Caught up in the "COVID moment and distancing-isolation," the authors came together through a Collective Memory Work initiative to inquire into what solidarity during the COVID moment meant to each of them and collectively assemble understandings about this phenomenon. Critical relationships, methods, and more-than-human relationalities are shared in this article that combined to enliven the collaboration. Grounded in Collective Memory Work and widened by arts-based approaches, the academics reflexively explored critical encounters, probing into how they move(d) in/through work–home spaces during the isolation and uncertainties experienced during the pandemic. This article serves as a methodological unpacking of our arts-based research process that used Zoom discussions, memory writing, individual artmaking, and sharing stories. More-than-human capacities provide a pathway to negotiate trauma, fears, loneliness, and isolation that affectively circulate through the COVID moment.

Teaching performance assessments (TPA) are a trending feature of initial teacher education. Founded in the United States of America, TPAs have emerged in the Australian context as a capstone assessment of preservice teacher competence. However, the inclusion of the TPA in initial teacher education places additional pressure on tertiary institutions to prepare their graduates for the rigour of the test alongside the rigour of the classroom. This paper examines the ways in which preservice teachers may best be prepared for both the test and the teaching profession, exploring notions of the TPA and teacher quality, and the tensions between theory and practice. It does so in the context of part-time and distance initial teacher education, where the gap between university and the classroom, theory and practice is magnified. PrExConnex is introduced as one way in which preservice teachers can be appropriately scaffolded in learning how to negotiate the TPA during professional experience, whilst also being supported in becoming professionals, engaging in professional dialogue and reflective practice. Here, we leverage the metaphor of the classroom as a “black box;” the complex space in which connections occur between teacher and school inputs and student educational output.

Online learning communities are frequently created for higher education students; however, these are most often designed to cater to a particular unit or subject. In an effort to strengthen the Bachelor of Arts course at the University of New England, the author sought to create an online space that would promote an interdisciplinary and collegial dialogue among their broad on- and off-campus student cohort. This paper examines the building of an academic community among a large and diverse group of undergraduate students on a Moodle platform. The paper tracks the development of the multi-layered portal from the initial stages of planning to the indicators of strong engagement taken up by students, and eventually leading to the creation of similar portals across the university. In examining this process this paper highlights the shared desire by distance education students and academics for authentic and personal higher education participation regardless of the students' location.

Through data drawn from conversations with academics in history and their students, this paper will offer an insight into the strategic importance of first year studies in Australian History, at Australian universities. It will be evident that this inclusion reflects good pedagogical and epistemological practice.

The higher education landscape is an increasingly competitive marketplace pitting university against university. Within that setting, individual disciplines must also wave a marketable epistemological flag. Among them is the History discipline, a long-standing traditional cornerstone of many university degrees. The web site for each History school or department is a tool for promoting pathways to possible professional futures for students of History as well as indicating the type of engagement in contemporary historical debates that occurs within the school. This online text reflects the changing state of the discipline, the approaches to the scholarship of teaching and learning in History (History SoTL), the philosophical variations between different universities, the influence of political governance and the evolving trends of marketing strategies. Tracking these shifts offers an insight into both the fluidity, and the formidable traditional underpinnings, of the discipline. In this article I explore the shifting views as demonstrated in the online statements of the History discipline over an eight-year period (2008-16) at sixteen Australian universities. The universities selected are diverse in their characteristics and represent the breadth of higher education in Australia.

These interviews were recorded and transcribed between September 2018 and May 2020. They are recordings of semi-structured interviews held with four stakeholder groups: academics, learning designers, local leaders and students for qualitative research to establish their perceptions on the enablers and barriers to implementing e-learning in their university.

This paper will explore the personal narratives of my experiences encouraging a diverse cohort of pre-service teachers to think about gender and sexuality. It will demonstrate how self-reflection is such an effective tool for both teaching and learning. The paper will draw from my involvement in teaching the gender component of a broader social justice unit in a school of education. In particular, the paper will articulate the interdisciplinary influences of self-reflection, historicism and feminist theory as interventionist pedagogical practice.

This paper reports on a project that explores the stories of women teachers in four rural public high schools in northwest New South Wales. It has been driven by a curiosity about women's workplace experiences in schools with a focus on career progression, care, leadership and mentoring. Using qualitative in-depth interviews the project draws from feminist poststructuralism and uses analytical tools based on narrative inquiry and situated knowledges. The findings will contribute to a dialogue on reciprocity, generational teachers, gender inequity, professional autonomy and agency.

This thesis emerges from a study that explored both the difficulties faced by Sri Lankan university students who are learning English as a second language (ESL) and the pedagogical strategies practised by ESL teachers to minimise these difficulties. Sri Lankan university students require high levels of English language proficiency to succeed academically and to succeed professionally after graduation; however, for many of these students, developing this proficiency has proven to be very challenging. The main aim of the study was to investigate the causes of the difficulties faced by Sri Lankan university students learning English. The investigation was undertaken through the lens of a conceptual framework that was designed to align English language learning difficulties with pedagogical solutions. The framework was developed by drawing on critical approaches to pedagogy, post method pedagogy and a sociocultural theory of learning following Vygotsky.

Using a qualitative multiple case study methodology, first and second year students and their teachers at three Sri Lankan universities were interviewed and observed in class. The data collected were analysed thematically. ESL learning difficulties reported by the students and teachers were categorised according to whether they relate to sociocultural or institutional barriers or to language learning difficulties. Strategies used by the ESL teachers were analysed using the KARDS framework (Kumaravadivelu, 2012).

The sociocultural barriers to students successfully learning English that were revealed by the study were the family environment, their earlier English education and the university subculture. The institutional barriers identified were crowded and mixed ability ESL classes, limited time and resources allocated to ESL lectures, poor quality and outdated teaching content, materials and teaching styles, a high academic workload and students' limited to English outside the classroom. Language learning difficulties arose because of students' low level of English proficiency, lack of engagement and participation in classroom interaction and limited commitment to English skills development. A major barrier was the mismatch between the English that students needed to learn and the English offered in the university ESL programs. Strategies used by the university ESL teachers to assist students were bringing the local context into their teaching, using the Sinhala language, encouraging classroom interaction and learner autonomy, building motivation and positive teacher±learner relationships and differentiating instruction according to proficiency level and target skills. Despite teachers using these strategies, students reported being dissatisfied with the ESL programs. The recommendation emerging from the study is for universities in Sri Lanka to develop ESL pedagogies that are specific to the Sri Lankan university context and responsive to the needs of Sri Lankan students.

Over the last decade authors have critiqued the hegemonic structures that perpetuate knowledge hierarchies in the dominant research regimes that foster privilege across the globe. The authors in this article use collective biography to reflectively engage with knowledge production in the academy. They explore the nature of prudentia as an affective shame that surfaces through reflexive engagement with the politics of research cultures. Collective biography, as a 'grassroots' form of deliberate and collaborative interrogation, produces insight from 'difficult knowledge' that sheds light on power imbalance in North/South relations in research practice. In endeavouring to grapple with Southern Theory, the authors surface 'unwelcome truths'. These disquieting ruptures reveal the power of prudentia for academics who are desirous to unsettle the complacency of Northern assumptions as they engage in an ongoing struggle with doing Southern Theory.