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This paper introduces a journal special issue devoted to an exploration of post-colonial history education with contributions from Ghana, Uganda, New Zealand, Canada, Botswana, Nigeria, Cyprus, Lebanon and London. It provides an overview of key issues, tensions and opportunities around decolonising the history curriculum. Relevant contexts such as the ‘History Wars’, subaltern studies, the conception of decolonising the mind and the possibilities of de-colonising pedagogies are explored. History education lenses around critical historical literacy, historical consciousness, multidimensional identities and multi-perspectivity are brought to bear upon the question of re-thinking forms of postcolonial history education. Specific political circumstances inform the nature of history education in every national jurisdiction; here the contemporary Black Lives Matter campaign, the fallout from the mismanagement of the fate of the ‘Windrush’ settlers in the UK and the recent focus of protestors globally upon colonial oppressors memorialised in statues frame the authors’ reflections. However, echoing the optimism of most of the special issue contributions, opportunities to build bridges between divided communities, open up more inclusive history curricula to student voices and nuance and complicate homogeneous national narratives are identified and recommended.

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) reform in Australia has mandated that graduating teachers demonstrate their practice and 'impact' through the completion of a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) prior to graduation. The requirement to analyse 'impact' in teaching, requires a nuanced understanding of what 'impact' is and how it manifests in varied contemporary classrooms. This paper reports on how a sample of high-performing pre-service teachers from one Australian ITE institution, within a framework devised by Australia's largest TPA consortium, appraised the impact of their teaching in the context of the disciplinary area of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS). How 'impact' was articulated through GTPA submissions revealed data-informed and holistic interpretations layered to include opportunistic teaching moments and relational and affective impact as well as analysis of cognitive progress. The paper also identifies ways in which analysis of impact might be further finessed with greater attention to pedagogical content knowledge and discipline-specific progression.

In this essay, as a group of teacher educators, we discuss our experience of "walking the walk" of teacher education transformation at a time of urgent change. We reflect upon our process of integrating three key priorities in our preservice teacher education courses: education for sustainability; trauma-informed practice; and Indigenizing curriculum. Specifically, we reflect on how these processes were adapted according to the needs of individual courses and units, while at the same time making space for our strengths and our "unlearnings" as academics, and for the ethical considerations that troubled us. In this essay, we explore walking the walk of change and integrating social, environmental, and cultural justice principles in our work together toward equipping and enabling new teachers to be themselves agents of change.

The article explores how educational policy, curricula, textbooks and teaching have translated thinking about Nepal's relationship with the rest of the world into global education practice in Nepalese schools in contemporary classrooms. Drawing upon the framework of a policy cycle approach, the article addresses the following research questions: What are the key contemporary messages about global education in Nepal within the 'macro' context of policy influence? How is the theme of global education communicated through the content of Nepalese textbooks at the 'meso' context of policy text production? What are the perceptions of Nepalese social studies teachers with respect to teaching and learning about global education themes at the 'micro' context of practice? Qualitative content analysis of textbooks and documents was conducted, while thematic analysis of interview data was undertaken to understand policy objectives and recommendations related to global citizenship education in Nepal. The findings indicate that educational policies primarily aim to socialise and nurture responsible citizens, while textbooks and teaching processes mostly emphasise the acquisition of knowledge. Some recommendations are made as to how the curriculum, textbooks and pedagogical approaches might be adapted to better support Nepalese young people seeing themselves as global citizens.

The paper combines an autoethnographic approach with a literature review of general and discipline-specific research linked to the theme of cross-curricular citizenship education ("CE") from the 1990s to the present. It identifies 20 reasons why cross-curricular CE struggles to take flight in secondary schools. These reasons are organized into four categories: structural, epistemological, attitudinal and pedagogical. While the focus is mainly upon citizenship education in England (and, to a lesser extent, in Australia), the paper suggests that the barriers identified exist in most nations.

This paper explores the perceptions and lived experiences of Nepalese educators and stakeholders in relation to the school curriculum and its influence upon student learning in a culturally and ethnically diverse classroom context. The study adopted a qualitative research design using face-to-face semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to gather the perceptions of students, teachers, school principals and curriculum experts from three different schools representing distinct and diverse Nepalese settings. The findings identified that there are six main factors that affect curriculum delivery in Nepal: a centralised education system; social, economic and cultural diversity; political instability; curriculum content; the involvement of curriculum development stakeholders; and teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge and related attributes. These six factors all contribute to a significant influence on student learning.

This paper explores Health and Physical Education (HPE) students' understanding of Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) and discusses some of the links that connect HPE, sport and CCE in Australia. A brief overview of CCE key features is provided. Second- and third-year HPE pre-service teachers at an Australian regional university were surveyed to gauge what the baseline of knowledge and understanding of CCE amongst beginning teachers might be. Shared learning opportunities between HPE and CCE are discussed in different parts of the paper in relation to fair play; ethical debates and dilemmas; community involvement; identity; and respect for inclusivity. Linking to the pre-service teacher responses, the paper provides suggestions for some practical ways in which Australian HPE educators might make connections between the CCE curriculum and inter-connected HPE learning contexts for Year 3 to Year 8 students, the years for which a Civics and Citizenship curriculum is specified in the Australian Curriculum.

The language of "impact" has been foregrounded in the recent lexicon of Australian initial teacher education (ITE). How teacher education programmes and supervising teachers identify and assess the impact of pre-service teachers' work with learners across a professional placement is a pressing issue for ITE providers. This paper reports on qualitative analysis of the language of supervising teachers' summative assessments of pre-service teachers' final-year professional experience placements in relation to impact. Analysis of written comments that addressed the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Graduate Standards revealed that the language of impact is still emerging within the discourse of supervising teachers. This has professional learning implications for all ITE stakeholders.

Purpose: During insertion of the cochlear implant electrode array, the tip of the array may fold back on itself and can cause serious complications to patients. This article presents a sensing system for cochlear implantation in a cochlear model. The electrode array fold-over behaviors can be detected by analyzing capacitive information from the array tip. Method: Depending on the angle of the array tip against the cochlear inner wall when it enters the cochlear model, different insertion patterns of the electrode array could occur, including smooth insertion, buckling, and fold-over. The insertion force simulating the haptic feedback for surgeons and bipolar capacitance signals during the insertion progress were collected and compared. The Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) was applied to the collected capacitive signals to discriminate the fold-over pattern. Results: Forty-six electrode array insertions were conducted and the deviation of the measured insertion force varies between a range of 20% and 30%. The capacitance values from electrode pair (1, 2) were recorded for analyzing. A threshold for the PCC is set to be 0.94 that can successfully discriminate the fold over insertions from the other two types of insertions, with a success rate of 97.83%. Conclusions: Capacitive measurement is an effective method for the detection of faulty insertions and the maximization of the outcome of cochlear implantation. The proposed capacitive sensing system can be used in other tissue implants in vessels, spinal cord, or heart.

School farms were established in Tasmania in the 1930s following a visit of an Australian eduation official to the United States and the United Kingdom. There are still more than 30 school farm operations functioning in some capacity throughout the state, unlike in the rest of Australia where similar small school farms are not common. In this article we analyze interviews undertaken in 2016 with 22 school farm educators about the state of Tasmania's school farms, what they do, how they are seen in their communities, what challenges they face, and how they integrate the agricultural program with the demands of contemporary curriculum. While these school farms face considerable challenges, we conclude that they have a unique place in the state's education system, a powerful symbolic presence in rural communities, and significant potential to provide relevant, valuable, and potentially transformative curriculum and pedagogy in support of educational and rural development policy agendas.

Purpose: During insertion of the cochlear implant electrode array, the tip of the array may fold back on itself and can cause serious complications to patients. This article presents a sensing system for cochlear implantation in a cochlear model. The electrode array fold-over behaviors can be detected by analyzing capacitive information from the array tip. Method: Depending on the angle of the array tip against the cochlear inner wall when it enters the cochlear model, different insertion patterns of the electrode array could occur, including smooth insertion, buckling, and fold-over. The insertion force simulating the haptic feedback for surgeons and bipolar capacitance signals during the insertion progress were collected and compared. The Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) was applied to the collected capacitive signals to discriminate the fold-over pattern. Results: Forty-six electrode array insertions were conducted and the deviation of the measured insertion force varies between a range of 20% and 30%. The capacitance values from electrode pair (1,2) were recorded for analyzing. A threshold for the PCC is set to be 0.94 that can successfully discriminate the fold over insertions from the other two types of insertions, with a success rate of 97.83%. Conclusions: Capacitive measurement is an effective method for the detection of faulty insertions and the maximization of the outcome of cochlear implantation. The proposed capacitive sensing system can be used in other tissue implants in vessels, spinal cord, or heart., To date, the insertion of a cochlear implant (CI) electrode array is performed by hand, and the tools used by surgeons do not provide any force feedback or other means [...]

This article explores the intersections between museum learning in a distinctive Tasmanian setting, the possibilities of a new national History curriculum, and the evolving views and professional practices of pre-service primary teachers at one Australian university. Following a brief overview of the framework for local and Australian history that is embedded in the Australian Curriculum in history (ACH), the relevant literature around museum education, and the specific museum context, the article draws upon a survey of second year pre-service primary teachers' views towards history, museums, and a pedagogical planning task and analyses features of students' work. It concludes with some wider reflections on the value of teacher education engaging in community partnerships with cultural institutions such as museums.

This paper explores persuasive writing and what more might be done to help equip young people with the written literacy tools to be effective participants in civic activism. Firstly, we argue from an Australian (and Tasmanian) context that there may be merit in teachers and students re-visiting some of the advice from classical rhetoric around the discovery of arguments. Secondly, we analyse challenges that 14 year old students face in responding to Australia's national literacy tests which include a persuasive writing task--and exemplify this section with evidence drawn from a data source of outstanding student responses. We conclude by critically reviewing and augmenting the literacy strategies suggested in a representative citizenship education teaching text, and suggest a tentative stepped model for supporting high quality persuasive writing in the context of active citizenship and democratic engagement.