Professional development has long been viewed as crucial to sustained improvement in the quality of primary science education. This paper considers professional development beyond the context of a specific program by examining how the science teaching efficacy beliefs and practices vary between teachers who both have and have not engaged with…

Academic staff play a fundamental role in the use of online learning environments (OLEs) by students, yet studies investigating the perspectives of staff are limited, and the least common investigations are those comparing the relative perceptions of students and staff. Many OLE evaluations present a point-in-time snapshot of the system, but…

Thirty vocal improviser-educators from Australia (n = 15) and the United States (n = 15) were surveyed for musical background, influences and pedagogical views, and assessed for personality type using the "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator" ("MBTI"). The purpose was to both combine and compare the two groups to identify overall…

This dissertation details the experiences of eight teachers who use Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) in their classrooms. Teachers were asked questions regarding factors that impeded the implementation of WBT, administrators' perceptions prior and after the implementation of WBT, and students' reactions to the implementation of WBT. Since teachers…

This report on the second year of the annual Association for Authentic, Experiential, & Evidenced-Based Learning (AAEEBL) survey provides insights into the landscape of ePortfolio adoption and use within academic settings in the United States and abroad from the perspective of a self-selected sample of the organization's members. This report…

Professional learning (PL) is an essential ingredient in the professional and personal lives of contemporary educators. PL can take many forms but large-scale conferences remain a touchstone in many fields, including languages education. In this paper, we review the evaluation of the 18th biennial conference of the Australian Federation of Modern…

Reports the findings of a survey of work-related attitudes and demographic characteristics of academic staff in nine institutions of higher education in Australia and New Zealand. (Author/WD)

Questionnaires administered to all 4,128 of the teaching staff at nine institutions of higher education in Australia and New Zealand received a 46 percent response rate. Significant differences between the work-related attitudes of staff at colleges and those at universities are attributed to institutional culture rather than demographic…

After brief historical and demographic information on Australia's changing societal patterns, this paper discusses some recent research in South Australia related to the expectations of parents and early childhood teachers concerning the purposes of preschooling and early schooling. A questionnaire, designed for both parents and teachers, was sent…

The possible futures to be faced by postsecondary education in Australia are commented on; the comments are stimulated by concern for a lack of long-range planning in that country. Three sections are included: one on the external factors likely to influence postsecondary education, such as demographic and economic constraints, changes in secondary…

Three separate but related questionnaires were administered to the primary teachers, students in grade 6, and their parents in a predominantly rural Australian school district, to learn how each of the groups saw the role of the primary school. The study revealed serious differences in attitude between teachers and parents, as well as between…

This paper examines issues of Australian teachers' professional development and personal welfare, pressing issues Australian education as a period of unprecedented change has been paralleled by significant and rapid aging of the Australian teaching population. Noting that the average age of teachers is 44 and rising, the paper argues that a major…

An estimated 80%-90% of all Aboriginal students enrolled in the primary and secondary schools of Victoria, Australia, were tested and surveyed to determine their numbers, distribution, attendance, achievement, attitudes, and school leaving patterns. Most of the 1244 Aboriginals surveyed attended state schools and 75% were schooled in rural areas.…

As part of a larger project, this study was conducted to provide a snapshot of the characteristics, size, work patterns, and training needs of the sessional teaching work force in technical and further education (TAFE) in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Victoria, Australia. Twelve research questions formed the basis of two…