This paper explores how a cohort of pre-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers from an Australian university describe and construct their understandings of health and the body. Given that the courses that these undergraduates take in their degree programme present different perspectives on health and the body, a relevant question is…

This paper presents findings from the large-scale study "Literacy Teacher Educators: Their Backgrounds, Visions, and Practices" that includes 28 literacy/English teacher educators (LTEs) from four countries. The participants were interviewed three times and shared their course outlines. Six pre-service LTEs who use a constructivist…

Universities are increasingly offering capstone subjects as part of curricula to prepare final-year undergraduates for employment through consolidating and integrating their knowledge and skills while bridging the gap between academic learning and professional work. This study investigates capstone subjects offered by Australian business schools,…

Many preservice primary teachers have low self-efficacy for science teaching. Although science methods courses have often been shown to enhance self-efficacy, science content courses have been relatively ineffective in this respect. This study investigated whether a tailored science content course would enhance self-efficacy. The participants were…

Nursing students have typically found the study of chemistry to be one of their major challenges in a nursing course. This mixed method study was designed to explore how prior experiences in chemistry might impact chemistry achievement during a health science unit. Nursing students (N = 101) studying chemistry as part of a health science unit were…

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…

With the spread of the Internet, students now have greater opportunities to use Japanese outside of the classroom. For example, they can interact with other Japanese speakers through instant messaging or social networking, or utilize online dictionaries and translation tools to decipher websites in ways that would be impossible with traditional…

This study aims to identify the relationship between the developmental hierarchy in the acquisition of Arabic as a second language (Arabic L2) and formal classroom instruction. It provides a general presentation of the current debate on the influence of formal instruction in the acquisition of L2. Special attention is given to the subset of…

This paper examines the curricula for English language teacher education in two universities, one in Australia and the other in Vietnam. Specifically, it analyses the structures of the two curricula, compares and contrasts them, and examines how the development of the curricula was shaped by distinctive contextual factors. Sources of data include…

Vocational Education and Training (VET) in high schools has had positive effects on the retention of Indigenous students, providing important pathways into further education and the workforce. However, low-level literacy (and numeracy) skills can make successful completion difficult, especially for students who speak Standard Australian English as…

The growing emphasis on sustainability in school curricula in Australia reflects international trends in education. Teacher education is a vital strategy for the incorporation of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in school curricula. Research to identify drivers and barriers to embedding EfS across a primary teacher education program in an…

In this paper the author provides an overview of a rhizomatic methodology using illustrations from her doctoral thesis, where she used Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) thinking about rhizomes in three different ways. First, using the figuration of a rhizome allowed her to construct her thesis as non-linear with self-conscious attention paid to the…

In 1993, a new history syllabus for years 7-10 was implemented in schools in New South Wales (Australia). The syllabus mandated 100 hours of study of Australian history, to include 5 broad topics: Australian identity, Australian heritage, international relations, women's history, and Aboriginal history. Interviews with eight teachers and an…