This workshop identified and discussed some of the challenges to conducting effective tutorials when environmental and motivational factors intervene. Such factors include: the weather, the teaching space, the physical preparedness of students ( e.g. 'the Thursday hangover') and/or the teaching content. A range of activities were explored for getting the 'best' from students who want to give the 'least'. Some practical activities aimed at 'countering the zombie factor' were presented and tips for developing innovative tutorial activities were outlined. The main aim of this workshop was the idea of keeping learning encounters 'fresh, real, memorable and fun'.

The use of activities such as ice-breakers has traditionally been associated with formal training seminars. This workshop highlighted the versatility of icebreakers and how they reliably enhance student interest, participation and learning in any teaching scenario. A number of creative interventions in the form of interactive group mixers, warm-ups, energisers and playful activities were demonstrated for lecturers to utilise in their teaching. The roles of the facilitator as catalyst, coach and observer were visited in terms of ensuring that social interactions and transfer of information to participants remain interesting, enjoyable and, most of all, fun for university students.

Professional development in behaviour management for teachers in public schools in Australia can best be described as ad hoc. While some schools access professional expertise on a regular basis, other schools rarely utilise these resources. Teachers as a result, tend to feel powerless, less confident and stressed if not equipped with effective behaviour management strategies to exercise in their classrooms (Richmond, 2002). The value of the delivery of any professional development session can be gauged by the relevance it has to a particular context. A key feature of many Behaviour Management professional development activities is the passive involvement of schools in determining the focus of these sessions. Whilst it is important that schools and teachers are kept abreast of contemporary innovation and emerging trends in the education sector, it is equally important that teachers are provided with the opportunity to provide input into the content of their own professional development. This paper will report on a 'work-in-progress' Action Research project developed by the University of New England. The project involved the design, implementation, delivery and evaluation of a behaviour management seminar / workshop series to a NSW public schools. The project had a phased delivery and review structure aimed at presenting teachers and administrators with practical and strategic guidance to achieve positive behavioural outcomes for their students.

In this paper, we describe our involvement in a BEd compulsory special education unit where we attempt to make large group lectures a meaningful learning experience for all students. The large group lecture style is a common feature of university teaching, particularly in those units where alternative teaching methods are made difficult by large numbers of enrolled students. Reference is made to the interaction between teaching which takes place in lectures and complementary forms of teaching such as small group seminars. Strategies that have been implemented since this particular unit was first offered in 1999 are considered. These strategies include interactive learning tasks that take place during the lecture, the use of printed lecture notes as instructional scaffolds and questioning techniques. The nature of the teaching team, individual teaching styles and the ways that different professional experiences may be used to promote learning are discussed. We identify instructional techniques that we consider successful but also those which have limited success. Finally, we provide our own perspectives in an effort to further refine some of the shared techniques.