Kaldor primary public art project: Working with contemporary public art and teachers through the e5 instructional model

This paper discusses the Kaldor Primary Public Art Project that was conceived and enacted during the late 2009 and first half of 2010, where the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Victoria, Australia) worked in collaboration with Kaldor Public Art Projects.The concept of this project was developed by Kaldor Public Art Projects, a not-for-profit organisation that has pioneered the presentation of influential art projects in Australia. These projects have changed and shaped Australians’ perceptions and appreciation of contemporary art through the support and development of individual artists. The project aim was to build teacher capacity in using contemporary visual art in primary arts programs. The key components of the project highlighted building understanding and use of the e5 Instructional Model (Department of Education and Early Childhood., 2009); using interactive whiteboards as an instructional tool; and developing a resource for primary teachers that aligns with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, State Government of Victoria , 2009). This paper reflects the experiences of the ten teachers from Victorian government and catholic schools involved in the project. Throughout particular focus is made to honouring the voice of the teachers and students who experienced the contemporary public art units and lesson sequences using the e5 Instructional Model. Acknowledgement of the varied experiences prior and through the project is made to areas of visual arts program in schools and involvement in contemporary arts practice to highlight visual arts teachers' professional development and formation of a community

Young children as digital photographers - possibilities for using the digital camera in the primary classroom

The affects in education of the digital revolution have been spoken about and researched of late. There is an explosion of applications for computers, use of iPhones, iPods, iPads, mobile phones and other portable technology; all allowing digital access for users to be connected to the rich sources of information. The invention of new devices for communication in the technology ring is ever growing; as soon as one device is introduced into the market there is an announcement of a new model being develope

What drives corticospinal output?

Recent work has not only defined the origin of the direct cortico-motoneuronal output to the upper limb but has also identified some of the cortical networks that engage the corticospinal output during movement. A surprising finding is that some corticospinal neurons show ‘mirror-like’ properties and are actively modulated not only during self-movement but also during action observation

Trade-offs, condition dependence and stopover site selection by migrating sandpipers

Western sandpipers Calidris mauri on southward migration fly over the Gulf of Alaska to the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, where they stop for a few days to replenish reserves before continuing. In the Strait, individuals captured on the extensive tidal mudflats of the Fraser estuary (∼25000 ha) are significantly heavier (2.71 g, or >10% of lean body mass) than those captured on the small (<100 ha) mudflat of nearby Sidney Island. Previous work has shown that the difference cannot be attributed to seasonal timing, size, age or gender effects, and here we compare predictions made by six hypotheses about a diverse set of data to explain why, partway through a migratory journey of ∼10000 km, birds have such different body masses at two stopover sites within 40 km of each other. The ‘trade-off’ hypothesis – that the large Fraser estuary offers safety from predators, but a lower fattening rate, while the small Sidney Island site is more dangerous, but offers a higher fattening rate – made six successful predictions, all of which were upheld by the data. All other hypotheses failed at least one prediction. We infer that calidrid sandpipers arriving in the Strait of Georgia with little fat remaining (and therefore low body mass) choose to take advantage of the high feeding rate at small sites like Sidney Island because they are less vulnerable to avian predators than are individuals with higher fat reserves, who instead elect to feed at large open sites like the Fraser estuary mudflats

Preconditioning of low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation with transcranial direct current stimulation: evidence for homeostatic plasticity in the human motor cortex

Recent experimental work in animals has emphasized the importance of homeostatic plasticity as a means of stabilizing the properties of neuronal circuits. Here, we report a phenomenon that indicates a homeostatic pattern of cortical plasticity in healthy human subjects. The experiments combined two techniques that can produce long-term effects on the excitability of corticospinal output neurons: transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the left primary motor cortex. "Facilitatory preconditioning" with anodal TDCS caused a subsequent period of 1 Hz rTMS to reduce corticospinal excitability to below baseline levels for >20 min. Conversely, "inhibitory preconditioning" with cathodal TDCS resulted in 1 Hz rTMS increasing corticospinal excitability for at least 20 min. No changes in excitability occurred when 1 Hz rTMS was preceded by sham TDCS. Thus, changing the initial state of the motor cortex by a period of DC polarization reversed the conditioning effects of 1 Hz rTMS. These preconditioning effects of TDCS suggest the existence of a homeostatic mechanism in the human motor cortex that stabilizes corticospinal excitability within a physiologically useful range

Looking through the eyes of a child through the lense of a camera

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Arts and technology

Arts education provides students with valuable opportunities to experience and build knowledge and skills in self expression, imagination, creative and collaborative problem solving, communication, creation of shared meanings, and respect for self and others. Engagement in quality arts education has also been said to positively affect overall academic achievement, engagement in learning, and development of empathy towards others (Australian Council for Educational Research 2004; Board of Studies NS W 2006; Cornett 2007; RussellBowie 2006). The integration of the arts in education is an internationally recognized phenomenon: it is a modern trend to organize the curriculum in an integrated and interdisciplinary manner (Aaron 1994; Barrett 2001; Burton 2001; Chrysostomou 2004; Hauptfleisch 1997; Klapper 2004; Russell-Bowie 2006, 2009a; Snyder 2001). The &#039;arts&#039; is seen to encompass different things in different contexts, including but not limited to the performing arts (music, dance, drama, and theatre), visual arts, media, industrial arts, and literary arts. Currently in Australia, each educational juri~diction has developed its own frameworks and repertoire of describing whaf happens in arts education learning. In this book arts education is used as an encompassing umbrella term referenced to The Arts learning area in the Australian curriculum

Narratives that nudge: Raising theoretical questions about reflective practice

The narratives of pre-service teachers in this paper tell a story which interrupts the notion that reflective practice necessarily produces a transformative self. Although this argument is not new, the extent to which the utility of reflective practice is taken for granted in the current context of teacher education (beginning and continuing) remains greater than ever. We show how this normative construction of reflective practice and the understandings of self that it produces in the narratives of pre-service teachers are undermined in the context of schooling. We suggest that further research is needed in this area. Through this effort we raise questions about the spaces in which reflective practice is assumed to operate and the ways in which the reflective self it assumes has been disconnected from society and relations of power. We situate ourselves as teachers, teacher educators and researchers who desire theoretically informed positions from which we can begin to critically address, extend or displace our current understandings of these issues. This paper raises questions about reflective practice and its relationship to pedagogy within the current context of schooling

Antecedents of peripheral services cross-buying behavior

This study is the first attempt to empirically investigate the determinants of a key type of relationship breadth extension strategy for retailers – buying of peripheral services. Assessing customers’ relationship and value perceptions, we find that convenience and social benefits significantly influence peripheral services cross-buying. Notably, our study demonstrates that the factors stimulating customers to cross-buy peripheral services in a retail setting differ from those previously found in other contexts. For instance, commitment and payment equity, considered crucial for stimulating cross-buying behavior in prior research, do not appear to be a significant driver for peripheral services cross-buying in the retailing context. The findings suggest that to increase the breadth of customer relationships, retailers should focus on strengthening the social benefits customers perceive from the relationship and increasing key antecedents of convenience

The steady state load of five firefighting tasks

Purpose. Physiologic demands of five common tasks in firefighting have been examined. Methods. Eight male volunteers, being dressed up as smoke divers (+21 kg extra load), carried out the following tasks at constant pace for 5 min: Walking at 1.4 m·s–1, walking (all walks at the same speed) while carrying a 10 kg ladder, walking carrying two hose packs of 16 kg together, walking carrying a 32 kg spreader tool, finally climbing up and down a ladder at preset pace. A 5 min break separated each exercise. Heart rate, O2-uptake and ventilation were measured continuously, and blood lactate con-centration was recorded after each task. Results. The end-exercise heart rate rose from 108 to 180 bpm from first to last task, blood lactate concentration rose from 1 to 7 mmol·L–1, O2-uptake rose from 19 to 48 ml·kg–1·min–1, and ventilation rose from 38 to 124 L·min–1. Discussion. Walking was an easy task even when dressed up as a smoke diver. Adding loads increased demands; ladder climbing taxed >90% of the subjects’ aerobic power. Conclusions. The physiologic demands varied considera-bly between different tasks.acceptedVersio