We discuss a recent peer-learning project we undertook as co-conductors of the Young Conservatorium Wind Orchestra at Griffith University. Drawing on current educational theory on peer learning and material from our conducting practice and research, we explore how this approach offers professional conductors the opportunity to work together in an…

We describe two interventions designed to encourage community action with youth in a school and a community service setting. The school intervention took place with a Year 10 class, while the community-based intervention took place with a group of same-sex attracted youth. Using a participatory action research framework, youth in both settings…

An approach to integrating casework and community development includes the practices of empowerment, community building, and social action. The aim is to give disadvantaged people more choice and control over their lives. (Contains 14 references.) (SK)

Includes "Empowering Case Management Clients" (Rose); "Case Management in Rural Japan" (Maeda, Takahashi); "Coordinated-Care Teams" (Brodsky, Sobol); "Comparing Practice in the United States and the United Kingdom" (Sturges); "Business of Case Management Flourishing in the U.S." (Cress); and…

Examines school reform's effects on principals' professional leadership culture, drawing on research findings from 1993 to 1998, and highlighting possible future reforms in Victoria, Australia. Principals are more satisfied with present, than past, work arrangements. Leadership is more strategic and empowering than heroic or hands-on. (44…

A preceptorship program provided professional development for rural nurses in South Australia, with colleagues acting as mentor-preceptors. The program overcame their geographic and professional isolation and equipped them with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to make changes. (SK)

Despite increasing recognition that whole-school approaches to sustainability have an important contribution to make in moving society towards a more sustainable existence, progress in this area remains slow. By examining the practices of the Ananda Marga River School, a small independent school in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland of Queensland, this…

Every way of thinking is both premised on and generative of a way of naming that reflects particular underlying convictions. Over the last 15 years, a way of thinking has reemerged that strives to reposition students in educational research and reform. Best documented in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States, this way of thinking is…

Online learning has infiltrated tertiary learning and teaching applications and offers enrichment in the construction of student learning through opportunities unfathomable for most university teachers when they were students. While all students benefit from online learning components that are supplemental to more traditional modes of teaching, it…

Accuses successive governments of Australia of deriding intellect and the intellectual. Claims the attitude that teaching is everyone's realm and does not require professional expertise rewards itself in forms of ignorance, prejudice and narrowness and has created a critically deprived and impoverished education culture. (NH)

A university-based teacher educator in Australia examines her ethical dilemma in fulfilling a commitment to professional practice grounded in caring without being drawn into endless emotional involvement with students, and offers an alternative conceptualizaiton of caring as mutual empowerment, deliberative relationships, and transparency of…

This book explores everyday social practices and how they influence who people are, their life quality, opportunities and possibilities open and denied, focusing on language and literacy components of social practices. Chapter 1 outlines an approach to thinking about language and culture and how they are related, developed from Gee's (1996)…

Explored issues involved in the implementation of programs designed for boys on the issues of gender and violence through interview data from teachers and male students from two Australian high schools. Findings support a belief that male teachers should work with boys on gender issues because men have a responsibility to challenge the existing…

A manufacturing organization that trained workers on the job using active learning techniques demonstrated to the organization the benefits of training. As a result, a cultural change has taken place and workers believe they have been empowered. (JOW)

Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…