This paper explores the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts for the Australian Curriculum Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) in facilitating the writing of the foundation "Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts" (2011) paper for the national curriculum, with a particular focus on the discipline area of music. The…

Arts education in Western Australian primary schools consist of learning opportunities outlined by mandated curriculum. However, assumptions underlying this curriculum involving access, resources and support impact schools' capacity to implement the curriculum without them being adequately addressed by the written curriculum. Drawing on the policy…

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary PE specialist teachers' assessments of safety risk factors in PE class, risk management, and difficulties in risk management. Five elementary PE specialist teachers who had at least five years of teaching experience participated in this study. Data were collected from non-participant class…

This paper describes the design principles and implementation of a novel approach for a K--12 teacher professional development (PD) program. The approach integrates training focused on development of model eliciting activities (MEAs) within authentic engineering design tasks, collaborative 3D model design and fabrication, and inspirational site…

The e-character education (e-CE) approach refers to systems of ethics education that pertain specifically to cyberspace. This exploratory study used a survey to collect 2495 teachers' responses regarding virtues important to e-CE. Furthermore, in order to identify the teaching concerns associated with these most important virtues, this study used…

This article provides an example of a collaborative effort between a dance specialist and four third-grade classroom teachers at an arts magnet school. They developed a dance and geometry integration project including implementation strategies, assessment tools, and reflections completed by both the classroom teacher and the third-grade students.…

This paper presents findings of four Grade 6 teachers' involvement as facilitators of a participatory action research (PAR) project conducted in three South African primary schools. Based on the results of Phase One research which indicated that Grade 6s learn about sexuality, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency…

Teachers' "curricular role identities" are those dimensions of their professional identities concerned with the use of curriculum materials. In a previous study, we developed and tested a survey instrument designed to measure preservice elementary teachers' development of curricular role identity for science teaching through their use of science…

The authors aim to identify characteristics of democratic schools. The Delphi technique used in this study is based on attaining a consensus among a group of experts over 3 rounds with 22 experts from 9 countries participating in the first round. By the end of the third round, 339 items referring to democratic school characteristics were…

Introduction: Children today are under much more stress than a few decades ago due to academic pressure, family financial hardship, competition with peers, and stressed parents. Consequently, stress-related health issues and behavioral problems, such as cardiovascular diseases, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, violent or withdrawal…

Today's principals must have knowledge of content area standards and be involved in curriculum planning and pacing. They assign strong master teachers as mentors to new teachers. They are involved in what's happening in their classrooms and practice ongoing assessment of the classroom teaching, focusing on improving student learning. Today's…

Today's world is challenged by complex issues and citizens need ever-increasing scientific literacy to understand the impact of issues such as global warming, alternative energy, and genetic engineering, on their daily lives and to make informed decisions. Students need to be prepared to tackle issues such as these by being exposed to learning…

This study was conducted in a large urban school district. Fifty-nine elementary schools, designated as Fine Arts Schools by the district, were organized as a Fine Arts School Network. The school district partnered with an external arts organization to deliver research-based, consistent and collaborative professional development to art, music,…

The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) is an independent, not-for-profit membership organisation dedicated to raising levels of achievement in secondary education. SSAT has a membership of over 5,300 schools and growing numbers of affiliated universities, colleges and local authorities. This corporate plan sets out SSAT's main work for…

For the thirty-sixth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Anaheim, California. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…