Report on the 'Developing Catholic Identity for PSTs : Faith companion mentoring during final school professional experience' Project

[Extract] The purpose of this pilot project was to evaluate the potential benefits of having an external Faith Companion mentor for pre-service teachers in Catholic school settings. The pilot included the researcher/university coordinator, BCE Faith Companion, four pre-service teachers, their supervisors and the Principal at one Catholic school

An exploration of sarcasm detection in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Amanda K. Ludlow, Eleanor Chadwick, Alice Morey, Rebecca Edwards, and Roberto Gutierrez, ‘An exploration of sarcasm detection in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’, Journal of Communication Disorders, Vol. 70: 25-34, November 2017. Under embargo. Embargo end date: 31 October 2019. The Version of Record is available at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2017.10.003.The present research explored the ability of children with ADHD to distinguish between sarcasm and sincerity. Twenty-two children with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD were compared with 22 age and verbal IQ matched typically developing children using the Social Inference–Minimal Test from The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT, McDonald, Flanagan, & Rollins, 2002). This test assesses an individual’s ability to interpret naturalistic social interactions containing sincerity, simple sarcasm and paradoxical sarcasm. Children with ADHD demonstrated specific deficits in comprehending paradoxical sarcasm and they performed significantly less accurately than the typically developing children. While there were no significant differences between the children with ADHD and the typically developing children in their ability to comprehend sarcasm based on the speaker’s intentions and beliefs, the children with ADHD were found to be significantly less accurate when basing their decision on the feelings of the speaker, but also on what the speaker had said. Results are discussed in light of difficulties in their understanding of complex cues of social interactions, and non-literal language being symptomatic of children with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD. The importance of pragmatic language skills in their ability to detect social and emotional information is highlighted.Peer reviewe

Spiritual and Pedagogical Accompaniment (SPA) program 2022

[Extract] This report accompanies the 2019-2021 Spiritual and Pedagogical Accompaniment (SPA) Program Report (https://acuspaprogram.edu.au/wp-content/ uploads/2022/09/ACU-SPA-evaluation-report.pdf) with updated information using the 2022 findings about impact of the program on pre-service teacher preparation for the profession. It also includes greater links to a variety of stakeholder voices about the impact of SPA from across the life of the program. The SPA program focuses on strengthening PSTs’ understanding of Catholic spirituality, mission, professional identity, and teaching practices. The name was amended in 2021 to recognise the interweaving nature of spirituality across all subject areas, the multifaith context of students and teachers in Catholic schools, and the support the Companions in the project provide to the PSTs in both spirituality and pedagogy. The program was piloted in 2019 with a small teaching and learning development grant from ACU, in 2020 a small BCE research grant and has since received Brisbane Catholic Education funding from 2021 onwards. In 2022 the Toowoomba Diocese provided funding to pilot a regional model. The program aligns with the Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) priority to develop and maintain an employment force, while supporting schools and staff in BCE’s priority area of sustaining strong Catholic identities. The model includes PST’s having greater involvement with their SPA school, stronger connection to the SPA school Diocese, more support across their experience from the university through the university coordinator, and support across their experience from a Spiritual and Pedagogical Companion

Spiritual and Pedagogical Accompaniment (SPA) program (2019-2021)

[Extract] This report outlines the findings from the Spiritual and Pedagogical Accompaniment (SPA) Program from 2019-2021. This program focuses on strengthening PSTs’ understanding of Catholic spirituality, mission, professional identity, and teaching practices. It aligns with the Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) priority to develop and maintain an employment force, while supporting schools and staff in BCE’s priority area of sustaining strong Catholic identities. The model includes greater involvement with their SPA school, and the support across their experience from a Spiritual and Pedagogical Companion

Classroom teachers as co-researchers : the affordances and challenges of collaboration

The article outlines the aspects of the research design that engage with teachers in schools and discusses some of the challenges and affordances that the relationships (between the teachers, the schools, the research partners and the researchers) experienced in the project, Literacy in the 21st Century: Learning from Computer Games. The article has a particular focus on the teachers\u27 work as co-researchers, their descriptions of working in the project and some of the issues for teachers and researchers in working in this way. The data used for the analysis includes the teacher writing, interview data and researcher observations. The teachers who participated in the project designed and delivered curriculum using computer games in various ways including making their own games, evaluating games, analyzing game structures, and examining the culture around games and the ways in which games and other technologies are merging. Some of these curriculum units are described elsewhere in this issue (Beavis &amp; O\u27Mara, 2010). This article\u27s purpose is to follow the teachers\u27 professional learning experiences rather than detail these curriculum designs, which the teachers will describe elsewhere. The paper concludes with our personal reflections on the affordances and challenges of working this way for us in our different roles in the research team.<br /

Social Anxiety and Response to Touch : a preliminary exploration of broader autism phenotype in females

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm)Subclinical autism-related traits have been shown in the general population to be independently related to both social anxiety and sensory sensitivity. The present study examined the relationship between autistic traits as measured by the Autism Quotient (AQ) and its relationship to social anxiety and tactile sensation abnormalities. One hundred and seventy-three female university students completed the AQ, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), and the touch subscale of the Adult/Adolescent Sensory Profile. Results revealed that the relationship between social anxiety and tactile sensation abnormalities to be fully mediated by the level of autistic traits. Of the two subscales forming the LSAS (anxiety and avoidance), the avoidance score related more strongly to tactile sensation abnormalities and was again found to be moderated by the AQPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

A comparison of food avoidant behaviours and sensory sensitivity in adults with and without Tourette syndrome

© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105713Food selectivity has been shown to be more persistent and severe in children with Tourette syndrome (TS) compared to their typically developing peers. The current study aimed to examine differences in food selectivity, food neophobia and Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)-associated behaviours, between adults with and without TS. Fifty-three adults diagnosed with TS were compared to 53 neurotypical adults and completed the following measures online: Adult Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (AEBQ), Nine-Item Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake disorder screen (NIAS), Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) and the Sensory Perception Quotient (SPQ). Higher levels of food avoidant behaviours, in terms of food fussiness, food neophobia and ARFID-associated behaviours, were identified in adults with TS compared to adults without TS. While heightened sensory sensitivity failed to predict food fussiness, greater sensitivity to taste was found to be predictive of food neophobia in TS. These are the first findings to suggest that food avoidant behaviours are more prevalent for adults with TS and signal a need to address health implications.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

It's good for students when parents work with teachers to design and produce their education.

The New York City Department of Education has long recognized the role of parent involvement in student academic achievement. Indeed, parents and teachers can work together to 'coproduce' educational services to benefit student achievement. However, we do not know what kind of coproduction directly and effectively supports educational attainment. In a new research, Julio Zambrano-Gutiérrez, Amanda Rutherford, and Sean Nicholson-Crotty ..

Retroalimentación formativa y bienestar emocional en docentes de educación secundaria de instituciones educativas del distrito de Manantay-Ucayali, 2020

La investigación titulada Retroalimentación formativa y bienestar emocional en docentes de educación secundaria de instituciones educativas del distrito de Manantay-Ucayali, 2020; presentó el problema de identificar de qué manera la retroalimentación formativa se relaciona con el bienestar emocional en docentes de Educación Secundaria de tres instituciones educativas del distrito de Manantay-Ucayali, 2020; por lo que se desarrolló un tipo de investigación descriptivo, correlacional de diseño transeccional correlacional, trabajando con una población muestral de 102 docentes de la sede de estudio mediante dos cuestionarios, el de retroalimentación formativa, que obtuvo un alfa de Cronbach= 0.945, y el de bienestar emocional, con un alfa de Cronbach= 0.989, sistematizándolo mediante una elaboración de base de datos y tablas de distribución de frecuencias, es así que se arribó al resultado principal, identificando el mayor porcentaje de la muestra, 84.3%, se ubicó en la intersección del nivel alto en retroalimentación formativa y el nivel medio en cuanto al bienestar emocional docente. Se concluye, entonces, que no existe relación significativa entre la retroalimentación formativa y el bienestar emocional en docentes de la sede de estudio.Tesi

What do secondary teachers think about digital games for learning : Stupid fixation or the future of education?

Digital games can support learning across many levels and fields of education. This article shares findings from a study of Australian high school English teachers designed with a mixed response questionnaire about using digital games in the classroom. The findings identified polarised teacher perspectives on the role of gaming in formal curriculum, tension in teachers’ ideal and enacted use of digital games, and a need for in-practice professional development on digital games. Implications include the need to optimise digital games use for learning in teaching and teacher education, and to address perceptions on the validity of gaming for classroom learning