Warren Midgley

Learning and Teaching Styles

An ongoing challenge for instructional and syllabus designers and teachers and facilitators who seek to implement these curricula is finding and maintaining an appropriate balance between differing learning and teaching styles. Differences in cultural and language backgrounds, previous learning and teaching experiences, and the personal characteristics of learners and teachers create an extremely complex milieu at the intersection of learning and teaching in contemporary educational contexts. This chapter explores this issue through an analysis of three different data sets: the experiences of male Saudi nursing students at an Australian university; the role of children, parents and peers, and the natural environment as educators in an alternative school context; and the interaction between a teacher and student in an Australian senior secondary art classroom.

Robot RAL-ly international - Promoting STEM in elementary school across international boundaries using remote access technology

Engaging school children early in STEM activities plays an important role in their choice to study engineering in later years. This paper describes a pilot project where Remote Access Laboratory technology at a university is employed in an inquiry-based learning activity with elementary school children in Japan and Australia. Investigation into how RAL technology facilitated collaborative learning in the K-12 demographic was then examined. Children in Japan designed a track that was constructed by their peers in Australia. The Japanese students then navigated the track in Australia with remotely controlled robots using the RAL system. A number of camera feeds allowed the students to observe the robots and the track. Both groups of students, as well as the participant researchers, took part in co-constructed focus group discussions after the event. A thematic analysis indicates that these activities provide students with opportunities for rich learning experiences in science, math and technology. Engaging young children in STEM activities provides a strong pathway to a better understanding of science concepts and ultimately a career in engineering.

Professional Learning and Development

Professional learning and development hold potential for transformational growth and change for educators, and for enhancing their capacities to build the capabilities of learners. Realising this potential requires an appreciation of the philosophies, theories and practices surrounding professional learning and development and how these may progress a capacity-building agenda. This chapter examines selected conceptualisations of professional learning and development through an interrogation of the data from three research projects in diverse educational and learning contexts: classroom teachers and their work supporting student well-being; yoga teachers and teacher trainers; and circus families and teachers. As a result of the analysis of these data, we draw out the implications for professional learning and development practices that offer opportunities to build capacities.

Searching for gems in the mud: an example of critical reflection on research in education

Abstract This paper presents a critical autoethnographic reflection upon a study that I had previously conducted. The original study reports on research conducted in two classes at a Japanese university on the students’ attitudes towards different forms of addressing a foreign teacher in a conversational English class. The research incorporated a visualisation exercise with a free writing response in an attempt to investigate indirectly student attitudes to various forms of address. The results were inconclusive with respect to the original research objectives, because none of the proposed forms of address was found to be universally acceptable in either class. A report on the research was written, but never published. Two years later, I reflexively interrogated the text of the original report in an attempt to explore the values and beliefs that influenced the design, implementation and reporting of the original research. Thus the original research report became the data for the current study. This paper demonstrates the process that I undertook in critically reflecting upon my own research by presenting the original report (written two years ago), providing notes on my critical reflection upon that research and then discussing the implications of this approach. The paper highlights the mutability of researcher values and beliefs.

Moving towards the effective evaluation of mobile learning initiatives in higher education institutions

Mobile learning is viewed by many institutional leaders as the solution for a student cohort that is demanding an increasing flexibility in study options. These students are fitting study around other aspects of their lives including work and caring responsibilities, or they are studying at a geographical location far removed from the university campus. With ubiquitous connectivity available in many parts of the world and with the incremental improvements in design and affordability of mobile devices, many students are using mobile technologies to access course materials and activities. Even so, there are relatively few formal mobile learning initiatives underway and even fewer evaluations of those initiatives. This is significant because without a rigorous evaluation of mobile learning, it is impossible to determine whether it provides a viable and cost-effective way of accessing courses for both the student and the institution. This chapter examines the broad groupings of uses for mobile devices for learning, before considering the evaluation frameworks that are currently in use. The characteristics, affordances, and issues of these Q1 frameworks are briefly discussed. A project to develop a Mobile Learning Evaluation Framework is introduced, which will consider evaluation from four aspects: (1) pedagogical learning, (2) pedagogical teaching, (3) technical, and (4) organizational.

A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis of Career Adaptability in Career Construction Theory

In this chapter, we begin with an overview of concepts that relates to the theoretical notion career adaptability (Savickas, 2005). Next we raise concerns about conflation of terminology and concepts. We subsequently present a semantic and pragmatic analysis of career adaptability in order to demonstrate its similarities and differences to social cognitive constructs and suggest how its conceptual articulation in the scientific literature may progress. We conclude the chapter by presenting some implications for research and practice, particularly with regards to measurement of constructs.

Changes and Continuities

The multifaceted interplay between changes and continuities has a complex relationship with the opportunities for, and strategies of, capacity-building. This interplay is evident also in efforts to promote long-term and sustainable educational learning and development within and across specific educational sites. This chapter examines this interplay in the reported experiences of the individuals and groups participating in three selected research projects to portray what changes in their lives, what remains constant and continuous and how they use those changes and continuities to develop and refine contextually relevant capacities. This examination is used to distil wider implications for understanding the contemporary character of change and its significance for comprehending capacity-building and enhancing access to, and the outcomes of, educational learning and development.

A philosophical consideration of qualitative career assessment

This chapter entails a consideration of the philosophical dimensions of career assessment as an act of social construction. As a philosophical chapter that necessarily renders our own values in this text, we declare our endorsement of social constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Gergen & Davis, 1985) and the Systems Theory Framework of career development (STF; Patton & McMahon, 2014).

Working Together: An International Collaborative Learning Project for Pre-service Teachers

Julie and her husband have a dream of moving from Australia to a country in South-East Asia, a dream fuelled both by a love of the culture of that region and by a genuine desire to make a difference in the lives of at least some people who are less fortunate than themselves. Julie enrols in a teacher education programme in Australia, with a view to gaining a teaching position somewhere in South-East Asia. In this four-year programme, she learns about pedagogy and curriculum; she takes content courses in her subject areas; she explores learning theories, classroom management skills, assessment principles and professional development strategies. She completes 100 days of professional experience placements in Australian schools. She meets all the requirements of teacher registration. But is she ready to do the job that she really wants to do? Is she prepared to teach in a classroom in South-East Asia?

Consciousness and Capacity-Building

This chapter explores the relationship between consciousness and capacity-building in current educational settings. In particular, it elaborates the distinctive associations between varying levels and states of consciousness on the one hand and the potential to enhance individual and group learning and teaching capabilities on the other. The authors argue that learners and educators are sometimes enabled to share their heightened understandings of themselves and their worlds with many others across multiple educational fields. This argument is illustrated by reference to specific manifestations of consciousness raising among Australian senior secondary art classrooms, Australian teachers promoting their students’ mental health and well-being, and yoga masters and practitioners. The chapter concludes by eliciting implications of this intimate connection between consciousness and capacity-building in contemporary educational contexts.