This practice report describes a 12-week stand-alone course designed to address the challenges university students face in foreign language classes. Adopting principles of transformative language learning, course content, activities and resources were designed and implemented to dispel myths and preconceptions regarding language instruction,…

This article examines curriculum and practice in Australian secondary classroom music education, in order to trace the inclusion of, and provision for, students with learning orientations based on popular music forms. A 60-year period of curriculum reform, matriculation statistics and literature is surveyed with a focus on the state of New South…

Increased demand for counselling services has escalated the need for quality counsellor education programs. Striving to achieve quality in course design is a process not often articulated publicly. To address this gap, the design and development of a counsellor education course is described and includes the sources of knowledge that influenced its…

Catholic Studies is a religious education course used in senior high schools in New South Wales, Australia. The course is not counted for university entrance but meets the requirement for students to undertake religious study whilst in catholic schools. This paper examines the perceptions of teachers on why students take the course and what parts…

Objective: To examine whether the completion of a course of study relating to preventive health and lifestyle risk factors was associated with alterations in health behaviours. Design: Within-group intervention, repeated-measures design. Setting: Health behaviours of university students studying a course focused on health and well-being. Method:…

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…

Curriculum design in higher education environments, namely the consideration of aims, learning outcomes, syllabus, pedagogy and assessment, can often be ad hoc and driven by informal cultural habits. Academics with disciplinary expertise may be resistant to (or ignorant of) pedagogical approaches beyond existing practice. In an environment where…

Using a mixed-methods approach the authors compared the associated practices of senior physics teachers (n = 7) and students (n = 53) in a 1:1 laptop environment with those of senior biology teachers (n = 10) and students (n = 125) also in a 1:1 laptop environment, in seven high schools in Sydney, NSW, Australia. They found that the physics…

This paper revisits a successful short-course in academic literacy that was conducted for 50 "disadvantaged" students enrolled in the first year of an education degree at an Australian regional university (see Hirst, Henderson, Allan, Bode & Kocatepe, 2004). Based on a sociocultural approach to learning and drawing on a…

A review of the course offerings of the Workers Educational Association of South Australia since 1917 depicts the changing interests and needs of adult participants over the past 60 years--from liberal studies through practical skill acquisition to personal enrichment. The survey shows how the concept of what constitutes education has changed. (SK)

Describes a course designed for students to gain knowledge with a degree of relevance by providing opportunities for student appreciation of the physics associated with features in everyday life. (GS)

Described is the development of science courses for Australian secondary colleges. Included are synopses and course content for all units of physics, chemistry, geology, agriculture, astronomy and biology which have been developed to date. (SL)

Describes a series of health studies courses for teacher trainees and outlines a health studies secondary methods course. (GS)

Described is an integrated physical science course being developed for Australian high schools. Included are the course structure, explanation of three major units of the course, and the basic concerns prompting the development of the new course. (SL)

This course, one of 16 sequential courses comprising phase one of a part-time Bachelor of Arts degree program in Australian Studies, focuses on debates about Australia and Australian national character from 1788 to the present. It also introduces students to the forms of intellectual debate and the skills of essay writing. The course is designed…