Very few professional areas in Australia attract as much political, media and community attention as teaching, and by association, few areas of professional training attract as much attention as initial teacher education. Recently, the Next Steps: Report of the Quality Teacher Education Review (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2022)…

This article explores the dynamics of difference-making in a regional Australian town. Despite Australia's high levels of cultural diversity, many rural and regional areas remain predominantly "white" spaces, presided over by people of Anglo-Celtic ancestry but with small populations of indigenous Australians. Over the past decade,…

A digital disconnect perspective is founded on an assumption that technology use in the home is frequent, creative and generative, and that technology use in the early childhood centre should be the same as that found in the home. However, such arguments divert our attention from understanding the nature of the setting and thereby from an…

When gathering data for the design and evaluation of physical learning environments, there is a significant challenge in traversing, or translating, architect/designer language and stakeholders' verbal accounts of their expectations, preferences and experiences. In a series of studies used to provide data for both the evaluation of existing spaces…

Students with AD/HD experience difficulty concentrating in the classroom due to unwanted behaviours. This article focuses on what six Australian adolescent boys have to say about teacher and teaching factors that enabled them to regain focus (if distracted) and concentrate on classroom learning. A multiple, instrumental case-study was used to…

Students' views about teaching, learning, and school experiences are important considerations in education. The purpose of this study was to examine students' perceptions of teachers who create and maintain safe and supportive learning environments. To achieve this, a survey was conducted with 360 students to capture students' views on their…

The purpose of this article is to explore the complex interrelations between educators' work environments and their experiences as an entryway for thinking differently about workforce stability and sustainability. Concepts of macro- and micropolitics (drawn from the work of Deleuze and Guattari) are used to explore one educator's experiences in…

Online environments are transforming learning, including doctoral education. Yet the ways in which the PhD experience is shaped and transformed through these digital modes of engagement is seldom addressed, and not systematically understood. In this article, we explore PhD students' perceptions and use of digital tools. Drawing on the results of…

From a perspective of social practice, learning is a socially constituted practice that is imbued with socio-culturally significant meanings and shaped by the values and norms shared within a community of learners. This focus group study examines the role of e-learning technologies in mediating the social practice of learning among coursework…

To improve employment outcomes for adults with autism spectrum disorder, it is necessary to identify factors associated with successful transition to work from the perspectives of the individual and from those who work with or support them. This study involved focus groups with adults with autism spectrum disorder (n = 9) participating in a 3-year…

Student supervision is a key factor underpinning the success of work-integrated learning programs. Supervisory responsibilities can be shared across a number of stakeholders including university staff and host/workplace supervisors. While there have been attempts to understand the roles played by each of these stakeholders, little research has…

This study investigates and compares elements of creativity in secondary schools and classrooms in Australia and Singapore. Statistical analysis and qualitative investigation of teacher, student and leadership perceptions of the emergence, fostering and absence of creativity in school learning environments is explored. This large-scale…

This research examines how the pedagogical orientations of teachers affect technology adoption in the classroom. At the same time, the authors account for the stage of concern that teachers are experiencing regarding the use of the technology, their access to the technology and the level of schooling at which they teach.The authors' investigation…

This article investigates 8-and 9-year-old girls' use of the popular game "Minecraft" at home and school, particularly the ways in which they performatively "bring themselves into being" through talk and digital production in the social spaces of the classroom and within the game's multiplayer online world. We explore how the…

Professional development can provide opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge, and to apply them to practice in a sustainable way. However, delivery of professional development needs to consider the philosophies and pedagogies of training recipients, and activities should be tailored to meet their needs. This article reports on an…