Who’s teaching science: meeting the demand for qualified science teachers in Australian secondary schools

Foreword Call to Action The data presented in this report highlight a number of serious problems that will inhibit the growth of Australia, both economically and culturally. It is imperative that all governments and education authorities implement rigorous workplace planning for teaching of science in schools as a matter of urgency, in order to remedy the current situation and prevent its reoccurrence. Such planning should be focused at the discipline level and not simply at the generic area of “science”. It must involve upgrading the discipline background of science teachers along with their pedagogical skills. It should be across sectors and states. Background: Previous commissioned surveys by the Australian Council of Deans of Science (ACDS) reported a continuing decline in enrolments in the enabling sciences and mathematics at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Furthermore, it is recognised that very few science graduates are selecting a teaching career. The Council feared that the nation was entering a cycle with the only possible outcome being a dearth of graduates with qualifications in the enabling sciences and mathematics. Certainly there would be insufficient graduates skilled in science to support the development of a knowledgebased economy. Australia suffers from an absence of comprehensive data on the age profile of secondary school science teachers, their qualifications in the discipline areas they are required to teach and their views regarding the teaching profession. This lack of information hampered the review by Professor Kwong Lee Dow titled Australia’s Teachers: Australia’s Future which looked at, among other things, future workplace needs. The ACDS strongly believes that the future of science is too important for this paucity of data to continue. Hence it commissioned this report. Anecdotal evidence abounds concerning the number of teachers who are unqualified to teach science in particular discipline areas, but are required to do so for various reasons. The ACDS recognizes the enormous contribution of science and mathematics teachers in our schools – both at primary and secondary level. The ACDS sees this report as a basis for providing them with further support. The report should also further link science as taught at university with science as taught in the school sector

The Impact of Quality Management Practices on the Extended Curriculum Programme at a University of Technology

Academic Development Programmes such as Extended Curriculum Programmes (ECP’S) at higher education institutions in South Africa were implemented and funded in 2004 by the Department of Higher Education and Training as an initiative to address low throughput rate and low graduation output. The objective of this study was to look at whether ECP’s were effective in improving throughput rates and graduation output and whether there were quality management practices in place to gauge the effectiveness of ECP’s. The ECP in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at a university of technology was used as a sample. Academic histories of the ECP and Mainstream students of the 2007 cohort were analyzed to draw comparisons graduation output of the two programmes. A questionnaire to graduates of the 2007 ECP cohort who were now in the workplace was administered and interviews were conducted with lecturers teaching on the ECP. It was found that the ECP was successful in improving graduation output and that graduates were well placed in industry. It was also found that although quality management practices were in place in the programme, it was not formalized and the results were not properly recorded

Plantlife - we’re all in the wild: An inclusive guide to supporting young people with SEN/D to discover their local outdoor spaces

This guide has been created as a practical guide to assist: 1. Practitioners who work with SEN/D young people to support them to discover their local outdoor spaces. 2. Practitioners who work in outdoor spaces to support them to work with young people with SEN/D. It is important to understand both of these perspectives. The guide contains short stories – Magic Moments – used to highlight the key learning points from the ‘We’re in the Wild’ project. It also includes tips for developing and managing a similar project – taking you from the first steps of having a good idea for an activity, to the final steps of assessing its effectiveness

Yield stability across sowing dates – how to pick a winner in variable seasons?

Take home messages • Match optimal flowering period to growing environment to maximise grain yield potential. • One variety doesn’t fit all; there are no commercially available varieties that are broadly adapted across a wide range of sowing times or growing environments. • Optimising variety phenology and sowing time combinations achieves grain yield stability across a wide sowing window. • Probability of sowing opportunities will influence variety choice and sowing time decisions

Improving Productivity Through Enhancing Employee Wellbeing and Participation

This paper outlines the rationale and methodology for an international comparative project investigating the links between workplace productivity and employee wellness and well being via the operation of representative employee participation structures in Denmark and New Zealand. It will define and discuss the often contentious terms of productivity, wellbeing and participation and how employee participation and wellbeing and the work environment impact on productivity. This paper employs a multi-dimensional theoretical framework and will assess the significance of the issues examined: analyse the impact of employment practices and quality of the work environment on productivity: and as a result present the methodology developed for the project

Contemporary Music and its Audiences

This dissertation enquires into the discourses surrounding contemporary music and contemporary music audiences. It is concerned with the language used to describe, and inscribe value upon, music, and with the categories and genres used to organise its texts and audiences. It is concerned with the “between-spaces” of music and culture, and how certain interpretive positions tend to fall into the cracks between the ascendant dialogues and canonical monuments. Chapter 1 begins with an overview of various strains of recent music research, with a particular focus upon popular musicology and popular music studies. Subsequently, the dissertation moves on to explore a number of areas of contestation, including the persistence of the opposition between high and popular culture, postmodernism and music, canon formation and critical praxis, and interpretive practices and studies of music audiences. The discussion is underwritten by the themes of isolation (suggested in the kind of nomadic and multifaceted critical position endorsed by Edward Said) and doubt (suggested in the concept of the ironist as developed by Richard Rorty). The overriding goal of the dissertation is one of addressing the relative lack of attention given to individual audience members and to both the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of their everyday engagements with music. The discussion concludes – via a critique of the dialectic between Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin – by proposing an alternative way of thinking about music audiences in the 21st century

Patients’ Experiences of Cardiovascular Health Education and Risk Communication: A Qualitative Synthesis

Coronary heart disease (CHD) has no cure, and patients with myocardial infarction are at high risk for further cardiac events. Health education is a key driver for patients’ understanding and motivation for lifestyle change, but little is known about patients’ experience of such education. In this review, we aimed to explore how patients with CHD experience health education and in particular risk communication. A total of 2,221 articles were identified through a systematic search in five databases. 40 articles were included and synthesized using thematic analysis. Findings show that both “what” was communicated, and “the way” it was communicated, had the potential to influence patients’ engagement with lifestyle changes. Communication about the potential of lifestyle change to reduce future risk was largely missing causing uncertainty, anxiety, and, for some, disengagement with lifestyle change. Recommendations for ways to improve health education and risk communication are discussed to inform international practice

Self-harm and suicidal ideation among young people is more often recorded by child protection than health services in an Australian population cohort

OBJECTIVE: We investigated patterns of service contact for self-harm and suicidal ideation recorded by a range of human service agencies - including health, police and child protection - with specific focus on overlap and sequences of contacts, age of first contact and demographic and intergenerational characteristics associated with different service responses to self-harm.METHODS: Participants were 91,597 adolescents for whom multi-agency linked data were available in a longitudinal study of a population cohort in New South Wales, Australia. Self-harm and suicide-related incidents from birth to 18 years of age were derived from emergency department, inpatient hospital admission, mental health ambulatory, child protection and police administrative records. Descriptive statistics and binomial logistic regression were used to examine patterns of service contacts.RESULTS: Child protection services recorded the largest proportion of youth with reported self-harm and suicidal ideation, in which the age of first contact for self-harm was younger relative to other incidents of self-harm recorded by other agencies. Nearly 40% of youth with a health service contact for self-harm also had contact with child protection and/or police services for self-harm. Girls were more likely to access health services for self-harm than boys, but not child protection or police services.CONCLUSION: Suicide prevention is not solely the responsibility of health services; police and child protection services also respond to a significant proportion of self-harm and suicide-related incidents. High rates of overlap among different services responding to self-harm suggest the need for cross-agency strategies to prevent suicide in young people.</p