Virtual reality (VR) technologies have the potential to transform astronomy education practices profoundly: new forms of visual representations, perceptual engagement and embodied participation promise authentic learning experiences in formal and informal learning spaces. While a growing body of research studies the educational needs and…

Initial Teacher Education remains the focus of policy reform and research in Australia with the broad aim of improving the quality of pre-service teacher education. There remains dispute about limited evidence justifying ongoing reforms, particularly in relation to gaps in understanding how providers and schools work collaboratively in the joint…

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…

Mathematical modeling plays an increasingly important role both in real-life applications--in engineering, business, the social sciences, climate study, advanced design, and more--and within mathematics education itself. This 2016 volume of "Annual Perspectives in Mathematics Education" ("APME") focuses on this key topic from a…

Empirical evidence in Australia and overseas has established that in many university disciplines, students begin to experience elevated levels of psychological distress in their first year of study. There is now a considerable body of empirical data that establishes that this is a significant problem for law students. Psychological distress may…

With the emergence of a wealth of research-based information in the field of educational neuroscience, educators are now able to make more evidence-based decisions in the important area of curriculum design and construction. By viewing from the perspective of educational neuroscience, we can give a more meaningful and lasting purpose of leading to…

This paper reports on a doctoral study that investigated an alternative pedagogical approach in an online VET teacher-education course offered at a mid-sized university in Australia. Students in the course were mature-aged and adding study to their role as in-service VET teachers. Building on previous research, a set of design principles was…

A new vision of literacy education that involves moral, political, and cultural decisions about the literate practices needed to enhance both peoples' agency over their life trajectories and communities' intellectual, cultural and semiotic resources is essential for reframing literacy to encompass the multiple modalities and literacies of the 21st…

The transition from university to professional working life is important to individual students, employers, universities and more generally to national economies. A better understanding of the match between skills required by industry and skills learnt at university is therefore paramount. This study examines the transition from the perspectives…

Education "is" changing, as is knowledge more generally, to a significant degree energised by what has been described as the digital revolution. This has been widely discussed with references to notions such as globalisation, the New Media Age, open access, and the Network Society. Something definitely to be considered is what this could…

This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical…

Integrating sustainability into an undergraduate engineering program at the University of Technology, Sydney has been a challenging project. The authors of this paper have been participant observers of the integration process. In this paper, they have attempted an analysis of that process, focussing on the dynamics of the network of people and…

Describes and assesses the University of Adelaide (Australia) dental school's problem-based learning approach and five-year curriculum, including program design, instructional modules based on clinical situations, use of student reflective journals, and course evaluation. Introduction of the new curriculum has resulted in student perceptions that…

A discussion of the state of second language education and English teaching in Britain focuses on the role of applied linguistics in the field. Four major points are made: that (1) books on language are not common in the syllabi of language teacher education; (2) current philosophies on language teaching appear to be either reactionary or romantic…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…