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Raising the quality of initial teacher education can make an important contribution to raising the overall quality of the school system. In Australia, the National Framework for Professional Standards for Teaching is used as a common framework to set standards for the accreditation of teacher education programs. However, institution-wise assessments need to be carried out regularly to explore the quality of preparation pre-service teachers receive and to what extent they feel well prepared to enter teaching. This will enable teacher education programs to implement strategies to strengthen the link between university coursework and professional practice of pre service teachers. This paper discusses the development and validation of a scale to measure pre- service teachers' perceptions of preparedness to teach, readiness to engage with the teaching profession and self-efficacy in teaching. The study also proposes a model describing the relationship among these variables. Data was collected from 235 final year pre-service teachers using a newly developed questionnaire at an Australian university. Data shows that the Pre service Teacher Professional Experience (PTPE) scale is a theoretically sound, gender invariant and psychometrically valid instrument. The implications of using the scale in teacher education programmes are discussed in the context of the findings.

An increasing emphasis on university internationalisation, global citizenship education and outbound mobility experiences (OMEs) has seen international study travel become a key staple of tertiary education. University students undertake learning experience for academic credit overseas for a period shorter than a semester under the guidance of an academic staff member. With student participation increasing, greater consideration needs to be given to the ability of OMEs to deliver high quality learning outcomes to students, particularly within an intensive shortterm format. A majority of existing literature relays the experiences of academic staff in designing and facilitating OMEs (Brokaw, 1996; Gordon & Smith, 1992; Koernig 2007; Schuster, 1993), but an emerging literature also considers student experiences (Downey, Gothard & Gray, 2012; Evans, Finch, Toncar & Reid, 2008; Weaver & Tucker, 2010). While these evaluations are insightful, the observations may not be relevant to all of the wide variety of OMEs now being offered. This paper promotes a reconstructed Jafari (1987) tourism model as a framework to understand the various components of the student and staff travel experience while participating in an OME, especially short-term overseas study trips.

Universities around the world seek to internationalise students to prepare them for an increasingly globalised world. Outbound mobility experiences (OMEs) are recognised as one of the most effective ways to foster independent thinking, cultural sensitivity, and a sense of "worldmindedness". This article takes a case study from an Australian university and explores efforts to increase student participation rates in OMEs. Through a mixed-method study of three student cohorts (n = 223), important data was gathered relating to how OMEs are perceived by undergraduate and post-graduate students. The results are filtered through thematic discourse analysis and suggest that the university needs to do more to build awareness, explain the professional and employability benefits, and create a travel culture where students are encouraged to grow their international skills and communication competencies. This research has important implications for universities seeking to increase international student mobility and prioritise a global outlook.

Reflection is an essential part of students' critically reflective development within experiential-learning contexts; it is arguably even more important when working cross-culturally. This paper reports from a national, arts-based service-learning project in which students in creative arts, media and journalism, and preservice teachers worked with Aboriginal people in urban and rural areas of Australia. The paper uses Ryan and Ryan's (2010) "4Rs model of reflective thinking" for reflective learning and assessment in higher education to ascertain the effectiveness of the project work toward engendering a reflective mindset. The paper discusses how students learned to engage in critical self-monitoring as they attended to their learning experiences, and it describes how they "wrote" their experiences and shaped their professional identities as they developed and refined the philosophy that related to their developing careers. Examples taken from the narratives of students, community partners and academic team members illustrate the principal finding, which is that through a process of guided reflection, students learned to reflect in three stages: a preliminary drawing out of existing attitudes and expectations; a midway focus on learning from and relating to past experiences; and a final focus on reciprocal learning, change and future practice. The three stages were apparent regardless of program duration. Thus, program phase rather than academic year level emerged as the most important consideration when designing the supports that promote and scaffold reflection.

The provision of musical experiences for youth, especially in low socio-economic areas (SES), requires funded support and imaginative resourcing. This paper presents data from the Penrith (NSW Australia) Youth String Program offered in partnership by the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), Penrith Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre (The Joan) over a period commencing in 2015-2016. The current context for young musicians in the locality is one of inequitable distribution of educational resources and access to knowledge. Consequently, this research is framed by Opportunity to Learn theory. The program has been designed to encourage young string players in the Penrith area through a program of guided rehearsals and tutorials. The evaluation plan incorporates the following data: student practice logs; and student, parent and tutor focus groups as well as site visit observations to capture information about the quality of program implementation. This paper reports on the research question: What did the participants gain from their involvement in the program? Findings demonstrate that the participants developed both skills in performance and expressive ensemble playing. Implications are that the program has encouraged the students to be aware of their own progress and to develop personal goals, whether they are to play a challenging piece of music well or to imagine a future in professional music making. The impact of the carefully spaced rehearsals in the program, the combination of local and visiting tutors and the development of personal goals suggest avenues for future research.

Service learning is described as a socially just educational process that develops two-way learning and social outcomes for community and student participants. Despite the focus on mutuality in service learning, very little of this literature specifically deals with the intense importance of mutuality and reciprocity when working with Indigenous community partners and participants. This is problematic for Indigenous service learning projects that seek to partner respectfully with Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. To address this issue, the paper draws on existing international literature and data from an Indigenous arts based service learning project conducted in the Northern Territory of Australia to propose a framework centred on relationships, reciprocity, reflexivity and representation that can be adapted for future Indigenous service learning partnerships and research.

This report captures the variety of music education research between 2012-2014 and covers a range of topics and events such as the International Society for Music Education (ISME) 2012, Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) 2013 and Australian and New Zealand Association for Research in Music Education (ANZARME) 2014.

This article outlines a framework for working with First Peoples. The framework supports respectful and mutually beneficial learning partnerships and culminates from 6 years of practice and research in arts-based service learning with Aboriginal communities in Australia. We begin by looking at synergies between global service learning and service learning with First Peoples. We then position this work within an international context, focusing on Indigenous frameworks for practice identified in service learning with First Nations communities in North America. We next describe the Australian context and touch on the multilayered intercultural processes and outcomes associated with the programmes across three universities. Finally, we introduce the framework and elaborate on its dimensions.

This article is about one focus of a two-year project researching the Penrith (NSW Australia) Youth Music Program offered at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. The Penrith Youth Music Program has been designed to encourage young string players through a program of guided rehearsals and tutorials with mentoring by performers from the Australian Chamber Orchestra. This article focuses on a part of the research that has engaged the young string players in reflection on their own progress. Eight young string players are the focus here, drawn from the whole study that encompasses 27 instrumentalists. In focus groups they were asked at intervals (at the end of each session of three ensemble rehearsals, spaced approximately 6 weeks apart) about their learning and about their practice strategies. This article presents the voices of the eight instrumentalists as they talk about technical issues, ensemble cuing, issues of balance and dynamic control. It also provides data that benefits in performance were achieved without an increase in the reported time given to practice but rather through thoughtful attention by the instrumentalists to their practice and to the proximity of the expert mentors as role models.

Service learning in tertiary education is about partnerships between higher education institutions and communities, as co-generators of knowledge. Arts programs in service learning engage what Rendon (2009) calls "sentipensante" (sensing/thinking) pedagogy, in which critical examinations of ways of thinking and doing sit alongside relational contemplative practices. This paper draws inspiration from this "sentipensante" pedagogical framework as well as principles of teaching in international contexts (Ballard & Clanchy, 1997), and uses both frames to examine the development of music pre-service teachers in the story of one young teacher and his supervising teacher. The young male teacher participated in international service learning in Penang, Malaysia. The paper sets out to highlight the benefit that such a case study can provide by critically examining the experiences of the pre-service teacher in the classroom and the community.

Australian Indigenous music and culture are in the foreground when Australia celebrates itself in international contexts but their inclusion in the school curriculum is sporadic. In New South Wales (NSW), high school music teachers are responsible for educating students about Aboriginal music(s) and culture(s) within a mandatory focus on Australian music. Two NSW high schools made changes to their music programs to enhance their teaching in this area and this article contrasts their stories with reported school music environments that demonstrate limited awareness and lack of confidence. (Contains 1 figure.)