This article attempts to synthesize teachers' conceptions-of-teaching and integrate them into a structure for professional development. It presents one route by which a teacher might become more expert at the practice of teaching. Various conceptions-of-teaching theories are considered in the light of how they impact on the practice of teaching.…

This paper analyzes teaching and training in terms of certain basic functions and the typical contingencies that affect those functions in practice. Section 1 shows the interrelationships of teaching, training, and learning. Section 2 explores the kinds of learning problems that the independent learner faces and how a planned course can help to…

Examines the experiences of vocational teachers in postsecondary education, highlighting commonalities among teachers in the United Kingdom and New Zealand; discussing the process by which they move from one occupational context to another, develop new identities as teachers, and become full members of the new professional group; and examining…

One of the challenges facing those responsible for service provision in universities is ensuring that service is provided at the right point in the organisation. Service delivery points can exist at the school/department level, faculty/division level or central unit/university wide level. This does not always follow organisational logic, common…

This paper reports analysis of 2006-2007 on-entry assessment data from the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools Baseline Assessment (PIPS-BLA) of random samples of students in England, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia. The analysis aimed, first, to investigate the validity and reliability of that instrument across countries and sexes, and,…

Educational buildings and grounds can provide a supportive and stimulating environment for the learning process as well as contribute to greater community needs. These issues were addressed at an international conference entitled "Making Space: Architecture and Design for Young Children". Described here are the importance of outdoor…

This paper explores the nature and role of those forms of tertiary education that have been variously described as "transition", "foundation" and "bridging" education. It argues that much of the relevant literature is grounded implicitly or explicitly in technicist and liberal functionalist discourses. It then reviews…

A new classification system for computing education papers is presented and applied to every computing education paper published between January 2004 and January 2007 at the two premier computing education conferences in Australia and New Zealand. We find that while simple reports outnumber other types of paper, a healthy proportion of papers…

The focus of this study was to explore the occupational therapy consultation process used with students on the autistic spectrum attending their regular school. Individual, in-depth interviews with senior occupational therapists were employed to collect the data. Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin,…

In this article the author considers the impact of research and theory on non-dominant minority groups and the influence these have on shaping educators' understanding of the sociocultural, historical, and structural forces that impinge upon their work in the schools and communities they serve. Specifically, she reconsiders the constraints of John…

New Zealand universities have undergone significant structural change accompanied by declining public funding and increasing demands for accountability in recent years. In 2000, one of the country's largest universities redirected resources and funding in a "repositioning" exercise that resulted in redundancies and other consequences…

The year 1998 marked 50 years of doctoral study in New Zealand, and in 1999 I embarked on a history of Ph.D. theses in Education. Influenced by Foucaultian genealogy, this employed a fusion of bibliographic, archival and life-history interview methods. One hundred and eighty-three Education theses were identified and 57 of these graduates…

Social construction of understanding has long been a significant underlying principle of learning and teaching, and while there are many models for the design of online activities to promote this, there are considerably fewer models for the facilitation of such dialogue. This paper examines some of these facilitation models from the point of view…

Most studies on the history of educational ideas have focused on what influential educational theorists and policy-makers have said and written at particular times, constructing a "view from the top." The project from which this article is derived focused on the ways theoretical debates have been "lived" by teachers in New…

The Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) and the field of philosophy of education seemed like a natural junction in this author's life. They provided a means by which he could begin to think about the relations between education and his own experiences as a student and teacher, and philosophy. Peters has been editor of…