CREEW'S News
October 2006
Hello everybody
CREEW members continue to permeate academic and other sectors, using their research to investigate, inform and support ... read on ...
- Research News
- Awards
- Publications
- Conferences and Presentations
- Professional Practice
- Centre News
- Future CREEW's News
Research News
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Roger Harris has been invited by the University to be one of the Program Leaders in the Rail CRC (Cooperative Research Centre) application which is now before DEST as one of the CRC bids for the next round of 7-year funding. The research program is Education and Training, and Michele Simons will be a member of the team. Professor Drew Dawson, the Divisions Dean of Research, is another UniSA staff member who will be Program Leader of the Operations and Safety strand. The Stage 1 submission for the CRC was submitted in March and was successful at that stage. The Stage 2 submission was submitted to DEST on 18 August, and DEST will shortlist a number of CRC applications some time in the next month or two. Interviews in Canberra will then be held in November for the shortlisted applications. The submission proposes five research programs besides the two already mentioned, there will be Engineering and Safety Research, Economic, Social and Environment Research and Commercialisation groups. If successful, the CRC will start in the middle of 2007.
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Awards
Congratulations to the following CREEW members who have attained Supported Researcher status for this year: Rosemary Badenoch, Marie Brennan, Judith Gill, Roger Harris, Robert Hattam, Bruce Johnson, Steve Keirl, Rosie Le Cornu, Judy Peters, Helen Raduntz, Alan Reid, Michele Simons, Tom Stehlik, and Peter Willis. These members' activities are frequently reported in CREEW's News - well done everyone!
Publications
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Roger Harris and Michele Simons are currently finalising a chapter which has been accepted for inclusion in an international book by Kimble, Chris and Hildreth, Paul (eds.), Communities of practice: Creating learning environments for educators, Information Age Publishing Inc., Section 3, Chapter 14. The title of the chapter is: Becoming one of them: the experience of institutional educators providing training in enterprises in Australia, and will be published in the UK in 2007.
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The research report on private providers completed by Roger Harris, Michele Simons and Carmel McCarthy received some publicity: in ACPET Monday Update, 31 July 2006: New statistics show private training in Australia dominates, and in Campus Review, A private affair, vol.16, no.30, 2 August, pp.13-14.
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Ann Lawless is working with other health researchers and their conference paper to the Australasian Society HIV Medicine is being presented in October. The title is Just how does male circumcision prevent transmission of HIV to women?. This small research project has used critical discourse analysis to understand current trends in medical journals to advocate male circumcision in a public health approach to HIV prevention. Their paper analyses several discourses found in the medical literature and reveals some problems with this approach, including gendered and racialised operations of power. This international team hopes their work will be published as a refereed paper later in the year, perhaps in Social Science & Medicine. Ann is doing this work as part of her PhD which investigates how universities do or dont empower advocacy and radical social change, and thus contributes to CREEW's research and publications effort.
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Shin-Yu Miao, Roger Harris and Bob Sumner have had their paper, Exploring learning during study tours: Participant perspectives, published in The International Journal of Learning, volume 12 (web-based).
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Conferences and Presentations
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Roger Harris was invited to be keynote speaker at the most recent Micro-Conference at Canberra Institute of Technology, Centre Undertaking Research in Vocational Education (14 August). The title of his address was: The house that Jack (and Jill) built: Using research to help build RTO capability.About 50 people in the ACT attended.
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Roger Harris, with two other colleagues from the ACT, led a 3 hour seminar to 25 DEST staff on 16 August. His presentation was entitled, "Overview of the research consortium program and the concept of RTO capability".
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Roger Harris (with two non-UniSA colleagues) was invited to make a one-hour presentation to the inaugural national meeting of Workforce Development and Learning managers in each of the States and Territories. The presentation rounded off their meeting, providing some of the findings of the National VET Research Consortium, Supporting VET providers in building capability for the future. A brief report on the meeting, by the ACPET representative, appeared in ACPET Monday Update (25 September) - for more information, click here.
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The recent paper by Roger Harris and Linda Rainey, 'Crazy paving? Learning pathways between and within VET and higher education', has been used as a catalyst within the TAFE Learning and Teaching Committee at the University of Ballarat to support a recommendation to set up a focus group to look at support for students to plan for their learning outcomes (maybe tailored Individual Learning Plans). The paper was well received and generated much discussion. Consequently, the recommendation was referred for consideration by the executive of the University of Ballarat Academic Board.
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Helen Raduntz has reported that two of her papers have been refereed and accepted for presentation at the forthcoming AARE Conference in Adelaide in November. The are:
'Trends towards the Privatisation of Intellectual Property: A Marxian progress report for educators and education researchers'. The paper provides a Marxian account of the historical dynamics operating within capitalism in which the public interest is being sacrificed by huge corporate interests intent on privatising intellectual property for money-making purposes by locking it up behind a wall of property rights, costly licensing arrangements and threats of litigation and trade sanctions for infringements.
'Towards a critical democratic pedagogy: A Marxian critique'. The paper evaluates the possibility of the critical democratic pedagogical approach to education of becoming an effective reality. The approach draws on pragmatist philosophy, liberal democratic principles and Deweys education methods and many concerned educators particularly in the US are adopting this model as a counterweight to the narrowing of educational aims set by government education policies.
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Professional Practice
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Alan Reid chaired the Panel reviewing the Faculty of Education at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, from September 26 to September 29, 2006.
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The third Mawson Lakes issues-based lunchtime forum was held on Thursday September 7. Tom Stehlik led a discussion about retention and youth engagement strategies. The next forum will focus on the issue of social and ecological sustainability in a higher education setting and will be held on Thursday 9 November, 1.00pm - 2.00pm, Room G 3.06, Garth Boomer Building. Alan Reid warmly invites you to attend (bring your lunch).
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Centre News
CREEW members are always pleased to receive a visit by one of our PhD graduates. Shin-Yu Miao recently visited us from Taiwan. On completion of her PhD Shin-Yu was promoted to Associate Professor at the Ling Tung University and has published widely on her thesis topic. Shin-Yu took the opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones. We enjoy keeping up with old friends and tracking their career paths. Do keep in touch!
Future CREEW's News
CREEW's News is your newsletter, so please keep us informed of all your activities, sending all contributions to Linda Rainey.