This paper reports the findings of a project--'Lifelong learning and teacher education'-- undertaken by the Centre for Lifelong Learning, Australian Catholic University, under the auspices of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training. The study was designed to investigate the operationalization of lifelong learning…

Course delivery mediated by information and communication technology (ICT) is increasingly seen as a desirable and cost effective means of providing study opportunities to large numbers of teachers. However, it is unclear to what extent teachers have access to the ICT infrastructure that is required for participation in such study. This paper…

Background: Over the past 20 years, a number of researchers have expressed concern over the lack of confidence and qualifications of primary school teachers to teach PE. Evidently, the influence of personal school PE experiences may play an important role in the development of teachers' confidence to appropriately teach PE. Most research that has…

The Frontline Management Initiative (FMI) provides a framework for competency-based development of frontline managers in Australian enterprises. The FMI's impact on businesses was examined in a national study that included the following activities: focus groups; a national survey of management development and targeted national survey of FMI users;…

This document reports on a project to identify and analyze the desire for professional collegiality and concerns about increasing alienation among members of the Queensland Institute for Educational Administration (QIEA). From a 3-phase workshop involving over 500 participants, 7 major issues were identified: (1) complexity of teaching and…

This paper reports on the objectives and specifications of an "educative leadership" project that aims to synthesize experience, research, and theory and to develop complementary inservice and postgraduate learning materials. Researchers and theorists are now addressing the lack of philosophical machinery in educational administration.…

Drawing on evidence from literature on professional development of teachers in Australia, this document discusses the essential aspects of inservice education and provides a checklist, with illustrative applications, by which to design and evaluate inservice education proposals. The checklist is based on four sets of assumptions relating to…

Over the last decade, research related to personal epistemological beliefs has offered insight into how to promote effective teaching and learning across educational settings. Personal epistemological beliefs reflect an individual's views about what knowledge is, how knowledge is gained, and the degree of certainty with which knowledge can be…

This study was designed to explore students perceptions of how a change in pedagogy influenced learning. The study was undertaken as part of a professional development residency in which a teacher educator worked with the staff of a high school science faculty in an on-site professional development program focusing on classroom teaching and…

The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) is a well-established Australian example of teacher collaborative action research. The aim of the project, which began in a secondary school in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) and later spread to other countries, is to improve the quality of students' classroom learning through practice in…

Teachers can engage in practical reflection through collaboration that enriches their sense of what is feasible and possible, and they can transform their understanding of those realities. Critical reflection, however, requires various forms of assistance. The use of "clinical supervision" over 6 months in 1982 with 14 teachers in 4…

A preliminary study assessed the efficacy of pre-service and in-service early childhood education programs centered on a policy of combining philosophy, theory, and program practice. Questions were designed to: (1) provide data to be used to determine whether early childhood teachers used an understanding of curriculum philosophy and theory as a…

These proceedings of a national Australian conference deal with many aspects of educating gifted and talented students and contain an opening address by I. Mathieson concerning the philosophy of the Queensland (Australia) State Education Department and a statement by James Gallagher, President of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children.…

A review of the research indicates that the interface between the findings from research on teaching and staff development of teachers is an important but neglected one. An improvement in teaching skills calls for an interactive or collaborative mode of professional development which is based on classroom interests and the needs of teachers, with…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a report by the South Australian Committee of Enquiry on education in that state. The committee based its estimates on the situation to be reached in 1981. Because there will be a much smaller increase in school enrollment in the decade of the 70's than in the preceding…