152 research outputs found
Cultivating teachers\u27 knowledge and skills for leading change in schools
Australian policy initiatives and state curriculum reform efforts affirm a commitment to address student disengagement through the development of inclusive school environments, curriculum, and pedagogy. This paper, drawing on critical social theory, describes three Australian projects that support the cultivation of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills for critical reflection and leading change in schools. The first project reports on the valued ethics that emerged in pre-service teacher reflections about a Service-learning Program at a university in Queensland. The second project reports on a school-based collaborative inquiry approach to professional development with a focus on literacy practices. The final project reports on an initiative in another university in Victoria, to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal in Victoria, through the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT). These case studies illustrate how critical reflection and development of beliefs, knowledge and skills can be acquired to better meet the needs of schools.<br /
Knowing schooling, identity and pedagogy visually
This research produced in one region in Ghana examines the production of educational practices, relations of power and student experiences within teaching and non-teaching spaces in junior secondary settings. The strength of the visual approach in interrogating school cultural norms and the problematising of the tangled complexities of knowing about schooling, identity and pedagogy are outlined. An important aspect of the study is the foregrounding of educational practice as a social act occurring in response to historical circumstances and changing social contexts (Brown & Jones, 2001). We see this work as an important step towards democratization of the research relationship and empowerment of students to contribute to the way they are educated. But also we are wary of how representation through visual methods also can \u27frame\u27 participants and the researchers. We recognise that one way to uncover how school practices are exemplified in Ghana is to put students in the middle of researching their experiences. In this way, our research moved from constructing students as simply consumers of adult designed and managed products to practices based on democratic participation (Thomson & Gunter, 2007). Throughout the research journey we were guided by the fact that knowledge is not neutral or to be discovered. Culture and communicative processes are essential determinants of reality. In this study the students as researchers, produced photographs that trigger dialectical conversations of students’ perspectives that foreground their experiences at school. This enabled us to digress from dominant positivistic empiricism to a more legitimate ethical practice, and understanding of the intricacies of educational practice, the norms and structures that underpin everyday actions in schools.<br /
Cultivating Teachers’ Beliefs, Knowledge and Skills for Leading Change in Schools
Australian policy initiatives and state curriculum reform efforts affirm a commitment to address student disengagement through the development of inclusive school environments, curriculum, and pedagogy. This paper, drawing on critical social theory, describes three Australian projects that support the cultivation of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills for critical reflection and leading change in schools. The first project reports on the valued ethics that emerged in pre-service teacher reflections about a Service-learning Program at a university in Queensland. The second project reports on a school-based collaborative inquiry approach to professional development with a focus on literacy practices. The final project reports on an initiative in another university in Victoria, to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal in Victoria, through the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT). These case studies illustrate how critical reflection and development of beliefs, knowledge and skills can be acquired to better meet the needs of schools
“It helps if you are a loud person”: Listening to the Voice of a School Student with a Vision Impairment
Students with vision impairment who attend mainstream secondary schools in Australia may not experience education as an inclusive and positive experience. This study of one senior secondary student with vision impairment provides a rare opportunity to give voice and provide understandings of the experience from the perspective of the student. The research question that drove this study was: What is the experience of mainstream schooling for a student with a vision impairment? The participant in this Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study was Edward (pseudonym), a student in his final year of secondary schooling. Edward encountered significant barriers to inclusion, specifically teaching, technology, administrative inflexibility, and restricted social engagement. The participant has become resilient with a strong sense of self and has developed a range of personal strategies to address his challenges. It is evident that Edward was rarely asked about his needs and perceptions, rather decisions were made for and about him by those without a vision impairment. Educators require a clearer understanding of vision impairment and the impact that their often unintentionally exclusionary teaching practices may have on the educational experiences of their students
Semiclassical approach to calculating the influence of local lattice fluctuations on electronic properties of metals
We propose a new semiclassical approach based on the dynamical mean field
theory to treat the interactions of electrons with local lattice fluctuations.
In this approach the classical (static) phonon modes are treated exactly
whereas the quantum (dynamical) modes are expanded to second order and give
rise to an effective semiclassical potential. We determine the limits of
validity of the approximation, and demonstrate its usefulness by calculating
the temperature dependent resistivity in the Fermi liquid to polaron crossover
regime (leading to `saturation behavior') and also isotope effects on
electronic properties including the spectral function, resistivity, and optical
conductivity, problems beyond the scope of conventional diagrammatic
perturbation theories.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
Electron-phonon vertex in the two-dimensional one-band Hubbard model
Using quantum Monte Carlo techniques, we study the effects of electronic
correlations on the effective electron-phonon (el-ph) coupling in a
two-dimensional one-band Hubbard model. We consider a momentum-independent bare
ionic el-ph coupling. In the weak- and intermediate-correlation regimes, we
find that the on-site Coulomb interaction acts to effectively suppress the
ionic el-ph coupling at all electron- and phonon- momenta. In this regime, our
numerical simulations are in good agreement with the results of perturbation
theory to order . However, entering the strong-correlation regime, we find
that the forward scattering process stops decreasing and begins to
substantially increase as a function of , leading to an effective el-ph
coupling which is peaked in the forward direction. Whereas at weak and
intermediate Coulomb interactions, screening is the dominant correlation effect
suppressing the el-ph coupling, at larger values irreducible vertex
corrections become more important and give rise to this increase. These vertex
corrections depend crucially on the renormalized electronic structure of the
strongly correlated system.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps-figures, minor change
Semiclassical action based on dynamical mean-field theory describing electrons interacting with local lattice fluctuations
We extend a recently introduced semiclassical approach to calculating the
influence of local lattice fluctuations on electronic properties of metals and
metallic molecular crystals. The effective action of electrons in degenerate
orbital states coupling to Jahn-Teller distortions is derived, employing
dynamical mean-field theory and adiabatic expansions. We improve on previous
numerical treatments of the semiclassical action and present for the
simplifying Holstein model results for the finite temperature optical
conductivity at electron-phonon coupling strengths from weak to strong.
Significant transfer of spectral weight from high to low frequencies is
obtained on isotope substitution in the Fermi-liquid to polaron crossover
regime.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
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