Universities are under stress and pressures to critically evaluate and reform curriculum and the way learning and teaching are implemented. Tensions appear to exist among the external pressures, the organisational structure of universities and their daily operations that are often conflicted and appear to work against coherence and depth in…

The purpose of this study is to explore what the role of a health and physical education (HPE) specialist teacher in the primary school entails. The new Australian Curriculum: HPE Framework requires schools and teachers to implement the HPE key learning area. Many self-perceived physical education (PE) teachers have voiced concern about not…

This paper presents findings from the large-scale study "Literacy Teacher Educators: Their Backgrounds, Visions, and Practices" that includes 28 literacy/English teacher educators (LTEs) from four countries. The participants were interviewed three times and shared their course outlines. Six pre-service LTEs who use a constructivist…

This paper reports on a semester-long study that explored the experience of a group of local and international students from multiple disciplines, and their teachers, in a core Intercultural Communication undergraduate course of 550 students in which there is an orientation to learning, teaching and assessment that seeks to develop students'…

Digital technology is reshaping the way higher education subjects are taught, including design. Various design disciplines use studio teaching as a pedagogy to educate students for professions in art and design. Studio teaching bases a high premium on face-to-face interactions which guide learning through dialogue and feedback on individual work.…

Higher education courses designed to equip students to work effectively with Indigenous peoples by teaching about racism and inequality often encounter resistance to these concepts. In particular, students argue that individual and structural racisms, and their own white privilege, are 'not their fault'. This article examines different forms of…

This paper describes a pedagogical experiment in which a suite of novel blended learning strategies was used to replace the traditional role of design tutors in a first year architectural design studio. The pedagogical objectives, blended learning strategies and outcomes of the course are detailed. While the quality of the student design work…

Early adolescence marks a developmental period during which there is a window of opportunity to explicitly teach and make a significant difference in a young person's development of social and emotional competencies (SECs). All students can benefit from the inclusion of SECs and failing to develop such SECs can result in poor outcomes in several…

Thirty pre-service teachers took part in a nine-week university course focussed on the benefits of inclusive education and the techniques needed to successfully implement it. The Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion Scale (TATIS), Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (CIES), and Teacher's Efficacy in Implementing Inclusive Practices (TEIP)…

This paper investigates the language of the 2009 NSW Stage 6 English Syllabus. I argue that the language of the syllabus aims to create two distinct subjects: Subject English, that is, what students learn; and the subject position of its students, that is, what students are expected to become. Analysis reveals themes of personal development and…

In February 2020, the Ministry of Education asked the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) to examine the curriculum-levelling construct that sits at the heart of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). A key goal of the research was to investigate, whether-- and if so, how--the construct helps (or hinders)…

In 2015, a new MTeach coursework unit, "Numeracy for Learners and Teachers," was introduced at Monash University. The impetuses for this unit were the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership numeracy standards for graduate teachers, and the inclusion of numeracy as a general capability in the Australian Curriculum. In…

Western Australia introduced a new Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) Music course for Year 11 and 12 students in 2009. The construction of the course was protracted due to political interference at the ministerial level, input from vested interests within the music teaching community and adverse publicity in the wider community.…

Teachers in rural and remote schools face many challenges including those relating to distance, isolation and lack of professional development opportunities. This article examines a project where mathematics and science teachers were provided with professional development opportunities via video conferencing to help them use syllabus documents to…

Neoliberalism exults the ability of unregulated markets to optimise human relations. Yet, as David Graeber has recently illustrated, it is paradoxically built on rigorous systems of rules, metrics and managers. The potential transition to a market-based tuition and research-funding model for higher education in Australia has, not surprisingly,…