Nine experienced university pre-service teacher educators used a collaborative autoethnography method to reflect on what they say to students on the first day of new classes and how their performance sets up the semester. Our group exchanges provided an opportunity to express long-developing values and practices embedded in individual's teaching…

Purpose: Being literate can change the lives of Australian students. Therefore, graduating effective teachers of literacy is an imperative for Australian schools. Professional experience provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to refine their skills for teaching literacy under the guidance of a mentor teacher. This study investigates from…

Initial teacher education (ITE) providers prepare graduates to be effective classroom practitioners, but there is little contemporary research capturing what this preparation actually looks like for primary (elementary) science education in Australia. Drawing on a broader study, this paper reports on teacher educators' practices and perspectives…

Pre-service teachers' instructional self-efficacy, that is, their belief in their own ability to foster learning with instructional tactics, is one predictor of classroom effectiveness. This qualitative investigation used focus groups to gather data from fifty-one preservice teachers enrolled in one Bachelor of Education (Primary) degree in…

Although teacher librarians play a role as literacy and literature educators in schools, little research attention is given to this role. In addition, the use of book discussion in school libraries to enhance reading engagement is not often closely considered as an educative practice. This paper draws on qualitative research findings from…

Video Self-Modelling (VSM) and Video Peer-Modelling (VPM) have proved effective when teaching pro-social behaviours to students with disability, individually and during whole-class instruction. In Victoria, Australia, this has been achieved in specialist schools using a television programme known as meTV. This study examined the application of…

This study explored how overimitation and collaboration interact in 3- to 6-year-old children in Westernized (N = 48 in Experiment 1; N = 26 in Experiment 2) and Indigenous Australian communities (N = 26 in Experiment 2). Whether working in pairs or on their own rates of overimitation did not differ. However, when the causal functions of modeled…

The Australian Curriculum positions literacy as a general capability to be taught across all subject areas. While schools may design agreements and policies to formalise the position of literacy as a whole-school priority, there is relatively limited research guiding the structure and content of these planning documents. We contend that reading…

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify broad overarching feeding styles that parents may use and their effects on pre-school-aged children's healthy and unhealthy snack intake. Design: Cross sectional study Methods: Mothers (n = 611) of children aged 2-7 years (mean age 3.9 years) completed an online survey assessing parent-feeding…

Learning to be an artist or designer is a complex process of becoming. Much of the early phase of "learning to be" occurs during the time emerging artists and designers are students in university art/design programmes, both undergraduate and postgraduate. Recent research reveals that a critical role in assisting students in their…

Play is traditionally considered the foundation of learning in the early years. Because play is characterized by free choice, it can be difficult for adults to ensure all learning is useful for children. The intervention described here took a novel approach to this problematic. It exposed 17 four-year-olds to different adult demonstrations to see…

This paper presents an analysis of the perceptions and actions of five Information Communication Technology (ICT) Education lecturers, at the University of New England (UNE), concerning issues associated with the online teaching to students in rural and remote areas. The authors reflect upon the strategies that support these models and discuss how…

Adolescents possess enormous leadership potential. They are tomorrow's leaders in the workplace, the family, the community, and in government. Increasingly, schools have taken on the significant responsibility of nurturing leadership in young people. Schools are, as van Linden and Fertman (1998) have noted, "hotbeds of leadership…

This paper reports results from a study exploring classroom modelling as an approach to teacher education. In particular, it presents analysis of responses on an observation proforma completed by primary school teachers to indicate what teacher actions they observed when watching modelled lessons and which of those actions they intended to…

As part of a longitudinal study, infant/toddler pretend play development and maternal play modelling were investigated in dyadic context. A total of 21 children were videotaped in monthly play sessions with their mothers, from age 8 to 17 months. Child and mother pretend play frequencies and levels were measured using Brown's Pretend Play…