Academic literature on the topic 'National Committee on Social Science Teaching (Australia)'

This article presents a hypothetical series of letters from an anonymous social work student at Flinders University describing their learning. The student is writing to Charles–Louis de Sécondat, Baron de la Br ède et de Montesquieu, in keeping with the Baron’s famous, anonymously published Lettres persanes (Persian Letters). The student’s letters highlight the progress of education in general and social work education in particular from the 18th Century to the present time. They illustrate the author’s approach to teaching and learning, and some of her strategies for effectively teaching social planning and social work ethics.Montesquieu wrote his Lettres persanes in 1721 as a vehicle for commenting on life and culture in contemporary France. This paper presents a series of hypothetical letters to Montesquieu from a social work student at Flinders University describing her learning. These letters were presented at the Australian Universities Teaching Committee National Teaching Forum in 2002 to convey the educator’s approach to teaching. While the letters conclude with a peroration in which the educator outlines the conceptual framework underlying her teaching, the article concludes with a reply from ‘Montesquieu’ on the letters and the student’s response.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Australia in December 1990. The Convention contains 55 articles, 41 of which are substantive, the others being procedural.The Convention has been analysed in legal and other literature in Australia. Its ratification was actively promoted by the National Children's Bureau of Australia and other bodies. Its implementation is the primary responsibility of the Federal and State governments. Periodic reports are required to be made to a Committee of the United Nations established for this purpose. It is foreseen that non-government organisations in each ratifying country will be invited to comment on the performance of their country. This surely means that the NCHA has a role in monitoring the implementation of the Convention.

The findings of the Australian National Committee on Violence and the outcomes of a National Symposium on Alcohol and Violence have encouraged an interest in locally based initiatives to deal with the problem of alcohol-related violence in and around licensed premises in Australia. The first initiatives to emerge were in the form of local accords between police and licensees, with varying degrees of input and support from local government, licensing authorities, the various liquor industry associations, and the local community. To date none of these accords has had any legislative backing nor been underpinned by signed agreements, relying solely on the cooperation of the various parties. The early success claimed by the pioneering accords has resulted in their proliferation throughout Australia. This paper reviews three of the better-known accords, the West End Forum Project, the Surfers Paradise Safety Action Project, and the Geelong Local Industry Accord. Some general conclusions are made regarding the factors that are important with respect to the sustainability and efficacy of these approaches.

The 5th Indonesian Society of Limnology (MLI) Congress and International Conference 2021 is a biannual conference organized by the Indonesian Society of Limnology, with the theme is “Building synergies towards sustainable use of inland waters.” This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we hold the event virtually from 2nd to 3rd December. The objectives of this event are to (1) Connect, discuss, share and create a mutual network among communities from different backgrounds who are interested in inland waters ecosystem; (2) Disseminate science & technology and lessen the gap between scientific and common communities through fruitful discussion settings; (3) Underpin sustainable use and management of inland aquatic ecosystems. There were four keynotes speakers, four invited speakers, and 66 general presenters in the conference sessions. In total, 116 participants were registered and joined the conference. The first keynote speaker was Prof. Dr. Gadis Sri Haryani from the Research Center for Limnology and Water Resources, National Research and Innovation Agency of the Republic of Indonesia (BRIN), Indonesia, who presented research about Migratory freshwater fish in Indonesia: Threats and conservation efforts. The second presenter was Dr. Robert Walsh from the Australian Water Life, Australia, who presented research about Discover the world of Micro-invertebrates. The third keynote speaker was Dr. Khamla Inkhavilay from the National University of Laos, Lao PDR, who presented Persistent Organic Pollutants in Wetland of Mekong Basin. The fourth speaker was Dr. Kwanraree Joy Sirikanchana from the Chulabhorn Research Institute, Thailand, who presented Microbial Source Tracking and Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment for Sustainable Water Pollution Management. In addition, the four invited speakers and 66 general presenters split into four rooms for parallel discussions which covered the latest research on inland water ecosystems, including; (1) Biotic resources, biodiversity, and conservation; (2) System Dynamic of inland waters; (3) Applied technology for the management and pollution control; (4) Modelling, system information, decision support tool, disaster risk reduction; (5) Management, policies, regulation, education, social, economy, and culture. We highly appreciate the generous support from Research Centre for Limnology-BRIN (Indonesia), Australian Water Life (Australia), Chulabhorn Research Institute (Thailand), National University of Laos (Lao PDR), Southeast Asian Limnological Network (SEALnet), Advisory Board, Steering and Organizing committee and all presenters and participants. List of Committees, Advisory Board, Steering Committee, Scientific Committee, Organizing Committee, Documentation, all photos are available in this pdf.

As the global economy becomes more integrated, incorporating international experiences into college curricula becomes increasingly desirable for American students and their counterparts abroad. This paper describes one model for creating an international, Web-based, distance-learning classroom that can be used as a guide for those who might wish to pursue similar endeavors. Our replicated experiences teaching a sociology course on social control, twice under slightly different conditions, provide the basis for identifying the conditions and practices that optimize the goals of providing a forum for international education and enhancing reading and writing skills. A content analysis of the online Student-Led Discussions provides evidence that cross-national knowledge and understanding can be enhanced in this learning environment. Enrolling students from the United States, Belarus, Russia, and Australia, our course demonstrates how instructors can create a successful virtual classroom that truly encircles the globe.

Every political authority, even a historical one, puts forward its “own” demands on history and historians. It was, and probably always will be. This was no exception during the restoration of the Ukrainian state in the 1990s. From ideological monism, Ukrainian science has shifted to reforming social and humanitarian education in the country, including historical education. The beginning was in 1988, when the existing Soviet power, realizing that it was impossible to stop the process of change, brought it under its control, setting up a coordinating committee to develop a program for the development of historical research, to improve the study and propaganda of the history of the Ukrainian SSR. The Commission proposed to separate a course of history of the Ukrainian SSR in secondary and higher education into an independent educational discipline, to expand the number of schools with advanced study of history, and to organize training in leading universities of specialists in the history of Ukraine. But to proclaim does not always mean to do. The cardinal changes will begin later and will be discussed in this article. Until the 1990s, Ukraine had no national concept of historical education. Until 1989, the history of the CPSU was the only basic historical discipline in all higher education institutions of the USSR, as well as in the entire Soviet Union, regardless of profile of study or region. The main educational programs were approved centrally in Moscow by the General Directorate Teaching of Social Sciences of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education of the USSR. In 1989, the course of the history of the CPSU was withdrawn from the educational program of higher education institutions and was replaced by the obligatory historical discipline - “Social and political history of the XX century”. In 1990, universities were granted more rights in defining the content of training. This facilitated the deployment of a grassroots initiative to improve the content of historical teaching. The first such initiative was made by teachers and students of higher educational establishments of Lviv region, where since 1990 most courses of history of Ukraine were taught in most universities, although the official status of this course has not been determined yet by the goverment. In 1992, universities of Ukraine are moving to an in-depth study of national history, re-profiling the departments of USSR history into the departments of Ukrainian history, increasing the number of hours of studying the history of Ukraine for students of historical specialties. But a major drawback in teaching the history of Ukraine was the lack of science-based course programs. In 1993, the Scientific and Methodological Commission on the History of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine began the development of a typical program for the course of history of Ukraine as a kind of reference for the departments of history of Ukraine of higher educational institutions. The development and approval in 1993 of the program of the normative course of history of Ukraine for students of history faculties of higher educational establishments, as well as the drawing up in 1994-1996 a typical program of the basic course of history of Ukraine for other higher educational institutions contributed the development of scientific approaches to teaching Ukrainian history, and clarification of teachers’ positions on discussion issues in history. At one time with the development of the educational programs, the national concept of historical education in Ukraine was created and improved. Key words: history education, history program, national history, course of the History of Ukraine, higher education institutions

This paper’s theme “Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning (hereinafter, this Creative Robot Contest)” may be called a contest that would never have been planned in the absence of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 and the core meltdown accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company. When it was decided to decommission the nuclear reactors, their decommissioning was immediately put in hand, which, however, met with a high barrier of high radiation doses unconquerable even by the modern science and technologies. In order to advance the stagnating decommissioning work and in hopes of some creative breakthrough ideas from KOSEN students, this Robot Contest, first held in 2016, has been held by KOSEN teams who have shown their willingness to participate in it as a venue useful to address any difficulties they will face in the real world or as teaching material for them to consider social problems. This Robot Contest, sponsored by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and the Council of Technical Colleges for Human Resource Development for Decommissioning, is planned and managed by the Executive Committee of Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning (hereinafter, the Executive Committee) with its secretariat at National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College (hereinafter, Fukushima KOSEN) in Fukushima Prefecture where Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is located. In this paper, teachers at Osaka Metropolitan University College of Technology (hereinafter, Osaka Metropolitan University KOSEN) and at Nara National College of Technology, Nara College (hereinafter, Nara KOSEN), whose respective teams have participated in this Robot Contest every year from the first one, and teachers at Fukushima KOSEN who organize and manage the executive committee describe their own views on this Robot Contest based on their viewpoints as KOSEN educators. In the first half, this paper reviews this Robot Contest and outlines the robots of Osaka Metropolitan University KOSEN which participated in it in FY2016 and FY2017 and of Nara KOSEN which did in FY2016. In the latter half, this paper describes the views of the KOSEN teachers who educate engineers in the framework of robot contests from the viewpoints of the teachers who have instructed the teams of Osaka Metropolitan University KOSEN and Nara KOSEN who have participated in this Robot Contest up to the sixth one and who have held this Robot Contest.

Richard Freeman Mark was born in New Zealand and studied Medicine at Otago University, followed by doctoral studies at the Universit� d'Aix-Marseille in France. He undertook postdoctoral studies at the Californian Institute of Technology before accepting a Senior Lectureship at Monash University, Melbourne. His research interests focused on neuroscience, with cutting-edge studies on memory, nerve regeneration, neurodevelopment and plasticity. Richard was appointed to the Foundation Chair of Behavioural Biology at the Australian National University in 1975 and remained there for over twenty-five years. He championed an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to neurobiology in both teaching and research. He was a gifted supervisor and teacher and and initiated the first honours Neuroscience course in Australia. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science in 1974, served as President of the Australian Neuroscience Society from 1998-1999 and was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2003.

Historically, universities and institutions of higher learning have gone through three academic revolutions, namely, teaching, research, and innovation. Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the last two decades have come to occupy an important part in the national innovation systems (NIS), which is a complex of ‘all important economic, social, political, organizational, institutional and other factors that influence the development, diffusion and use of innovations’. From a broader perspective, universities, together with public Research and Development (R&D) labs and science agencies, public policies (on industry, research, innovation and higher education, etc.) and business enterprises are now considered as important actors in the NIS of Asia-Pacific economies. The rise of Asia in the global knowledge-based economy from mid-1990s is closely associated with the rise of knowledge institutions of higher learning and scientific research output. Every Asia-Pacific country embraced and introduced policies relating to innovation in varying forms. Consultancy and collaborative links with industry being traditional forms of engagement, new policy and institutional measures in technology transfer and innovation to engage with society and business enterprises are gaining prominence. Policies for incubation, start-ups, and spin-offs, technology transfer offices (TTOs), and science and technology parks have gained tremendous prominence in leading Asia-Pacific universities. Different national innovation systems in the Asia-Pacific region have given rise to varying roles of universities. Whilst universities in Southeast Asian countries and India continue to play a traditional role of teaching and generating human capital, there are countries such as Singapore, China, Taiwan, and Japan, wherein universities are being transformed as entrepreneurial universities. Science and innovation policies in these countries have orchestrated the goal direction of universities as frontiers of innovation. Universities in Australia and New Zealand have so far been quite successful in marketing higher education to neighboring Asian countries. They have in recent years begun to embark on innovation and commercialization of research. The paper focuses on South East Asia and draws some comparison with more dynamic university ecosystems in East Asia. In doing so, the paper brings into focus the emerging innovation landscapes across the region.

Zdzisław Zmigryder-Konopka, Warsaw philologist, historian of the antique military, Roman law and teacher, engaged with antiquity in many ways during his scholarly and teaching career. Above all, however, he was trained as a philologist and for a certain period (when not employed at the university) he was even a teacher of Latin and Greek in secondary schools, where he enjoyed recognition among pupils and students. In his research work – interrupted by his untimely passing – he focused on Roman history, but his studies spanned a broad chronological timeframe and diverse range of topics, namely Roman law (social and constitutional) and military history. He was a man utterly fascinated by his field and working with young people, not to mention his public activism. He was the type of true humanist whose values, formed and embraced during university studies, shaped and permanently influenced his attitude to life. In the final period of his life, with the rise of anti-Semitism and growing threat of war, Zdzisław Zmigryder-Konopka became a member of the National Committee for Aid to Jewish Refugees from Germany. In addition, he became involved with the Social Committee for the Defence of the State as part of the Jewish Community in Warsaw. After the outbreak of the war, he volunteered to fight in the September campaign, and after it ended he arrived in Lwów to become a lecturer at the Jan Kazimierz University. Though affected by poor health and chronic illness, his death on 4 November 1939 still came as a surprise. Discussed more broadly in this paper, Zmigryder-Konopka’s “Battle in the Teutoburg Forest” relied on an analysis of source text to deliver a substantive response to the assertions published in German scholarly literature of the 1930s, which eulogized Germanic past in European history following Germany’s defeat in the Great War of 1914-1918 and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

The Australian Catholic University (ACU National at www.acu.edu.au) is a public university funded by the Australian Government. There are six campuses across the country, located in Brisbane, Queensland; North Sydney, New South Wales; Strathfield, New South Wales; Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT); Ballarat, Victoria; and Melbourne, Victoria. The university serves a total of approximately 27,000 students, including both full- and part-time students, and those enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Through fostering and advancing knowledge in education, health, commerce, the humanities, science and technology, and the creative arts, ACU National seeks to make specific and targeted contributions to its local, national, and international communities. The university explicitly engages the social, ethical, and religious dimensions of the questions it faces in teaching, research, and service. In its endeavors, it is guided by a fundamental concern for social justice, equity, and inclusivity. The university is open to all, irrespective of religious belief or background. ACU National opened its doors in 1991 following the amalgamation of four Catholic tertiary institutions in eastern Australia. The institutions that merged to form the university had their origins in the mid-17th century when religious orders and institutes became involved in the preparation of teachers for Catholic schools and, later, nurses for Catholic hospitals. As a result of a series of amalgamations, relocations, transfers of responsibilities, and diocesan initiatives, more than twenty historical entities have contributed to the creation of ACU National. Today, ACU National operates within a rapidly changing educational and industrial context. Student numbers are increasing, areas of teaching and learning have changed and expanded, e-learning plays an important role, and there is greater emphasis on research. In its 2005–2009 Strategic Plan, the university commits to the adoption of quality teaching, an internationalized curriculum, as well as the cultivation of generic skills in students, to meet the challenges of the dynamic university and information environment (ACU National, 2008). The Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary) Program at ACU Canberra Situated in Australia’s capital city, the Canberra campus is one of the smallest campuses of ACU National, where there are approximately 800 undergraduate and 200 postgraduate students studying to be primary or secondary school teachers through the School of Education (ACT). Other programs offered at this campus include nursing, theology, social work, arts, and religious education. A new model of pre-service secondary teacher education commenced with the introduction of the Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary) program at this campus in 2005. It marked an innovative collaboration between the university and a cohort of experienced secondary school teachers in the ACT and its surrounding region. This partnership was forged to allow student teachers undertaking the program to be inducted into the teaching profession with the cooperation of leading practitioners from schools in and around the ACT. In the preparation of novices for the teaching profession, an enduring challenge is to create learning experiences capable of transforming practice, and to instill in the novices an array of professional skills, attributes, and competencies (Putnam & Borko, 2000). Another dimension of the beginning teacher experience is the need to bridge theory and practice, and to apply pedagogical content knowledge in real-life classroom practice. During the one-year Graduate Diploma program, the student teachers undertake two four-week block practicum placements, during which they have the opportunity to observe exemplary lessons, as well as to commence teaching. The goals of the practicum include improving participants’ access to innovative pedagogy and educational theory, helping them situate their own prior knowledge regarding pedagogy, and assisting them in reflecting on and evaluating their own practice. Each student teacher is paired with a more experienced teacher based at the school where he/she is placed, who serves as a supervisor and mentor. In 2007, a new dimension to the teaching practicum was added to facilitate online peer mentoring among the pre-service teachers at the Canberra campus of ACU National, and provide them with opportunities to reflect on teaching prior to entering full-time employment at a school. The creation of an online community to facilitate this mentorship and professional development process forms the context for the present case study. While on their practicum, students used social software in the form of collaborative web logging (blogging) and threaded voice discussion tools that were integrated into the university’s course management system (CMS), to share and reflect on their experiences, identify critical incidents, and invite comment on their responses and reactions from peers.