Donna Pendergast

Child Development and Learning integrates concepts of learning and development into one comprehensive text for understanding child development. At its core is the belief that learning and development are intertwined. As children learn, they also develop. As children develop, they also learn. With an understanding of how children develop, specific activities can be implemented to support the learning of all children. The text explores both classical and emerging theories and assists pre-service teachers to grasp the details of the historical references to current understandings of development. The intention is to highlight the importance of understanding how child development theories can be implemented within the field of education. With its clear and engaging style, the text presents up-to-date research while offering practical applications that will relate to pre-service teachers' personal and professional lives. Child Development and Learning is comprised of six sections. Five of the sections cover the developmental domains, and within each domain there are four chapters based on chronological age, from birth to 18 years. Each section consists of activities to foster engagement by allowing the reader to learn through critical reflection and analysis. The final sixth section provides an overview of how to plan for schooling starting with early childhood education and ending with senior schooling, and draws together the learning techniques necessary to support children within different age ranges. Complete with examples that are research-focused, real-world and cross-cultural, students are provided with practical strategies to help them program and plan for learning and development.

This book examines the theoretical underpinning of the concept of personalised education and explores the question: What is personalised education in the contemporary higher education sector and how is it implemented? A broad, sophisticated definition of personalised learning has the potential to serve as a basis for more effective educational practices. The term ‘personalised education’ is, and continues to be, one with a variety of definitions. The authors’ definition both incorporates earlier concepts of personalised education and critically reassesses them. The book then adds a further dimension: personalised instruction in electronically mediated environments, where the goal is to achieve learning towards mastery individually with the help of differentiated and individualised electronic learning platforms. This book assesses the various arguments concerning personalised education, examining each through the lens of educational theory and pedagogy and subsequently positing a number of qualitative characteristics of personalised education that have the potential to influence policy and practices in the higher education sector.

This book examines the theoretical underpinning of the concept of personalised education and explores the question: What is personalised education in the contemporary higher education sector and how is it implemented? A broad, sophisticated definition of personalised learning has the potential to serve as a basis for more effective educational practices. The term ‘personalised education’ is, and continues to be, one with a variety of definitions. The authors’ definition both incorporates earlier concepts of personalised education and critically reassesses them. The book then adds a further dimension: personalised instruction in electronically mediated environments, where the goal is to achieve learning towards mastery individually with the help of differentiated and individualised electronic learning platforms. This book assesses the various arguments concerning personalised education, examining each through the lens of educational theory and pedagogy and subsequently positing a number of qualitative characteristics of personalised education that have the potential to influence policy and practices in the higher education sector.

Higher education institutions around the globe are facing complex issues that disrupt the usual roles and purposes of centres of learning and research. Forces such as globalisation, burgeoning knowledge-based economies, rapid adoption of new technology, and global competition are changing the work and lived experiences of academics across the globe. This book addresses the unprecedented effects of these global pressures, including the COVID-19 pandemic, on university work and the resulting opportunity for innovative disruption. It presents the voices of 16 Australian university academics, framed by standpoint theory, which provide a unique perspective and insights into the rapid shifts impacting universities and how these affect academics’ work lives. The stories uncover cases of disappointment and frustration, bullying and morale loss, alongside positive change and the awareness of the need to change expectations. This work informs the development of the Academic Predicament Model (APM), which points to the erosion of academic professionalism and identifies how such change in university work consequently de-professionalises academia in Australia. The long-term effect is to challenge the place and function of higher education institutions. The need for transformation, and potential for its outcomes, has never been greater, nor has the risk that the elements of the Academic Predicament Model will be amplified, causing the de-professionalising of academia to be further accelerated. This book will be of interest to researchers in higher education exploring neoliberalism and its impact on education and academics’ work.

Higher education institutions around the globe are facing complex issues that disrupt the usual roles and purposes of centres of learning and research. Forces such as globalisation, burgeoning knowledge-based economies, rapid adoption of new technology, and global competition are changing the work and lived experiences of academics across the globe. This book addresses the unprecedented effects of these global pressures, including the COVID-19 pandemic, on university work and the resulting opportunity for innovative disruption. It presents the voices of 16 Australian university academics, framed by standpoint theory, which provide a unique perspective and insights into the rapid shifts impacting universities and how these affect academics’ work lives. The stories uncover cases of disappointment and frustration, bullying and morale loss, alongside positive change and the awareness of the need to change expectations. This work informs the development of the Academic Predicament Model (APM), which points to the erosion of academic professionalism and identifies how such change in university work consequently de-professionalises academia in Australia. The long-term effect is to challenge the place and function of higher education institutions. The need for transformation, and potential for its outcomes, has never been greater, nor has the risk that the elements of the Academic Predicament Model will be amplified, causing the de-professionalising of academia to be further accelerated. This book will be of interest to researchers in higher education exploring neoliberalism and its impact on education and academics’ work.

Student engagement is fundamental to learning, yet it also constitutes a major and long-standing challenge to educators around the world. This book provides an evidence-based theorisation of features associated with schooling engagement, along with targeted strategies that underpin a continuum of pedagogical, curricular and social support during the years of young adolescent schooling. Anchored by the Young Adolescent Engagement in Learning Model, a multi-layered model which incorporates a continuum of behavioural, emotional and cognitive dimensions of engagement, the authors provide a framework to help support the engagement of young adolescents. Seamlessly integrating theory and practice, this book explores the importance of avoiding educational disengagement, particularly from those who are most vulnerable due to a range of personal factors. This volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of educational young adolescent engagement and retention, as well as those working with young people.

There is an expectation that teachers are, and will be, transformers of society as they prepare young people to deal with an ever-changing world. While the importance of this role has never been greater, the status and respect once enjoyed by teachers has declined over recent years. Diminishing status and negative stereotypes have in turn contributed to a growing teacher shortage crisis, worldwide. Home economists, as one group of increasingly scarce teachers, have carried their share of negative stereotyping, led by tired cliches such as cookers and sewers and stitchers and stirrers. This book encourages rethinking of home economics and home economics teaching by providing insights into the embodied pedagogy of teachers who refuse to live by tired cliches. It explores ways in which these teachers engage in fun and pleasure, demonstrating that transformative moments are part of their classroom culture. This re-thinking offers challenges not only for home economics teachers, their profession and home economics as a cultural practice, but for the broader teaching community engaged in embodied pedagogy, thereby providing a paradigm shift for re-thinking the status and perceptions of teachers and teacher professionalism.