A school university teacher education partnership: Reconceptualising reciprocity of learning

As initial teacher education students transition to the profession, the experiences offered by the university and partner institutions require intentional, careful, and strategic planning, to ensure positive relational, organisational, and pedagogical experiences for all stakeholders (Lynch & Smith, 2012; Moss, 2008). To minimise the tensions between the theoretical positioning of the university and the practicality of the classroom, respectful and collaborative partnerships need to be central to the design and facilitation of professional experience programmes (Lynch & Smith, 2012). The ‘Hub’ is a longitudinal research and practice partnership between a NSW regional university with Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes, and a local, multi-campus secondary College. This paper describes the outcomes of one collaboratively designed initiative of the project: evaluating a team teaching approach in the Bachelor of Education degree. Survey and interview data were gathered from all key stakeholders regarding the efficacy of the ‘teaming’ of academics and teachers to facilitate workshops in professional experience subjects. Survey data were statistically analysed, while thematic analysis was applied to qualitative artefacts. Results of the initial pilot indicate significant value-adding to the professional experience subjects, particularly flagging students increased readiness for employability. Reciprocally, the school teachers indicated their increased understandings of the preparedness of ITE students to engage in professional experience, their heightened capacity to reflect on practice, and enhancement of their leadership and mentoring skills

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Reimagining the School-University Partnership and the Role of the School-Based Professional Experience Coordinator: A New South Wales Case Study

Whilst the notion of school-university partnerships is not new, in locations such as New South Wales (NSW), Australia, there has been a renewed interest in consolidating these partnerships in order to develop sustainable mutually beneficial relationships. In recognition of rising tensions between universities as Initial Teacher Education providers (ITE) and schoolteachers as supervisors of pre-service teachers (PST) whilst on professional experience placements, the NSW Department of Education initiated the HUB schools initiative. The initiative aimed to identify school sites that were actively engaged in the PST supervision process and link them with a partner university to support the codesign and development of more effective boundary crossing projects that met the needs of both stakeholders. The initial iteration of the program provided the opportunity for twenty-four schools across the state to partner with a university with varying levels of engagement and tangible outcomes. This chapter will trace the development of the initiative and then explore the value of the role of the school-based Professional Experience Coordinator (PEXC) as an integral piece in a school and university relationship

Work-Integrated Learning Case Studies in Teacher Education: Epistemic Reflexivity

This book focuses on the emerging area of partner-driven work-integrated learning inclusive of university or industry stakeholder development, and the integration of these two major stakeholders. It explores the significant interrelationship between university and school needs in this area of research. It uses a cross-institutional approach and focuses on local communities that educational providers interact with, to highlight and discuss the issues identified in various case studies. By doing so, this book aims to create a community of practice that explores work-integrated learning from an integrated stakeholder perspective, and develops a working model to extend existing understanding in this area through integrating the ideas explored in the various chapters

Revisiting Our Understanding of Partnerships in the Pre-service Teaching Space: Key Findings and Conclusions

The ongoing work of teacher education is much like the professionals who are involved in the craft: fluid, adaptable, resilient, integrated, and engaging. While there is a well-established stream of highly influential research in the area of the scholarship of teaching and learning, there has been little opportunity for the pivotal playmakers to share the details of their craft through written academic word. This text has provided a rare opportunity for those stakeholders involved in teacher education, in particular partnerships between higher-education institutions and Department of Education school staff, to shine a spotlight and share their knowledge of professional work-integrated learning (WIL) through multifaceted, rich, and longstanding prac-tices in professional experience (PEx). Schools and universities that were working together were invited to share their research, practice, and partnerships in teacher education as an offering to learn from one another in the third space. This chapter summarises the findings of these contributions and provides a platform to welcome others involved in the under-recognised, tireless, evolving partnerships necessary for the creation of excellent graduate teachers

A stepped-wedge implementation and evaluation of the healthy active peaceful playgrounds for youth (HAPPY) intervention

Abstract Background Increasing physical activity in children is a health priority. The Healthy Active Peaceful Playgrounds for Youth (HAPPY) study aimed to examine a multi-component playground intervention designed to increase the proportion of physical activity during recess and lunch of primary school students. Methods The 2016 Australian focused HAPPY Study was a 12-month, metropolitan primary school based intervention, which was evaluated using a stepped wedge design. The intervention combined teacher development, environmental modifications, and peer support, with the outcomes of increasing physical activity, and analysing students’ sources of social support to be physically active. Results Between baseline and follow-up, the proportion of students involved in vigorous activities during recess and lunch times increased significantly from 15 to 25% (p < 0.001). No differences were recorded in sources of social support. Conclusions The HAPPY project demonstrated an increase in the proportion of physical activity intensity during recess and lunch times in primary schools, although further investigation is required to determine what components of the study had the greatest effect. Trial registration This study was retrospectively registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12616000575437. Date of registration: 4 May 2016

Australian primary school communities' understandings of SunSmart: a qualitative study

Abstract Objectives: Skin cancer represents a major health issue for Australia. Childhood sun exposure is an important risk factor and evidence suggests the use of sun protection measures by Australian school children could be improved. This study examines how the SunSmart Program, a school‐based skin cancer prevention resource, can be supported to further increase sun protection behaviours to assist in lowering skin cancer incidence. Methods: The Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework was adopted to select key stakeholders from a convenience sample of five school communities. Students, teaching staff and parents participated in semi‐structured focus group and individual interviews. A thematic analysis was used to extract key themes from the data. Results: Although these school communities were aware of sun protection practices and the risks associated with sun exposure, their understandings of the SunSmart Program were limited. Sun protection policy implementation was inconsistent and students were unlikely to engage in sun protection practices beyond the school setting. Conclusion and implications: School communities require additional support and engagement to holistically enforce the principles of the SunSmart Program

Rationale and protocol paper for the Healthy Active Peaceful Playgrounds for Youth (HAPPY) study

Abstract Background A growing body of evidence suggest an association between physical activity levels and students psychological well-being. A number of research studies have evaluated playground interventions that aim to increase physical activity levels, decrease conflict and bullying, and improve students behaviour. The HAPPY Study will evaluate the success of an intervention combining environmental modifications, teacher development, and peer support that can culminate in an easy to implement, low cost and effective model for increasing physical activity, and improving psychological well-being for children. Methods/Design Data will be collected at six New South Wales (NSW) primary schools, on physical activity levels, on-task time during classes, and social support for physical activity during a 12 month Cluster Controlled Trial (CT). Three quantitative data collection tools will be used to capture student’s physical activity levels during lunch and recess breaks (the SOPARC tool), student’s on-task behaviour during classes following recess and lunch breaks (the BOSS tool) and where students receive the most encouragement to be physically active from (the Physical Activity Social Support Scale survey). Baseline data will be analysed against follow-up data, collected after an intervention that is rolled out in all schools as part of a stepped wedge CT design. Discussion A review of relevant Australian and New Zealand literature suggests that playground interventions can be successful at increasing physical activity levels, increasing social and conflict resolution skills in students, and decreasing incidences of bullying. This study will investigate any correlation between physical activity levels, and student behaviour during classes following breaks. Trial Registration Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Register ACTRN12616000575437 , registered May 2016