This project is for a team of students (groups of two or three are ideal) to design and construct a model of a single-span bridge, using plastic drinking straws as the building material. All steps of the design, construction, testing and critiquing stages should be recorded by students in a journal. Students may like to include labelled diagrams,…

The ability to visualize student engagement and experience data provides valuable opportunities for learning support and curriculum design. With the rise of the use of learning analytics to provide "actionable intelligence" on students' learning, the challenge is to create visualizations of the data, which are clear and useful to the…

Traces development of the problem-based, five-year curriculum of the new medical school at the University of Newcastle (Australia), outlining the events of the three years before it opened and commenting on the experiences of its first year. A timetable of medical problems studied by the students is presented. (Author/JD)

Discussion of Live Interactive Television (LIT) focuses on a study conducted in Australia that investigated the form and nature of the interactions evident in school, vocational, and university LIT distance education programs. The study sought to establish the impact of the interactivity on the form and scope of the instructional sequences used.…

Outlines two theories of cognitive science that are relevant for instructional design, i.e., schema theory and cognitive load theory; and describes four experiments with Australian secondary school geography students that used these theories to examine the effects of splitting attention between technical illustrations and related text. (20…

A study was conducted to obtain pilot evidence that could serve as a basis for developing convincing methods for individual Australian companies to use in determining their returns from investment in training. The study attempted to replicate survey results from significant overseas surveys by using information collected on more than 90 Australian…

Examines the scope of pedagogic discourse, which involves the operation of a set of principles by which persons are apprenticed into ways of working valued in a culture. A pedagogic discourse is realized in two sets of language choices: (1) those connected with the goals of the teaching-learning activity, and (2) those concerning the content to be…

Describes a study conducted at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) that investigated primary student teachers' use of computers with children in schools and factors that contributed to that use. Home use and supervising teachers' use of computers are cited as significant factors, and implications for course design are suggested. (13…

This report summarizes a survey of participants in a teacher training program for the First Steps project, which provides additional support for development of literacy and numeracy among "at-risk" students in Western Australia schools. The training program was to assist teachers in implementing the program in their schools. Respondents…

Statistics regarding Australians participating in apprenticeships and traineeships in the mechanical engineering and fabrication trades in 1995-1999 were reviewed to provide an indication of where skill shortages may be occurring or will likely occur in relation to the following occupations: mechanical engineering trades; fabrication engineering…