The teacher\u27s role in the research-policy-praxis nexus

What kinds of relationships exist between educational policy, research and the professional knowledge of the teachers that implement these policies in practice? This article reports research that examined the role of teachers working in an environment formed by links between research, policy and practice. By adopting a contextual focus upon the Victorian Early Years Literacy Program, its research and teachers who implement the program, the study analysed how early years reading is being constructed. Critical issues are identified about the impact of policy and research upon the teaching profession and the links that are present in the research-policy-praxis nexus.<br /

Investigating Ways of Enhancing Online Research

We live in an era characterized as &lsquo;the Digital Age&rsquo; and the ways in which we engage in teaching, learning and research are evolving with the increased use of digital technologies. This paper describes a study that investigated the ways in which a cohort of Education students in Victoria, Australia engaged in online research projects using Information Communication Technologies (ICT) as the main form of communication during the research process. When an array of technologies, related resources and training are made available to staff and University students, what are the key influences that effect their adoption and application of the selected mediums? Understanding the answer to this question is important in informing instruction and technological pedagogies for distance education and research. Data was gathered from students and their research supervisors via the use of online surveys. The research identified a number of key factors that influenced people&rsquo;s preferences for using certain digital technologies. The study revealed that there was a tendency for people to prefer the use of asynchronous forms of digital communication. It is argued that more research is needed in this area in order to improve the application of online modes of communication and ensure that those researching via distance/technological modes are not disadvantaged in their research and learning experiences.</p

A day in the life of an early childhood teacher: identifying the confronting issues and challenges that arise

Recent emphasis upon Early Childhood as an educational priority for the Australian Government has resulted in increases in funding, government initiatives, course providers and the introduc- tion of new policies to the sector in order to improve the quality of early childhood education. The study reported here investigated the &quot;reality&quot; of what it means to be an Early Childhood Teacher within this changing context and identified the roles and responsibilities and the associated chal- lenges. A case study involving observation and interviews with five Bachelor qualified Teachers from varied early childhood settings was undertaken in order to gain knowledge about their ex- periences and perspectives on their work. The data were analyzed using a grounded theory ap- proach involving the identification of key themes and issues about the nature of teachers\u27 work. The findings revealed that in their everyday practice teachers played a complex array of roles that required them to contribute far more than just their teaching skills and knowledge. They were expected to concurrently enact the roles of educator, leader, advocate, communicator, counsellor and administrator whilst juggling everyday challenges including a &quot;lack of time&quot;, the need for &quot;further support and more resources&quot; and &quot;building successful partnerships with parents&quot;

Teacher\u27s professional knowledge and the teaching of reading in the early years

What are the sources of teachers&rsquo; professional knowledge for the teaching of reading? This paper reports findings from a study that investigated the role of teachers in the current Research-Policy-Praxis Nexus (RPPN). This was achieved by a specific focus upon constructions of reading in the early years in Victoria, Australia. All of the teacher participants either implemented or coordinated the Victorian Early Years Literacy Program (EYLP) in the primary school setting. These teachers were interviewed in order to hear their views on reading development and reading pedagogy and to identify the sources of this professional knowledge. The findings from this study are important for all teachers and teacher educators as they have implications for teaching practise, teacher education and teacher professional development programs.<br /

Teachers Professional Knowledge and the Teaching of Reading in the Early Years

What are the sources of teachers’ professional knowledge for the teaching of reading? This paper reports findings from a study that investigated the role of teachers in the current Research-Policy-Praxis Nexus (RPPN). This was achieved by a specific focus upon constructions of reading in the early years in Victoria, Australia. All of the teacher participants either implemented or coordinated the Victorian Early Years Literacy Program (EYLP) in the primary school setting. These teachers were interviewed in order to hear their views on reading development and reading pedagogy and to identify the sources of this professional knowledge. The findings from this study are important for all teachers and teacher educators as they have implications for teaching practise, teacher education and teacher professional development programs

Two kinds of conservatives in Japanese politics and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's tactics to cope with them

For more about the East-West Center, see http://www.eastwestcenter.org/Akai Ohi, Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, Hosei University, and Showa Women's University, explains that "During the period of stable one-party dominance... the LDP managed to bundle support from big corporations and Keidanren... in the face of the socialist threat from rural regions.

Pharmaceutical supply chains in Nigeria : a framework for outsourcing outbound value chains

Abstract: Effective patients’ treatment is predicated on availability of high quality medicines access. The outbound segment of pharmaceutical supply chains is critical to achieving this goal. In this study, the pharmaceutical supply chains management in Nigeria with emphasis on the outsourcing of the outbound value chains was investigated. The objectives were to study the extent of outsourcing of outbound value chain activities in the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry, investigate the rationale for outsourcing outbound pharmaceutical value chains in Nigeria, study the critical criteria for a successful selection and outsourcing relationship with 3rd Party Service Providers, identify the desired outcomes of outsourcing outbound pharmaceutical value chains and utilize the study results to develop a framework for outsourcing and improvement of outbound value chain activities in the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry...D.Phil. (Operations Management

Improving Robotic Decision-Making in Unmodeled Situations

Existing methods of autonomous robotic decision-making are often fragile when faced with inaccurate or incompletely modeled distributions of uncertainty, also known as ambiguity. While decision-making under ambiguity is a field of study that has been gaining interest, many existing methods tend to be computationally challenging, require many assumptions about the nature of the problem, and often require much prior knowledge. Therefore, they do not scale well to complex real-world problems where fulfilling all of these requirements is often impractical if not impossible. The research described in this dissertation investigates novel approaches to robotic decision-making strategies which are resilient to ambiguity that are not subject to as many of these requirements as most existing methods. The novel frameworks described in this research incorporate physical feedback, diversity, and swarm local interactions, three factors that are hypothesized to be key in creating resilience to ambiguity. These three factors are inspired by examples of robots which demonstrate resilience to ambiguity, ranging from simple vibrobots to decentralized robotic swarms. The proposed decision-making methods, based around a proposed framework known as Ambiguity Trial and Error (AT&E), are tested for both single robots and robotic swarms in several simulated robotic foraging case studies, and a real-world robotic foraging experiment. A novel method for transferring swarm resilience properties back to single agent decision-making is also explored. The results from the case studies show that the proposed methods demonstrate resilience to varying types of ambiguities, both stationary and non-stationary, while not requiring accurate modeling and assumptions, large amounts of prior training data, or computationally expensive decision-making policy solvers. Conclusions about these novel methods are then drawn from the simulation and experiment results and the future research directions leveraging the lessons learned from this research are discussed

Observations of solar energetic particles at a synchronous orbit

The Space Environment Monitors (SEM) on board the Japanese geostationary meteorological satellites (GMS-1 and GMS-2) observed energetic protons, alpha particles and electrons continuously for February 1978 to September 1984. The satellites were at 6.6 Earth radii above 140 deg E equator