Tall Stories: The Metaphorical Nature of Everyday Talk

This article questions some popular cultural assumptions about the nature of everyday discourse. It claims that such discourse is in fact richly metaphorical and that, through the operation of metaphor, we fictionalise ourselves as we talk. Because literary writing has dominated our culture and curriculum, English teachers have not been encouraged to explore an aspect of language that is at the core of how we think and behave.     

Google Scholar's Coverage of the Engineering Literature 10 years Later

In 2008 Meier and Conkling first tested Google Scholar's coverage of the engineering literature against citations gathered from the Compendex database. Since that time, other studies have used the same methodology and found improvement in Google Scholar's coverage. This study uses engineering dissertations from Proquest Dissertations & Theses to create a data set of citations for the comparison of fee-based databases, Compendex and Scopus, against Google Scholar. From 1950 to 2017 Google Scholar outperformed both Compendex and Scopus in discoverability of citations in nine engineering subjects. These results have implications for collection management and information literacy program planning for librarians.     

Aretaic pedagogy: how we can transform the aesthetics of good teaching

Abstract

The article aims to introduce the epistemology of aretaic pedagogy as a refreshing paradigm of good teaching, situating at its centrality, instead of a knowledge-based perspective, a virtue-based approach to education. Its origins are in Aristotelian virtue ethics, which premise the acquisition of intellectual and ethical virtues as the highest good of the good life. Aretaic pedagogy is therefore constructed on the basis of the theory of virtue development and deliberates teaching as an ethical, virtue-driven practice. Its epistemological framework depends largely on three components: the notion of teaching as a practice, the embodiment of internal goods in teaching/learning and the harnessing of students’ private knowledge. Dialogue, beauty and play are proposed as the main internal goods within the students’ learning, which can act as key sources of their practice of virtues. As concerns a teacher’s pedagogical presence, it is argued from a dual professional prospect: the technological and the ethical. Therefore, a teacher is called to exercise a nexus of epistemic, technical, poetic and ethical virtues.     

Examining the Beliefs and Practices of Four Effective Australian Primary Science Teachers

With trends across many countries still indicating the decline of student interest in school science and diminishing numbers of students studying science beyond the compulsory years, it seems that the field remains in crisis. To address these unfortunate trends, there needs to be a greater emphasis on science education research that highlights the good news stories. For example, what are science teachers actually doing in their classrooms to increase student interest and understanding in science? This article focuses on the science teaching beliefs and practices of four Western Australian primary school teachers. The teachers were nominated by a professional colleague as effective practitioners. The study involved gathering information from classroom observations and teacher interviews to provide background information to assist in developing understandings of these teachers and their science teaching. This article reports on the initial findings drawn from Deanne A, Kate B, Lisa C and Rebecca D. Their practices were organised into the following six categories: classroom environment; conceptual knowledge and procedural skills; teaching strategies and approaches; student-specific considerations; teacher-specific considerations; and context-specific considerations. In examining the components contributing to these categories, it was evident that the teachers’ beliefs, as well as the contextual factors inherent in each classroom environment, influenced how and why they teach science in the ways they do.     

Non-traditional students in tertiary education: inter-disciplinary collaboration in curriculum and pedagogy in community services education in Australia

Education policy in Australia has accelerated its aim to increase participation of under-represented groups in tertiary education including students who are culturally and linguistically diverse and have low socio-economic status. These students generally have not had prior access to privileged academic discourse, which can further disadvantage them in their participation and progress in tertiary education. In this article, we outline a cross-discipline curriculum initiative and pedagogy that draws on critical literacy and the metaphor of discourse community to integrate language and academic skills into community services qualifications. We argue that this – supports the genuine participation of under-represented (non-traditional) students. It aspires to not only support students’ entry into the new academic terrain, but to enable students to adopt a critical stance to the discourses in which they are learning to participate. This we argue is crucial, when expertise is not just a way of meeting its ostensible purposes, but is also a way of exercising power. Although we report on the application of this initiative to entry level curricula (Diploma), we suggest that it has relevance and application to Bachelor levels in a range of disciplines, both in supporting pedagogy and for transition to Bachelor level study.     

Developing a comprehensive model of risk and protective factors that can predict spelling at age seven: findings from a community sample of Victorian children

The paper reports on a study designed to develop a risk model that can best predict single-word spelling in seven-year-old children when they were aged 4 and 5. Test measures, personal characteristics and environmental influences were all considered as variables from a community sample of 971 children. Strong concurrent correlations were found between single-word spelling and single-word reading while expressive language and, to a lesser extent, receptive language were less strongly correlated. Predictors of single-word spelling at ages 4 and 5 were dominated by child-related factors such as letter knowledge, a history of speech impairment and expressive language along with maternal word reading ability. Based on the strength of the predictive factors identified at both age 4 and 5, our results provide initial support for using a targeted model for screening pre-schoolers at risk of not mastering spelling in a timely manner.