National research on the postgraduate student experience:Case presentation on postgraduate student diversity (Volume 2 of 3)

This is volume two of a set of three case studies that explore the postgraduate student experience. The theme of this case study is postgraduate student diversity and is based on experiences derived from student engagement breakfasts, interviews, and focus groups with 366 people across the stakeholder groups of postgraduate students, educators, and university executives from 26 institutions. The case studies constitute part of the output from the project, Engaging postgraduate students and supporting higher education to enhance the 21st century student experience

National research on the postgraduate student experiences:Case presentation on career development and employability (Volume 3 of 3)

Also titled: First year postgraduate student experience "This is volume three of three volumes of case studies to enhance the postgraduate student experience. The theme of this case study is: First year postgraduate student experience The other two case studies in this series are: \ud Volume 1 - First year postgraduate student experiences\ud Volume 2 - Postgraduate student diversity\ud This case study presentation on career development and employability is based on student engagement breakfasts, interviews and focus groups with 366 people across the stakeholder groups of postgraduate students, educators and university executives from 26 Australian institutions" - from p.

National research on the postgraduate student experience: Case presentation on the first year postgraduate student experience (volume 1 of 3)

Also titled: First year postgraduate student experience "This is volume one of three volumes of case studies to enhance the postgraduate student experience. The theme of this case study is: First year postgraduate student experience The other two case studies in this series are: Volume 2 - Postgraduate student diversity Volume 3 - Career development and employability This case presentation on the first year postgraduate student experience is based on experiences derived from student engagement breakfasts, interviews, and focus groups with 366 people across the stakeholder groups of postgraduate students, educators, and university executives from 26 institutions." - from p.

“Everybody’s talking about doing co-design, but to really truly genuinely authentically do it […] it’s bloody hard”: radical openness in youth participatory action research

Guided by the work of bell hooks, this study uses her concept of ‘radical openness’ as an innovation for multi-party facilitation teams negotiating different roles, positionalities and understandings of youth participatory action research (YPAR). We explore the challenges we negotiated as facilitators in YPAR as they materialised in weekly reflections. We write as a team of two project leaders, three researchers and a project manager. Data comprised recordings of collaborative meetings, weekly reflections and focus groups. Two themes captured the challenges that we experienced and reflexively negotiated. First, we uncovered our own biases and assumptions through critical reflection and dialogue between comrades. Second, as a facilitation team we were able to negotiate authenticity and accountability in relation to project governance and reporting. Radical openness enabled us to identify and mitigate power relations as a team, collectively deepening our consciousness and research praxis. We all proved willing to acknowledge what we each did not know and use our imaginations to see things from each other’s perspectives. Based on our experiences, we suggest that multi-party facilitation teams consider how radical openness can help to cultivate spaces of dialogue between comrades to disrupt hegemonic and colonised views in YPAR

Health, education, and social care provision after diagnosis of childhood visual disability

Aim: To investigate the health, education, and social care provision for children newly diagnosed with visual disability.Method: This was a national prospective study, the British Childhood Visual Impairment and Blindness Study 2 (BCVIS2), ascertaining new diagnoses of visual impairment or severe visual impairment and blindness (SVIBL), or equivalent vi-sion. Data collection was performed by managing clinicians up to 1-year follow-up, and included health and developmental needs, and health, education, and social care provision.Results: BCVIS2 identified 784 children newly diagnosed with visual impairment/SVIBL (313 with visual impairment, 471 with SVIBL). Most children had associated systemic disorders (559 [71%], 167 [54%] with visual impairment, and 392 [84%] with SVIBL). Care from multidisciplinary teams was provided for 549 children (70%). Two-thirds (515) had not received an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP). Fewer children with visual impairment had seen a specialist teacher (SVIBL 35%, visual impairment 28%, χ2p < 0.001), or had an EHCP (11% vs 7%, χ2p < 0 . 01).Interpretation: Families need additional support from managing clinicians to access recommended complex interventions such as the use of multidisciplinary teams and educational support. This need is pressing, as the population of children with visual impairment/SVIBL is expected to grow in size and complexity.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Project Partnerships: The Role of Technology in Building Innovative Practicum Experiences

Teacher education programs rely heavily on the involvement of edticational settings to enrich the learning of preservice teachers. Models of practice are diverse across tertiary institutions laying the foundations for cultural and structural interpretations of what counts for good teaching practice. This paper highlights one preservice teacher ediication program that is currently offered at Kctoria Universily, Melbotirne Atistralia. What distinguishes this model of practice, os opposed to others, is that it seek to support and underpin learner responsive practices through the use of digittolpedagogies. Technological~vri ch learning environments are shown to provide teachers, school students, pre-service teachers and university colleagues with resources that allow them to access new learning paradigms. A case study documents the experiences of preservice teachers in engaging with themes such as: literacy and information comrntinication technoIogies, the social role of technologv, access to digital resources and bridging the digital divide. The case highlights opportunities provided b.v such pwects for preservice teachers to construct an enquiry- based approach to the practicum experience

University-community partnerships: inclusion and transformation

Victoria University (VU) is located in Melbourne’s West, a culturally rich and diverse, but economically and educationally disadvantaged urban region. VU is the largest education and training provider in the area and the largest single employer in the Western Region. It is strongly identified with its geographic location and its institutional mission includes bringing accessible educational opportunities to the people of the region. Community engagement and partnerships are high on the university’s agenda. Participation in vocational and higher education is a key enabler for social inclusion, building individuals’ capacities for future social and economic participation. However, education offers more than this, with its potential for personal and social transformation. It holds the possibility of challenging the potentially conservative aspects of social inclusion. As people’s lives and outlooks are transformed by education, they may then in turn transform education and influence how institutions such as schools and universities understand themselves and their work. This kind of interplay of mutual influence and contribution can be seen as a kind of regional partnership, supported and underpinned by a complex network of numerous more specific university-community partnerships played out at a local level. This paper employs relevant models and frameworks to reflect on how a large multifaceted university located on multiple sites and including diverse disciplines can engage in partnerships with and within its geographic region. It discusses why a dual sector institution such as Victoria University would locate its mission so strongly in the sphere of geographically specific engagement. It examines emerging findings,based on practice and research conducted within VU, concerning partnership activity and social inclusion outcomes. Finally it examines the extent to which the University’s 2 partnership with its region might be regarded as transformative and sustainable over the long term