Christian Education Research Centre

This paper is grounded in the axiom, that if narrative tells the clearest truth about the conscious layers of humanity and the truth a culture holds at a particular time, then it is poetry that provides the clearest revelation of the unconscious lies that a culture clings to as it changes. This is no more evident than in the poetry of the Australian poet, Chris Mansell, and in particular her poems, Where Edges Are and The Good Soldier. Her poetry not only reflects the crisis of national identity Australia is currently embroiled in as it “struggles to free itself from residual colonial ideologies,” (Huggan 2007:ix), but the role of woman in this societal shift and their place in the ‘landscape myth’ of the ‘lucky country’. Up until recently the Australian national myth has at its core a narrative dominated by the laconic outback male ‘cattle drover’, who is able to survive in the desert landscape of the outback through sheer determination and subduing the environment and native inhabitants. His wife also surfaces in this mythic schema as a quiet, intelligent, bored and subjugated partner. However, this ‘outback survival narrative’ is being eroded as Australians begin to contemplate their national identity. This national questioning is reflected in poetry and literature, in which there is a subtextual metaphoric shift from ‘desert isolation’ to a proxemics myth related to the sea. Mansell’s poetry is arguably one of the clearest socio-psychological ‘places of mythic voice’ whereby the actual pain of female liminality as ‘archetypal echo’ in the Australian myth is morphing from out of a ‘belly of the whale’ experience’, into a driving force whereby new “myths, metaphors, symbols, rituals and philosophic systems” (Deardorff 2004:13) are being generated. Through Mansell’s poetry and mythic imagery, a lie is changing into a potential for living.

This chapter reviews literature on contemporary early childhood theory, and pedagogy, and uses it to suggest implications for best practise in nurturing children’s spiritual awareness and faith formation in faith -based early childhood settings. The paper suggests alternative pedagogies to traditional approaches overreliance on whole group Bible story pedagogy for three to five year olds. Reflections on lived experiences will be used to illustrate the findings of the literature review.

Collective Design seeks to explore how new forms of Collective Intelligence, arising from the web, allows mass participation in design. Regarding design we have a well established grounding for understanding how design works through the use of representations. Likewise, collective intelligence via certain crowdsourcing examples has demonstrated that a diverse crowd can trump ability groups, when the conditions are right. In the literature, crowdsourcing is the leading lens bridging design with collective intelligence. However in crowdsourcing design there is less focus on the role of shared representations, subsequently any collective diversity is mitigated by the models that govern the extraction of this intelligence. We propose that more effective design in collective intelligence lies in the crowd’s ability to generate meaningful contributions via the content of shared representations. In order to investigate this, the current paper examines data collected from a pilot study in which a representationally rich online collaborative presentation tool is used to provide a shared design space. The analysis presented applies our previously established semiotic framework to identify potential patterns in the meaningful communication of image based design information.

It has long been recognized that people need to be literate to function optimally within society. The 21st century has seen technology increase the complexity of environments, so that a literate person must now possess a wide range of abilities, competencies, and literacies. These have often been referred to as “21st-century skills” and while many of them are not new, the extent to which individual success depends on having such skills is new. The current study seeks to explore ways in which technology can be used to increase literacy and enhance 21st century skills in students.

1193 students attending Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea were placed in small groups and asked to make a movie in English. This constructivist, real-world, group-based project required students to collaboratively negotiated their way through a variety of language, technical and social challenges using a wiki. We can conclude from this study that collaborative projects, supported by web 2.0 tools, can deliver worthwhile learning.

Students reported that the project; was interesting and rewarding, improved their relationships with classmates, encouraged teamwork, improved English skills, facilitated positive attitudes and the development of ICT skills. Students experienced improved technical, collaborative, leadership, critical thinking and problem solving skills that enhanced knowledge and contributed to their personal 21st century skill set.

Digital pedagogy has become an increasingly viable, popular and effective component of higher education teaching and learning at Edith Cowan University and elsewhere. Components of digital pedagogy are diverse with new examples, such as podcasts, regularly being created, released for use and adopted in educational, recreational and business contexts. Consequently, university students use much of this technology both in their employment and recreational lives. This study explored processes of using and developing the students’ existing technological skills within their university studies. This paper documents the processes and findings of a collaborative research project that was implemented across six units of study during two semesters in an undergraduate teacher education course. During this period, podcasts were produced and broadcast to purposely increase student reflection and involvement in their own learning processes. These podcasts included question and answer sessions, teacher-student and student-student conversations, lecture presentations, summaries and reviews. Students were provided with opportunities to contribute to and nominate the content of these podcasts. Data was gathered and analysed from both the students’ and the teachers’ perspective about the perceived effectiveness of podcasts. Findings from this data were considered especially in terms of the value-adding nature of podcasts in undergraduate courses to better engage students. Finally, the research study’s results will be compared with findings from other recent studies using podcasts for educational purposes.

Objective: To assess the relative prognostic value of 11 variables including, omega-3, perceived stress, cortisol and sleep duration, in predicting adolescent depression.

Design, Setting and Participants: A cross-sectional study of 444 healthy adolescents aged 16-18 years, from 10 schools within the Northern Sydney and Central Coast regions of New South Wales, Australia. Participants provided blood and saliva samples and completed questionnaires. Statistical classification methods were used to model the relationships between the predictors and depression.

Main Outcome Measures: relative predictive value of each variable in correctly classifying depression.

Results: 6% of boys and 9% of girls were categorised as experiencing severe to extremely severe depression. 4% of boys and 10% of girls were categorised as experiencing severe to extremely severe stress. The mean AM:PM cortisol for boys, 22±101, was higher than that of girls, 11±10. The average omega-3 index for boys, 10.5±3.7, was also higher than that of girls, 7.7±2.6. The average sleep duration of 7.8±1.1 hrs showed no gender differences. The best classification model identified perceived stress as the most significant predictor of depression followed by BMI and omega-3 index. Cortisol ratio was a significant discriminator for boys but not girls. When stress was excluded, shorter sleep duration became a significant discriminator in both boys and girls with waist to hip ratio providing further discrimination in girls only.

Conclusion: The strongest predictor of depression in adolescents was perceived stress followed by higher BMI and lower omega-3 levels. These findings provide a rational basis for establishing program priorities for the prevention and treatment of adolescent depression.

Teachers all over the world are teaching Mathematics in classrooms that may have students grouped by ability. Often the decision to group or not to group is made arbitrarily or because this is the way classes have always been arranged. This book will provide a valuable insight into the impact ability grouping has on the learning environments of Mathematics classrooms. The reader will gain insights into how different stakeholders in the schooling process relate to the concept of academic segregation. Information will be revealed on students? preferred learning environment and the way their attitude to mathematics can be shaped by the way their classes are grouped. Principals, heads of departments, teachers at all levels and academics who are interested in the study of learning environments may be caused to think about and even reconsider their position on the place of ability grouping in the education process.

Meaningful learning in the tertiary sector benefits from the inclusion of a variety of teaching and learning techniques including active learning. Role-plays are one type of active and participatory learning activity that creates interaction between students and a simulated scenario. This reality can serve to open the minds of participants to issues they need to be able to deal with in their chosen careers. This paper reports role-plays in four different learning applications: the first was in a multicultural education class and simulated a microcosm of society where students took on the roles of minority groups. The second reports on a history class that provided simulations of key battles of World Wars One and Two. The third was in mathematics for primary teachers’ class where the students simulated experiences as children in mathematics classrooms, parents and teachers speaking to each other and teachers teaching children. The fourth was in a leadership class for final year Early Childhood and Primary pre-service teachers, and involved role-play of an interview during the management of an unsatisfactory work performance by a staff member. The findings show that in each case the objectives of having students experience a simulation of reality were met.