369 research outputs found
Neil McCoy, Andrew Dempster, Armando Manzano and guests, 50th Anniversary of IBL, 2013
No full textNeil McCoy, Andrew Dempster, Armando Manzano and guests at 50th anniversary of Industry Based Learning (IBL) celebrations, ATC Building, Hawthorn Campus, 50 years of IBL celebrations, 18 July 2013
A learning Dempster-Shafer model for automated building detection
No full textThis paper presents a learning Dempster-Shafer model for the detection of buildings in aerial image and range data. The process of evidence assignment in the Dempster-Shafer method is implemented through membership functions in an adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system, where a back propagation learning rule is employed to tune the evidence assignment functions using training samples. The advantage of this method is that it incorporates our knowledge about various features that can be extracted from multi-source aerial data, and the evidence that these features provide for buildings and other objects in urban and suburban areas. Experimental results show that the proposed learning model improves the performance of the Dempster-Shafer classifier in detecting buildings in multi- source aerial data.Remote SensingAerospace Engineerin
Summary of climate-and geohazard-related vulnerabilities for the Dempster Highway corridor
No full textThe Dempster Highway is the only road connection to the western Arctic. Now connected with the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, it is part of the infrastructure linking southern Canada with the Arctic Ocean. Extensive reconstruction of the Dempster Highway has been completed on the NWT side of the territorial border in response to degradation of the road surface and embankment. Recognizing the need to ensure year-round availability of the Dempster Highway in the context of increasing traffic and a changing climate, Yukon Government Department of Highways and Public Works (HPW) has initiated a project to create a functional plan that specifically considers contributions of climate change to geohazards along the highway. Research and analysis required to assess climate and geohazard vulnerability have been carried out by the Northern Climate ExChange, part of the Yukon Research Centre at Yukon College, feeding into the functional planning process carried out by an engineering consultant. This report is a summary of climate- and geohazard-related vulnerabilities for the highway corridor.repor
The Professional Development of School Principals: A fine balance
No full textThis paper concentrates on the professional development of principals, the kind they get as well as the kind they deserve. It does so in five parts. First, Professor Dempster puts forward a theoretical framework describing four different orientations to professional development in education as a background to the examination of recent research related to principals’ professional development. Second, he describe some of the outcomes of three research projects in which he has been involved in the last ten years to identify what they say about the kind of professional development to which principals have been exposed. This is followed by an examination of a wider research literature, scholarly writing and current practice in principals’ professional development to identify where the emphases lie. These emphases are charted against the theoretical framework to contrast present realities with other possibilities. The paper concludes with a series of questions principals and their employers might ask of themselves if the kind of balance argued for is to be achieved in their professional learning over time.School of Curriculum, Teaching and LearningFull Tex
Induction motor fault diagnosis using industrial wireless sensor networks and Dempster-Shafer classifier fusion
No full textThis paper presents a novel induction motor fault diagnosis system using industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs), in which on-sensor feature extraction and fault diagnosis approaches are investigated to address the tension between the higher system requirements of IWSNs and the resource constrained characteristics of sensor nodes. Classifier fusion using Dempster-Shafer theory on the coordinator is then explored to increase diagnosis result quality. Three kinds of motor operating condition - normal, loose feet, and mass imbalance - are monitored to evaluate the proposed system. Experimental results show on-sensor feature extraction and fault diagnosis could effectively reduce payload transmission data, and decrease node energy consumption, while Dempster-Shafer classifier fusion significantly improves fault diagnosis accuracy compared with using local neural network classifiers alone
Guilty or not: The impact and effects of site-based management on schools
No full textThis paper examines the impact and effects of site-based management on schools using a framework developed by Canadian researchers, Sackney and Dibski. It draws on research literature from the UK, New Zealand and Australia and includes results from three studies in which the author has been engaged. The Sackney and Dibski framework is used to lay seven "charges" against site-based management - that site-based management leads to greater decision-making flexibility, changes the work role and increases the workload of principals, improves student learning outcomes, increases innovation, increases competition, results in reduced funding and affects the standing of the public education system. The analysis of the literature selected suggests that site-based management is guilty of some and not of others.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Education and Professional StudiesNo Full Tex
Context, Complexity and Contestation in Curriculum Construction: Developing Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum
No full textIn the 1990s, New Zealand's curriculum for the compulsory schooling sector was to undergo complete revision following the administrative reforms of the 1980s. The development of each new curriculum document followed a business model in which the Ministry of Education put the development process out for competitive tender. The successful bidders were to complete their tasks to strict Ministry guidelines and under the scrutiny of the Ministry's Curriculum Review Committee and the Minister's Policy Advisory Group. After the completion of a draft version, public consultation and school trials, a final curriculum document would be prepared and mandated as the legal curriculum requirements for New Zealand government-funded schools. The process that the fifth document, Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum, was to undergo proved to be elongated and controversial. As such, it provides a case study through which to examine, critique and theorise the nature of curriculum construction at a macro-level, in this case, at a national level. This study of the development of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum illuminates three broad themes in curriculum construction - context, complexity and contestation. These themes arise from the literature and are reinforced by the study's findings. The study set out to: provide detailed description and analysis of an example of curriculum construction; use the selected case study to demonstrate the importance of the broader contexts within which curriculum construction occurs; problematise the notion of curriculum construction by highlighting the complexities in and around the process; articulate the contested nature of selecting and presenting curriculum contents; and provide insights into the personal and affective side of involvement in a macrolevel curriculum construction process. There are three main sources of data - the process itself, the products (three versions of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum) and the people involved. A range of data gathering methods is used from primarily historical and ethnographic research within a qualitative framework. The main data gathering tools are archival research, document analysis and open-ended interviewing. As the data are mainly textual--either as original documents or created texts, as in interview transcripts-analytic strategies include content, thematic, semiotic and discourse analysis. Social constructionism (Burr, 1995) provides a unifying theoretical approach to frame the research design and analysis. In this dissertation, the background to the study, the findings and the discussion are interwoven and presented through three story strands - institutional, contextual and personal. The institutional strand aims to tell "what happened". The contextual strand aims to explain "why things happened as they did", "in what circumstances" and "why this might be important". The personal strand aims to give more prominence to the role of individuals in such a process, that is, "who was involved, how did individuals impact upon curriculum construction and how did the process impact upon them?" The layout of the dissertation also highlights the interwoven and complex nature of the ideas being explored. It is necessary to push the boundaries of a more traditional format to keep the notions of complexity and contestation to the fore. This manifests itself in the way that the chapter headings are based around the three story strands, the literature is integrated throughout the study and multi-layered stories and multiple interpretations are given. Within this framework, the usual features of a conventional research report - background, context, literature, theoretical underpinnings, methodological choices, findings and discussion - are still to be found but some liberty is taken to "open up the complications that [would] have been smoothed over" (Stronach & MacLure, 1997, p. 5) in more traditional dissertations. The findings are analysed and presented in a variety of ways - as a chronology and a set of critical incidents to outline the process, as textual and visual analysis to examine the products, and through personal stories to illuminate the experiences of the people involved. Theorising from the data is problematised by using a range of theoretical explanations before proffering a synthesised model of curriculum construction as a multidimensional process. The findings from this study form two clusters - those that relate to the specific case study (the development of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum) and those that provide deeper understanding of the broader nature of curriculum construction. The two sets of findings also demonstrate the interrelated nature of the three data sources - the process, the products and the people. In relation to the specific case study, there is clear evidence of the acceptance of social studies as a curriculum area in New Zealand with its own identity and integrity. The study also documents the historical development of social studies as a curriculum area and provides a detailed account of the contested nature of the development of the current social studies curriculum statement Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum. The other finding, relating specifically to the New Zealand context but which should give heart to practitioners everywhere, is the resilience of committed educators when faced with opposing ideological forces determined to undermine their position. This is exemplified in this case study by the social studies community's ability to reclaim control over the contents of the curriculum despite strong opposition from the Business Roundtable and other neo-liberal and neo-conservative forces. What is also revealed is that in order to achieve an acceptable outcome, a curriculum construction process needs both consultation and critique. Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum is all the stronger as a product because of the depth of the surrounding debate and this, in turn, strengthened the credibility of both the curriculum area and its supporters. The findings that relate to broader notions of curriculum construction either confirm key themes from the literature, expand upon some that are less explicit or offer new insights. The three touchstones of this study - context, complexity and contestation - were constantly reinforced through the gathering and analysis of the data, and confirmed by the findings. That curriculum construction is subject to a range of contextual factors - historical, social, cultural, political, economic and/or educational; that the process is complex and multi-layered; that the process is highly political and contested; and that the process and products are influenced by powerful individuals and groups both inside and outside the process, are all strongly confirmed by, and even consolidated in, this study. Notions alluded to in the literature that find stronger expression in this study relate to the nature of contestation throughout the process of curriculum construction. A model using Bourdieu's notions of field, capital and habitus (after Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) allows stronger articulation of features such as polarisation, factionalisation, the forging of alliances and the fluid status of participants. The data reveal the curriculum construction process in a constant state of flux and subject to much serendipity. The findings also strengthen the notion that the products of a curriculum construction process are not ends in themselves but reveal much about the nature of the contestation and, indeed, lay the groundwork for future contested interpretations. New insights that arise from this study include an articulation of the strategies, such as compromise, contingency and expediency, that participants use to achieve their ends. These are often at the expense of participants' underpinning principles or adherence to particular curriculum development models. Significant insights come from the in-depth investigation of the emotional side of curriculum construction. The data reveal that the struggle for control over curriculum contents is an emotionally-charged process; that participants in the process wrestle with the differences between their own personal platforms, their ideological influences, the groups they represent and the requirements of the task; that contestation occurs between those setting and those completing the task, especially in relationship to professional decision-making and intellectual ownership; and that no consideration is given to the emotional cost of involvement in such large-scale curriculum construction processes. In summary, context shapes the unique nature of curriculum construction processes and products. If an understanding of these factors is tempered with an awareness of the complex and multi-dimensional nature of curriculum construction this will strengthen the process and could lessen the negative effects of ideologically-motivated or emotionally-charged involvement in the process. Finally, as contestation in curriculum construction is unavoidable in such high-stakes processes, consultation and critique should be seen as opportunities (rather than threats), to enhance the credibility of the final product.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Curriculum, Teaching and LearningFull Tex
The impact of interaction and language on leading learning in Indigenous classrooms
No full textIn this chapter we discuss some of the challenges facing teachers of Indigenous children in the early years of schooling, especially around providing opportunities for students to demonstrate existing knowledge. Our focus is on the ways in which teachers are able to show responsive decision making in leading their classes in learning, and the kinds of contexts that result in effective and less effective outcomes in finding out what their students do and do not know. Using Conversation Analytic methods we show here how this may be particularly challenging in a classroom environment where language differences between students and teachers appear to be a factor, but also that even inexperienced teachers can be highly sensitive to occasions for students’ demonstrations of what they know of curriculum content
Beginning Female Teaching Principals: Gender and Leadership Challenges in Small School Communities
No full textThe central focus of this study was to examine the leadership experiences of females commencing their careers as teaching principals in rural and remote small school communities in Queensland. The specific aims of the study were: first, to understand female beginning teaching principals’ perceptions of small school leadership prior to commencing in the role and to determine if those perceptions changed during their first year; second, to identify the expectations other school staff and the community held for a female teaching principal as leader of the school; third, to investigate the social complexities of living in a rural and remote community and the influences they had on the leadership experiences of a female beginning teaching principal; fourth, to understand whether gender impacts on the leadership practices of female beginning teaching principals in rural and remote communities; and finally, to evaluate the leadership experiences of female beginning teaching principals in rural and remote small school communities and their implications for future career direction.
Rural and remote areas of Queensland are populated with small schools, many of which are lead by young females commencing their careers as principals. They are responsible for completing the dual responsibilities of both teacher and principal, with little training and in some cases, limited classroom or life experiences. In addition, these isolated communities have been shown to hold definite cultural and gender expectations, frequently resulting in a high turnover of teaching principals (Clarke, 2003; Clarke & Stevens, 2006; Dempsey, 1992; Lester, 2003; Michael, 1996). Consequently, this study was interested in the experiences of females who commenced their leadership careers in these isolated environments.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Education and Professional StudiesArts, Education and LawFull Tex
Sources of Influence on Professional Practice: A Study of Five Women Principals in Aotearoa/New Zealand
No full textPrior to 1989, in New Zealand, very few women were represented in senior leadership positions in schools, especially co-educational secondary schools. Following the 1989 Education Act, commonly referred to as the 'Tomorrow's Schools' legislation, women began to be appointed in increasing numbers to school principalships. In New Zealand, as in other western democracies where New Right ideologies have impacted on educational policy, the role of the school principal has become more demanding and complex. If principals are to be supported in this role, it is considered important that the knowledge and experiences which influence their professional practice are better understood so that professional development programmes are targeted appropriately. This study builds on previous studies of women's experiences of leadership in education (Neville, 1988; Shakeshaft, 1989, 1995; Strachan, 1991, 1997; Court, 1992; Ozga & Walker, 1995; Hall, 1996; Coleman, 1996, 2000; Ah Nee-Benham & Cooper, 1998; Henderson-Kelly & Pamphilon, 2000; McCarthy, 2001; McLay & Brown, 2001) but has as its focus, the sources of influence on five women principals' practice. It has a complementary focus to McLay's and Brown's (2001) study of women headteachers in UK independent secondary schools. They investigated the women's formal training but also sought to find out what life experiences might have prepared them for the role of leading a school. Ah Nee-Benham's and Cooper's (1998) narratives of minority women in school leadership positions in the United States provided the inspiration for this study of five New Zealand principals. While the women in this study are not 'voices from the margins' as are the women in Ah Nee-Benham's and Cooper's study, through the use of narrative and other qualitative methods, their individual accounts capture the voice of experience which is too often missing from the educational leadership literature (Ah Nee-Benham & Cooper, 1998; Heck & Hallinger, 1999; Southworth, 2001). The women's stories add collectively to an emerging literature base which seeks to unravel how leaders actually think and work. This study specifically examines five women principals' personal theories and beliefs about leadership and investigates how their personal histories and career experiences have influenced their professional knowledge and practice. The research methods reflect a commitment to understanding the women's experiences from their perspectives and their stories are seen as providing a window into what they know. Methods such as concept mapping, open-ended unstructured interviews and annals (snake diagrams) help unpack their personal theories about leadership as well as assist understanding of the influence of their personal histories and professional experiences. The educational leadership literature provides a useful starting point to analyse the first part of the research question regarding the women's conceptions of leadership. The literature acknowledges various approaches to leadership, three of which may be called 'moral/critical', 'people-centred' and 'corporate managerial'. Respectively, they each have 'world-views' which emphasise 'ideals', 'people' and 'efficiency'. In this study, I aim to identify what 'world-views' underpin the women's conceptions of leadership but also how they have constructed these concepts. The different needs of each of their schools in association with the principals' own backgrounds and values systems have strongly influenced their varying conceptions of leadership. While on one level their beliefs are unique, on another, they reveal some common themes. The principals are people-focussed but this commitment is underpinned by deeply held ideals about the purpose of schools enriching lives. Efficient management systems are seen as important supporting concepts to assisting people and accomplishing ideals. In order to answer the second part of the research question regarding how the women's personal histories and professional experiences have influenced their professional knowledge and practice, this study drew on the findings of an Australian study which investigated the sources of influence on teacher knowledge in action (McMeniman, Cumming, Wilson, Stevenson & Sim, 2000). It provided the platform and focus for the current study of women principals. A key finding of this study is that the women's beliefs and practices have been influenced by both their personal histories and various career experiences which have assisted them to grow professionally. Central to their learning from these experiences, however, is the way in which the individual interprets or filters experience and actively constructs meaning. Principals' knowledge bases are socially constructed but mediated by their personal theories. Learning from experiences in the workplace has a critical influence especially if it is scaffolded by experts (Billett, 2001) or if there is a community of practice (Wenger, 1998, 2000) encouraging participation. When this learning is augmented by various research access points (McMeniman et al., 2000) such as critical dialogue with peers, in-service education and formal postgraduate studies, it potentially has a direct and daily influence on principals' practice. Although this study is limited to an analysis of five women principals, the commonalities in the sources of influence on their practice, lead one to suggest that the findings may have relevance for other principals, both male and female, and possibly other practitioners.Thesis (Professional Doctorate)Doctor of Education (EdD)School of Curriculum, Teaching and LearningFaculty of EducationFull Tex
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