The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 1989, 2000) and the new "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics" for senior secondary (ACARA, 2010) highlight the importance of teaching spatial reasoning as early as preschool when mathematics is introduced. Studies have shown that there is a relationship between spatial abilities and…

There is a pantheon of literature and popular panic pointing toward the academic ascent of girls and the decline of boys. On the contrary, the reality is different: Boys are learning and succeeding in many places. Two studies find that the places where boys excel have several common characteristics, including teachers who relate to the boys…

This paper explored the use of video technology as an aid to student engagement in physical education. Working in a comprehensive high school in Australia with disaffected students, the study used the New South Wales Quality Teaching Program as a basis for assessing the effectiveness of video technology in enhancing students' engagement in…

School connectedness has been shown to be an important protective factor in adolescent development, which is associated with reduced risk-taking behavior. Interventions to increase students' connectedness to school commonly incorporate aspects of teacher training. To date, however, research on connectedness has largely been based on student survey…

Objective: Participatory learning strategies are integral to the effectiveness of school-based health education programmes; however, use of such methods is not the norm in teaching. The omission of participatory learning strategies is a common form of programme breakdown leading to erosion of positive learning and behavioural outcomes. Based on a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how WebQuests can be used in physics classes for teaching specific concepts. The study had three stages. The first stage was to develop a WebQuest on Newton's second law. The second stage involved developing a lesson plan to implement the WebQuest in class. In the final stage, the WebQuest was…

Although alienation is widely recognized as a barrier to educational success for many students, prevailing explanations tend to focus on psychological traits and individual deficits, rather than the oppressive economic and social structures bearing down on young people. This paper addresses the issues of youth alienation and student engagement…

This research investigated some determinants of classroom environment in Australian Catholic high schools. The Catholic School Classroom Environment Questionnaire (CSCEQ) was used to assess 7 dimensions of the classroom psychosocial environment: student affiliation, interactions, cooperation, task orientation, order and organization,…

Pimlico State High School is a large urban co-education government secondary school located in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. The school offers a variety of academic and vocationally oriented subjects to over 1,450 students. During the early to mid 1990s, teachers within the Geography Department began searching for new strategies to…

Tasmania is the southernmost state of Australia. Separated from mainland Australia by a 240 km stretch of water, Bass Strait, it has a population of almost 500,000 people. The state Department of Education provides compulsory education through the delivery of educational services to almost 70,000 students in 218 schools and colleges across the…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…