Teachers perceptions of factors affecting the successful teaching of ICT

Research revealed that ICT education is complex, a third of non-ICT teachers lack ICT skills, teachers have problems accessing appropriate ICT Professional Development (PD), ICT PD is not one-size-fits-all, many schools fail to include ICT PD in their planning, and government ICT PD funding is not reaching all teachers.<br /

Geology at ANU (1959-2009)

This history was undertaken to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geology Department at ANU, and to honour its founding professor David A. Brown. It includes contributions from some 100 former students outlining their career successes. This history was compiled by Dr Mike Rickard, a staff member of the Department of Geology from 1963 to 1997, who also served as Head of Department for seven years. He graduated BSc and PhD from Imperial College London in 1957 and has specialised in mapping the structure of mountain chains in Ireland, Canada, Norway, and southern South America. He also mapped volcanic rocks for the Geological Survey of Fiji. He taught Structural Geology and Tectonics and has supervised field work in south eastern and central Australia. After retirement he has taught U3A courses in Earth Science

The development of a risk index for depression (RID)

&nbsp;This thesis developed a novel methodology for a flexible and modular Risk Index for Depression (RID) that blended data mining and machine learning techniques with traditional statistical techniques. This RID shows great potential for future clinical use.<br /

Geology at ANU (1959-2009)

This history was undertaken to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geology Department at ANU, and to honour its founding professor David A. Brown. It includes contributions from some 100 former students outlining their career successes. This history was compiled by Dr Mike Rickard, a staff member of the Department of Geology from 1963 to 1997, who also served as Head of Department for seven years. He graduated BSc and PhD from Imperial College London in 1957 and has specialised in mapping the structure of mountain chains in Ireland, Canada, Norway, and southern South America. He also mapped volcanic rocks for the Geological Survey of Fiji. He taught Structural Geology and Tectonics and has supervised field work in south eastern and central Australia. After retirement he has taught U3A courses in Earth Science

Student Expectations: The effect of student background and experience

CONTEXT The perspectives and previous experiences that students bring to their programs of study can affect their approaches to study and the depth of learning that they achieve Prosser & Trigwell, 1999; Ramsden, 2003). Graduate outcomes assume the attainment of welldeveloped independent learning skills which can be transferred to the work-place. PURPOSE This 5-year longitudinal study investigates factors influencing students’ approaches to learning in the fields of Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, at two higher education institutes delivering programs of various levels in Australia and New Zealand. The study aims to track the development of student approaches to learning as they progress through their program. Through increased understanding of students’ approaches, faculty will be better able to design teaching and learning strategies to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body. This paper reports on the first stage of the project. APPROACH In August 2017, we ran a pilot of our survey using the Revised Study Process Questionnaire(Biggs, Kember, & Leung, 2001) and including some additional questions related to student demographics and motivation for undertaking their current program of study. Data were analysed to evaluate the usefulness of data collected and to understand the demographics of the student cohort. Over the period of the research, data will be collected using the questionnaire and through focus groups and interviews. RESULTS Participants provided a representative sample, and the data collected was reasonable, allowing the questionnaire design to be confirmed. CONCLUSIONS At this preliminary stage, the study has provided insight into the student demographics at both institutes and identified aspects of students’ modes of engagement with learning. Some areas for improvement of the questionnaire have been identified, which will be implemented for the main body of the study

Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects

Introduction of scientific and cultural aspects of Computer Science (CS) (called "Computational Thinking" - CT) in K-12 education is fundamental. We focus on three crucial areas. 1. Historical, philosophical, and pedagogical aspects. What are the big ideas of CS we must teach? What are the historical and pedagogical contexts in which CT emerged, and why are relevant? What is the relationship between learning theories (e.g., constructivism) and teaching approaches (e.g., plugged and unplugged)? 2. Cognitive aspects. What is the sentiment of generalist teachers not trained to teach CS? What misconceptions do they hold about concepts like CT and "coding"? 3. Affective and motivational aspects. What is the impact of personal beliefs about intelligence (mindset) and about CS ability? What the role of teaching approaches? This research has been conducted both through historical and philosophical argumentation, and through quantitative and qualitative studies (both on nationwide samples and small significant ones), in particular through the lens of (often exaggerated) claims about transfer from CS to other skills. Four important claims are substantiated. 1. CS should be introduced in K-12 as a tool to understand and act in our digital world, and to use the power of computation for meaningful learning. CT is the conceptual sediment of that learning. We designed a curriculum proposal in this direction. 2. The expressions CT (useful to distantiate from digital literacy) and "coding" can cause misconceptions among teachers, who focus mainly on transfer to general thinking skills. Both disciplinary and pedagogical teacher training is hence needed. 3. Some plugged and unplugged teaching tools have intrinsic constructivist characteristics that can facilitate CS learning, as shown with proposed activities. 4. Growth mindset is not automatically fostered by CS, while not studying CS can foster fixed beliefs. Growth mindset can be fostered by creative computing, leveraging on its constructivist aspects

Womens risk of cardiovascular disease and innovative interventions

Women having prior pregnancy-related cardiometabolic conditions including gestational diabetes (GDM) and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are at elevated risk of future CVD, but little evidence is available about the short-term risk. Utilising US Medicaid data we estimated an age-adjusted odds ratio of 3.1 (95% CI: 2.7– 3.5) for a severe cardiovascular event within 60 days of delivery. We identified suboptimal primary care assessment of CVD risk factors among women with GDM utilising electronic health records from general practitioner sites run by Australia’s National Prescribing Service (NPS), with 29.4% (95% CI: 28.5%–30.3%) not screened for TD2M, 37.4% (95% CI: 36.5%–38.3%) having no lipids measured and 2.2% (95% CI: 1.9%–2.5%) having no blood pressure measurements. Utilising baseline data from the randomised study SMARTMUMS2 we found that only 46.9% (95% CI: 39.5%–54.2%) of women currently pregnant with GDM understood they were at high risk of T2DM. A prospective before and after study found that Women’s Heart Clinics (WHC) intervention was associated with improvements in blood pressure targets (from 69.2% to 80.5%, p=0.04) but not lipid targets (80.6% to 83.7%, p=0.18). Randomised clinical trials were designed to assess the effect of improving lifestyle using texting complemented with an activity monitor and utilising a Computed Tomography coronary artery calcium score guided cardiovascular prevention intervention. This thesis identified that women with past pregnancy-related cardiometabolic conditions have an increased risk of both short-and long-term CVD, are sub-optimally screened for CVD risk factors and, only half are aware of their high risk. WHCs are a viable intervention for improving risk factor control but may not be cost-effective. More research and novel ideas are needed to increase screening and CVD risk factor management among women with a pregnancy-related cardiometabolic conditionto reduce the burden of global CVD