The paper studies the rise of neuroscience in initial teacher education, paying attention to the relatively recent Australian Government (2023) report titled 'Strong Beginnings'. In taking up a critical policy sociology lens, we focus on the first priority within the reforms, which is mandating brain science and the 'brain and learning' as core…

Research has demonstrated a correlation between lecture attendance and students' academic achievement. However, students may not attend lectures for a variety of reasons. The provision of lecture recordings online can also negatively impact lecture attendance and student achievement. These facts implore us to be courageous and explore new…

This paper critically analyses 52 Australian and 68 Pakistani pre-service teachers' (PST) perceptions of professional standards for teachers enabling the comparison of teacher preparation in the two countries. A multivariate analysis of variance tested the hypothesis that an integrated standards-based teacher preparation program was more effective…

Mandatory Aboriginal education units of study in teacher education programmes are often constrained by overcrowded curriculum, time and classroom-based learning which limit opportunities to engage with and learn from local Aboriginal people and communities. Recognising these issues, at an urban Australian university two of the authors introduced…

Recent policy changes connect play in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings explicitly to learning, and to later school-learning outcomes, calling on early childhood (EC) educators to incorporate intentional teaching into their practice. Given these recent policy changes, the purpose of this propositional article is to raise awareness…

Student expectations have increasingly become a focus in Second Language Acquisition research. This study takes a closer look at student teachers' expectations in a Master of Arts TESOL program at an Australian university to investigate their expectations and sense of fulfillment of these expectations. We employed a sequential explanatory…

Effective assessment design and subsequent assessment practices are essential for student success in the higher education sector. A plethora of research on assessment in higher education exists which tends to focus primarily on the student experience. This paper shares results from a 3 phased study that explored staff perceptions related to…

Curriculum mapping is a necessary process for establishing evidence of where learning outcomes are taught and assessed in higher education programmes. Mapping ensures the credibility of the institution and programme offerings and provides students with a clear understanding of what they can expect to learn and achieve during their academic…

Purpose: In this paper we seek to provide insight as to how wisdom is, or might be, perceived and enacted in Higher Education contexts. Selected constructs of wisdom derived from the "Bhagavad Gita" provided a platform from which seven invited College of Education faculty participants considered their own framings of wisdom in the…

Australian universities providing mathematics teacher preparation are increasingly offering their courses online or in limited face-to-face mixed mode delivery. There are limited empirical data on why pre-service teachers make delivery mode choices and how these impact on academic standards and student satisfaction ratings. This paper reports on…

This paper reviews evidence on the interplay between professional standards for teachers, the content of teacher education and educational sciences, and provides three case studies to illustrate these interactions from Estonia, Australia and Singapore. In particular, it investigates what aligning teacher education programmes to standards really…

This study explored the lived experiences of 20 Australian early childhood preservice teachers while on practical experience placement and examined the factors that informed their pedagogical experiences when working across both prior-to-school and school settings. Transcripts from interviews were analysed using grounded theory-informed…

This study explored the perceptions of university physical education students of the importance of physical education curriculum content areas and how those perceptions related to the reasons for course choice and motivation. Physical education degree students (n = 188) completed measures of their perceptions of physical education content areas,…

In this paper the authors report on an exploratory investigation into the use of disequilibrium and difference of opinion in decision-making in schools, based on the experiences of Master of Education students in their own university. From examples provided by the participants the authors identify the factors that contribute to the positive use of…

Citizenship education is widely acknowledged as a necessary part of the school curriculum for various reasons. For young people, it is assumed that citizenship can best be learnt through the school curriculum. This means that teachers need to thoroughly understand what citizenship means and how to pass this knowledge on to students. This paper…