OECD reviews of higher education in regional and city development, State of Victoria, Australia

With more than 5.3 million inhabitants Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Once a manufacturing economy, Victoria is now transforming itself into a service and innovation-based economy. Currently, the largest sectors are education services and tourism. In terms of social structure, Victoria is characterised by a large migrant population, 24% of population were born overseas and 44% were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. About 70% of the population resides in Melbourne. Victoria faces a number of challenges, ranging from an ageing population and skills shortages to drought and climate change and increased risk of natural disasters. Rapid population growth, 2% annually, has implications for service delivery and uneven development as well as regional disparities. There are barriers to connectivity in terms of transport and infrastructure, and a high degree of inter-institutional competition in tertiary education sector. The business structure in Victoria includes some highly innovative activities such as in biotechnology, but other sectors, especially those with high number of small and medium-sized enterprises, are lagging behind. Most of the larger manufacturing enterprises are externally controlled and there is uncertainty over the long term investments they will make in the state, as well as the place of Victoria in the global production networks

DXC Dandelion Program: 2018 in Review

[Excerpt] 2018 was another very successful year for the DXC Dandelion Program. DXC established a number of new, critical partnerships that continue to propel autism at work programs to the forefront of workplace inclusion. This has resulted in the program growing significantly throughout the year. DXC has now successfully established seven teams across four states in Australia, employing over 80 people on the autism spectrum

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available

Accommodating student's learning experience through personalized learning style adaptation in computer programming course at Centre for Foundation Studies, IIUM

Teaching and learning computer programming can be difficult, especially for beginners. Since they are not exposed to any computer programming experience, they may face difficulties if the teaching approaches do not match with their learning styles. Computer programming requires the students to understand logical reasoning and syntax and be able to apply them practically for solving programming problems in nearly all disciplines. Mitra [1] claims that most students feel computer programming is a challenging intellectual exercise. At Centre for Foundation Studies, foundation students encounter difficulties in learning and applying computer programming concepts. Some of them perform better in other science subjects, but find difficulties in grasping the computer programming concepts. In this research, we have used Felder-Solomon Learning Style Inventory to identify C Programming’s students for their preferred learning styles. The result of the survey shows that the Engineering/Computer Science students came from mixed learning styles. Therefore, we have adapted Felder-Solomon’s learning style model, and come out with a model of three hybrid categories. This paper will provide detail suggestions for an online learning system based on a selected topic in C Programming. The system will accommodate the students’ learning style in accordance to the modified Felder-Solomon’s learning style model. As a significant contribution to programming educations, our suggestions may further be adopted for designing personalized learning for other disciplines

Linking content and language-integrated learning (CLIL) and task-based language teaching (TBLT) in an effective way: a methodological proposal

CLIL and TBLT are approaches that have increasingly captured the attention of both teachers and researchers, and many of the latter have already discussed the ways in which they can be brought together. One of the challenges encountered in the implementation of CLIL has been the discrepancy between the level required to carry out the work for content learning and the students' actual level. One of the solutions may lie in resorting to TBLT, where language is regarded as action and the learner seen as a social actor engaged in real-life-like activities. However, in CLIL, the task being proposed to the students has to be appropriate to their level and their ability to internalise conceptual knowledge. In order to bridge some of the methodological gaps between CLIL and TBLT, a framework for designing content-oriented tasks, based on the one advanced for the project PETALL, has been developed to help teachers plan their CLIL activities. After a theoretical introduction to the principles of Task-based Learning and its integration with CLIL, a template designed to systematise the task is provided and discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio