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Contemporary debates on effective pedagogies for K-12 mathematics have called for shifts in the way teachers and teacher educators conceptualise mathematics as a subject and how it should be taught. This is reflected by changes in the curriculum including the inclusion of a strand called Working Mathematically within K-12 mathematics curriculum documents not only in New South Wales but also across Australia. This strand brings focus to mental processes that underpin students' ability to acquire mathematical principles, concepts, and conventions, and the use of this knowledge in the solution of problems. The focus on cognitive processes that support mathematical learning and problem solving is a welcome change. However, there is a paucity of information about the nature of links that need to be made between process and mathematics content, and how students might be assisted to construct the links. In this article, the authors outline results of research about cognitive load that is associated with mental processes, the management of this load so that students can be better supported in the construction of connected mathematical information, and the interpretation of that information in making sense of worked examples. They attempt to show that worked examples can be effective in promoting useful and powerful mathematics schemas. (Contains 3 figures.)

This research investigated the effects of 3 instructional design formats on learning introductory accounting. In accordance with cognitive load theory, it was predicted that students who would learn with a guided self-managed instructional design format would outperform students who would learn with a conventional split-attention format or an integrated format on a recall test and a transfer test. In the guided self-management condition students were instructed to reorganize text and diagrams to reduce the need to search the solution steps within the text and match them with corresponding parts of the diagram, thereby freeing cognitive resources for learning. The results of an experiment conducted with 123 undergraduate university students confirmed the hypothesis by consistently demonstrating that students in the guided self-managed condition outperformed students in the integrated and split-attention conditions on the recall and transfer tests.

The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) is a national, extra-curricular mentoring programme that is closing the educational gap for young Indigenous Australians. So what is AIME doing that is working so well? This article draws on a large-scale classroom ethnography to describe the pedagogies that facilitate the teacher-student relationships in this programme. We use Shawn Wilson's theorisation of Indigenous ways of knowing in order to "unpack" how these approaches succeeded in creating the egalitarian and trust-filled relationships reportedly experienced in the AIME programme.

This study reports on the responses to a survey of 55 upper primary school teachers, conducted prior to their classes engaging in a substantial unit of work in multimodal composition. The survey was designed to ascertain the extent to which the teachers were already familiar with, and had already embedded in their teaching, a metalanguage of multimodal composition. The project from which the data was drawn and its underlying theoretical perspective are described. While the teachers' overall attention to a relevant metalanguage is identified as quite low, it is the differential attention that is paid to the more general elements of text construction practices, together with the prior professional learning associated with this material, which raises concerns about preparedness for multimodal authoring teaching more generally. Schools, school systems and teachers themselves are advised to take urgent and systemic action to ensure the satisfactory implementation of multimodal authoring as literacy practice. Recommendations for further research are presented.

In this intervention study, we investigated the effects of physical activities that were integrated into a geography task on preschool children's learning performance and enjoyment. Eight childcare centers with 87 four-to-five-year-old children were randomly assigned across an integrated physical activity condition, an unintegrated physical activity condition, and a control condition without physical activity. Children learned the names and a typical animal from each of the six continents using a floor-mounted world map with soft toy animals. Both learning conditions with physical activities showed higher performance than the learning condition without physical activities on an immediate retention test, and on a delayed retention test administered five weeks later. In addition, children in the physical activity conditions (integrated and nonintegrated) enjoyed their learning method the most. Infusing task-relevant physical activities into the classroom and the learning task is discussed as a promising way to improve children's learning, enjoyment, and health.

Research suggests that integrating human movement into a cognitive learning task can be effective for learning due to its cognitive and physiological effects. In this study, the learning effects of enacting words through whole-body movements (i.e., physical exercise) and part-body movements (i.e., gestures) were investigated in a foreign language vocabulary task. Participants were 111 preschool children of 15 childcare centers, who were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Participants had to learn 14 Italian words in a 4-week teaching program. They were tested on their memory for the words during, directly after, and 6 weeks after the program. In the integrated physical exercise condition, children enacted the actions indicated by the words to be learned in physical exercises. In the non-integrated physical exercise condition children performed physical exercises at the same intensity, but unrelated to the learning task. In the gesturing condition, children enacted the actions indicated by the words to be learned by gesturing while remaining seated. In the conventional condition, children verbally repeated the words while remaining seated. Results confirmed the main hypothesis, indicating that children in the integrated physical exercise condition achieved the highest learning outcomes. Implications of integrated physical exercise programs for preschool children's cognition and health are discussed.

This research investigated the viability of learning by self-managing split-attention worked examples as an alternative to learning by studying instructor-managed integrated worked examples. Secondary school students learning properties of angles on parallel lines were taught to integrate spatially separated text and diagrammatic information by using online tools to physically move text to associated parts of a diagram. The moving of text aimed to reduce learners' need to search between text and diagram, freeing cognitive resources for learning and affording learners' control of their learning materials. The main hypotheses that learners who self-manage split-attention worked examples would perform better on test items than learners who study split-attention worked examples, and perform as well as learners who study instructor-managed integrated worked examples were confirmed. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

This study draws on a survey of 800 upper primary school students concerning their knowledge of certain 'new media' applications. The findings concur with other studies in suggesting that students' relationship with technology is more complex and nuanced than is conveyed by a simple branding of 'digital native'. Some differential experiences between classes and genders are identified, along with an important minority of students who have much more out-of-school experience with new media than others. The role of the school and teacher in inducting students to new media is presented as central, with important implications for curriculum leadership and teacher professional development.