Kindergarten-aged children enjoy learning much more than children who have started school according to a new Griffith University study published in the Australian Journal of Education.
Researchers from the Griffith Institute for Educational Research interviewed more than 200 Australian children aged between three and eight about how they liked to learn.
Lead author Associate Professor Beverley Flückiger says children’s loss of motivation as they enter school is concerning as a positive outlook on learning is critical to success.
“More needs to be done to maintain the highly positive dispositions towards learning that children bring with them when they commence school,’’ she said.
The researchers found that younger children expressed a sense of agency and self-efficacy in their learning while many school-aged children described learning as a process that requires them to be compliant and passive.
They also found that most children craved work and learning processes that gained and kept their interest, with most seeking
Category: Griffith University Feed
Ethics of photography under spotlight
The law and ethics of taking and sharing images in a world where everyone has a camera was in the spotlight this morning, as part of an expert panel discussion on ABC Radio’s Brisbane Focus program.
Griffith University Senior Research Fellow Dr Hugh Breakey joined QUT’s Dr Kylie Pappalardo and photographer Jason to respond to questions from listeners on the topic.
Dr Breakey says everyone having a camera raises a lot of ethical issues.
“You have different ethical issues that can arise with each step that they can take.
“As well as all the ethical issues to do with copyright, privacy, private property and so on, you’ve got these different decision nodes that you work your way through.
“Taking a photo might be okay, putting it online might be okay, but the way you frame it and the way you provide information about it, that might be the thing that gets people to say ‘hang
Susan Harris-Rimmer in world’s top 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy
Associate Professor Susan Harris-Rimmer has been named in Apolitical’s world’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy announced today.
The list honours and celebrates women and men making the world more equitable, whether they exert influence through policymaking, research or advocacy.
Growing up in the the small NSW town of Coonabarabran in outback Australia the young Susan had no knowledge of university life or the business of government.
“Education transformed my life. I want to help other rural girls achieve whatever they can imagine, to open up horizons of choice and ambition,” she said.
“My research and policy work is grounded in the women’s movement in Australia and the region. I want my work to be connected, useful, and to generate ideas for advocacy.
“It is a privilege to make sure the experience of women and girls surviving conflict, building peace and seeking justice is recorded, analysed, and above all, celebrated.”
Susan is an Associate Professor
New York Festival recognition for Nance second year running
For the second year in a row Walkley Award-winning journalist and Griffith’s journalist-in-residence Nance Haxton is a finalist in the New York Festival’s World’s Best Radio Program awards.
Nance is a finalist in the Histories and Community Profiles categories for her radio documentary on Blackbirding which tells the story of the more than 60,000 South Sea Islanders forcibly brought to Australia to work as labourers on sugar cane and cotton farms in the 19th century. In 2017 Nance took out the Bronze Award for her radio documentary on Stradbroke Island.
Nance with her bronze award at the New York Festival Radio Awards in 2017.
“I am beyond thrilled to have this recognition for my doco, with the publicity from this hopefully shedding more light on this shameful chapter of Australia’s history, with some calling it Australia’s slave trade,’’ Nance says.
She said it was a wonderful validation as she begins her PhD on Blackbirding
New research explores law and justice in Aussie films
Calls for chapter submissions are now open for a new book exploring the unique space Australian film and television occupies in world cinema, with a particular focus on representations of law and justice ‘Down Under’.
Griffith Law School’s Dr Kieran Tranter wants to explore the unique space Australian film and television occupies in world cinema through a new book titled, Law and Justice through Australian Lenses: Bushrangers, Battlers and Bastards.
Dr Tranter says most Australians are unaware of the special place Australia plays in cinematic history.
“Most Australians are unaware the first full-length narrative feature film ever produced, was made in Melbourne, giving the Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), a special place in cinematic history by retelling another history, that of the infamous outlaw Ned Kelly,” he says.
“Australia creates a range of films and television fixated on issues of law and justice. From the ‘ocker’ Kerrigans in The Castle, to several versions
Law Futures Centre first to translate thought-provoking piece
Dr Kieran Tranter
It is not widely known that one of Carl Schmitt’s first pieces of published writing was a satirical piece of speculative fiction – Die Buribunken (The Buribunks). In it he writes about the beings that humans will become -the Buirbunkens – beings who compulsory contribute daily diaries to a global archive. In the contemporary infoverse of social media, audit culture and the IoT, such envisioning seems prophetic. For a jurist more infamously known for theorising the exception, the friend/enemy distinction and his compliance, if not cooperation, with the Nazi regime in the 1930s, his biting critique of an information culture out of control is particularly striking.
Until now the Die Buribunken has not been fully translated into English. With assistance from a small grant from the Arts, Education and Law group at Griffith University, we have had it translated.
To build international awareness about the piece and to begin reflecting on what the Die Buribunken might
Griffith filmmaker makes waves with debut doco
A documentary about India’s first ice hockey team has helped Griffith Film School alumni Mithun Bajaj break into the Indian film industry and is making waves on the international festival circuit.
Mithun’s debut documentary, Fighting on Ice, documents the trials and tribulations of India’s ice hockey team: think Cool Runnings on the Indian subcontinent.
Mithun managed to crowdfund the film, taking on responsibility for directing, shooting and producing his passion project.
“India is known for Bollywood and cricket. When I heard India had an ice hockey team I was surprised and intrigued,” he said.
“The athletes on this team play with minimal equipment and virtually no funding, and they do this because they believe in the sport – ice hockey is their life.
“I found their journey inspiring.”
The film recently won Best Documentary at the Eurasia International Film Festival and has been selected for the Independent Prisma Awards in Rome and the Auckland International Film Festival.
Mithun graduated
Griffith expertise improving vital fresh water management in SE Asia
Nowhere else in the world is there a greater need for investment to address water management issues than the Indo-Pacific region, and especially SE Asia.
The region represents the confluence of outstanding freshwater biodiversity values, high societal dependence on fisheries (and other ecosystem services that healthy rivers and wetlands provide), and a high level of threat to these values from water resource development and pollution that is rapidly intensifying.
The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) was established in 2015 and coordinates the Australian government’s international investment to assist developing countries with these water management challenges, with a specific focus on the Indo-Pacific. Initially funded through the Australian aid program (DFAT), the AWP aims to provide more efficient access to Australian water sector experience and expertise in response to growing demand for collaboration from governments and multilateral agencies in the region.
Griffith joined the AWP in July 2017, led by Professor Stuart Bunn at the
So – just how dirty is your tea towel?
Two Griffith University academics have put a breakfast radio team’s tea towels under the microscope to reveal just how many germs like to call them home.
Associate Professor Helen Stratton, an expert in microbiology from the School of Environment and Science, put Flan, Emily Jade and Christo from the 102.9FM Hot Tomato Gold Coast Breakfast show team and their tea towels to the test after on on-air discussion over how frequent – or infrequent – the average person should wash their tea towel led to a call for each of the presenters’ to undergo analysis.
“We’ll discover how much bacteria is on the tea towels through some lab tests,” Associate Professor Stratton said.
“It depends how dirty they are and if they stay wet. If they dry out and they’re warm the bacteria can’t necessarily survive. It will be interesting.”
Emily Jade said she washed her tea towels daily, Flan washed his every couple
Turn over a new LEAF at the 2018 Logan Eco Action Festival
Glossy black-cockatoo research and an innovative native plants app will be on show when Griffith University hosts the 2018 Logan Eco Action Festival, also known as LEAF.
Professor Catherine Pickering, an expert in nature-based tourism and recreation with the Environmental Futures Research Institute (EFRI) who is head of the Ecology and Evolution discipline, along with Dr Guy Castley, who is also from EFRI, will be on hand to demonstrate and discuss the groNATIVE app and the important research work into glossy black-cockatoo conservation at the festival, which will be held at the Logan campus on Sunday, May 27.
LEAF is an interactive community festival designed to empower attendees to find new ways to decrease their environmental footprint. The festival theme for 2018 is ‘Rethink the future’.
LEAF offers attendees access to eco businesses, demonstrations, workshops, children’s activities and live music.
Costa Georgiadis from ABC’s Gardening Australia will be a special guest at this year’s event.
What: Logan Eco Action