A number of researchers have explored the role and nature of design in education, proposing a diverse array of life cycle models. Design plays subtly different roles in each of these models. The learning design research community is shifting its attention from the representation of pedagogical plans to considering design as an ongoing process. As…

Understanding teachers' pedagogical choice provides a new insight into the influences on student achievement. This paper presents a sociological framework developed from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens that identify the complex social interactions which surround teacher's work. The framework examines teachers' potential to act…

This paper is theoretical in orientation and explores the limitations of the current field of mathematics education which has been dominated by social theories of learning. It is proposed that the field is approaching its limits for these theories and there is a need for shift that moves from the idiosyncratic possibilities of subjective meaning…

Public policy discourses claim that there is a "crisis" in the literacy and numeracy levels of the Australian workforce. In this paper, we propose a methodology for examining this "crisis" from a critical perspective. We draw on findings from an ongoing research project by the authors which investigates production workers'…

Social moderation involves teachers gathering together to discuss their judgements of the quality of student work and to reach agreement regarding the standard awarded. This qualitative study conducted over a three-year period investigated the social practice of moderation and the influence on teachers' judgements of students' work. An initial…

Much of the research conducted on the use of interactive whole-class technologies in primary school classroom focuses on teacher-to-student interactions. This paper, drawing on a social theory of learning, reports on a qualitative case study undertaken with two primary school classes in one school in New South Wales, Australia where the…

In this article, the author tells the story of her search for appropriate tools to conceptualise policy work. She had set out to explore the relationship between the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Australia's education policy, but early interview data…

Over the past twenty years much work has been done by teachers of secondary English to describe and make explicit the semiotic resources used to access and critique the discourses of powerful institutions such as schooling. At the same time, however, there has been a growing recognition that the rhetorical resources needed for adolescents to…

The implementation of a new mathematics syllabus in the elementary context is problematic, especially if it contains a new content area. A professional development model, Transformative Teaching in the Early Years Mathematics (TTEYM) was specifically developed to support the implementation of the new Patterns and Algebra strand. The model was…

This paper considers communicative language teaching in relation to what Coyle (2005) describes as the "legacy" of the communicative approach--the dissolution of clearly defined parameters that frame and structure how individuals understand, discuss, and research language teaching in the context of the "communicative…

The thought of Samuel Messick has influenced language testing in 2 main ways: in proposing a new understanding of how inferences made based on tests must be challenged, and in drawing attention to the consequences of test use. The former has had a powerful impact on language-testing research, most notably in Bachman's work on validity and the…