found that scaffolding students' participation in middle-school mathematics promoted student engagement in discussion about mathematics and in the doing of mathematics. This was evidenced through increased participation by students in classroom discussions about mathematics, in the making and testing of conjectures related to mathematics tasks, and in the quantifying and modelling of mathematical tasks.

Eight Catholic school communities across Australia nominated teacher identity characteristics aligned with an understanding of Catholic school mission from a local community perspective. A data mining process (Leximancer Manual in https://www.leximancer.com. Version 2.23, 2017) of the collated narratives from focus groups (n = 73) highlighted the mission concept, 'School', with a frequency of 295 appearances. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the concept revealed characteristics of tradition, integration and participation and characterised their essence as 'a shared sacred mission'. Participant utterances that referenced teacher characteristics and frequencies within the narrative focused on: Community (38), Faith (13), and Life (9). Community utterances identified teacher 'connections with students', 'staff relationships', 'associations with the broader community' and 'involvement in the life of the school'. Faith was expressed in teacher 'leadership', 'Gospel values', 'spiritual growth', 'experience of church and connection with the charism of the Religious Institute.' Life involved teachers advancing student 'welfare', 'service', 'tradition' and 'advocacy'. Overall, teacher identity characteristics integral to mission were discussed as Relational Agency, Equity and Authenticity. Relational Agency entailed facilitation of student capabilities; Relational Equity enacted social justice values of inclusion and respect; and Relational Authenticity advanced and witnessed a foundational meaning system aligned with Catholic school tradition. The implications of the findings identified a case for relationships as being pertinent to mission for all teachers in Catholic schools, but teachers of Religious Education in particular.

* OBJECTIVE: To identify the smallest worthwhile effect (SWE) of exercise therapy for people with nonspecific chronic low back pain (CLBP). * DESIGN: Discrete choice experiment * METHODS: The SWE was estimated as the lowest reduction in pain that participants would consider exercising worthwhile, compared to not exercising, ie, effects due to natural history and other components (eg, regression to the mean). We recruited English-speaking adults in Australia with nonspecific CLBP to our online survey via e-mail obtained from a registry of previous participants and advertisements on social media. We used discrete choice experiment to estimate the SWE of exercise compared to no exercise for pain intensity. We analyzed the discrete choice experiment using a mixed logit model and mitigated hypothetical bias through certainty calibration, with sensitivity analyses performed with different certainty calibration thresholds. * RESULTS: Two hundred and thirteen participants completed the survey. The mean age (±standard deviation [SD]) was 50.7±16.5, median (interquartile range) pain duration 10 years (5-20), and mean pain intensity (±SD) was 5.8±2.3 on a 0-to-10 numerical rating scale. For people with CLBP, the SWE of exercise was a between-group reduction in pain of 20%, compared to no exercise. In the sensitivity analyses, the SWE varied with different levels of certainty calibration, from 0% without certainty calibration to 60% with more extreme certainty calibration. * CONCLUSION: This patient-informed threshold of clinical importance could guide the interpretation of findings from randomized trials and meta-analyses of exercise therapy compared to no exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are being placed under increasing pressure to produce employable work ready graduates who are able to cope in a rapidly changing work environment. This has resulted in universities offering their undergraduate students the opportunity to gain business acumen and real world experience by undertaking work-integrated learning (WIL) as part of their learning. This paper proposes a three stage framework to effectively embed WIL into an undergraduate accounting program. Through careful planning and implementation in three accounting courses, students are encouraged to build essential discipline knowledge and transferable generic skills like communication, teamwork and problem-solving. The WIL framework developed seeks to narrow the expectations gap between industry, academia and students. It supports the development of graduates who can respond to rapidly changing economic circumstances, making them more employable and adaptable at the workplace.

In this brief article, Peter, Larissa and Doug present a single-page scaffold that challenges us to think of the mathematical proficiencies in a whole new way. By thinking of the proficiencies as verbs, they can be seen as purposeful learner actions and offer clues as to what it might mean to be a mathematician.

Classroom talk is regarded as essential in engaging and developing student understandings in the domain of mathematics. The processes of classroom talk may occur in quite different ways, ways that shape particular opportunities for learning mathematics. Little is known about how the talk produced in innovative approaches to education mediates the teaching/learning process and promotes student engagement in the practices of mathematics. Situated within a larger study that employed multiple forms of data collection to determine whether a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning could be employed by a sample of teachers to enrich the teaching and learning of mathematics, this paper examines how two teachers used talk to scaffold student learning and how this talk provided students with different opportunities for learning. In the analyses of talk produced in Year 7 classrooms we use Renshaw and Brown's (in press) discourse characterizations to make visible how different forms of talk were being used in the classrooms as thinking devices and as means to explain and generate understanding. We also employ Bakhtin's notion of "voice" to consider whether the formats of talk used in each classroom facilitate learning in the domain of mathematics. We conclude that the intentional and reflective use of classroom talk affords students a range of opportunities to develop their mathematical thinking and to facilitate engagement with the practices of mathematics. (Contains 2 figures.)

The necessary learning actions new employees must undertake to meet the performance requirements of their new job may be said to constitute a constructivist epistemology of necessity. This view forms a useful basis of inquiry into new employee workplace learning as it seeks to explicate the significance of what new employees "do" in and through their learning. This paper briefly outlines the rationale and findings of one such inquiry. It proposes that what new employees "do" may be best conceptualised as exercising their epistemological agency. An interpretive analysis of this "doing", through a framework that identified the mediating factors of new employee learning, characterises the new employee-learner as a manager of their personal workplace learning agenda. It gives new emphasis to the role of the individual in the social construction of knowledge. Such an understanding of the new employee-learner suggests possibilities for enhancing a sociocultural constructivist view of learning that seeks to account for the personal purpose and consequence of learning.