Developing interdisciplinary expertise in universities. This project aims to create a strong integrative research foundation to explain how university researchers and students develop the expertise needed to work in interdisciplinary teams and how this development can be enhanced. It combines three perspectives investigating: how research and innovation communities create interdisciplinary knowledge, how interdisciplinary teams learn to function effectively and the personal resourcefulness that ....Developing interdisciplinary expertise in universities. This project aims to create a strong integrative research foundation to explain how university researchers and students develop the expertise needed to work in interdisciplinary teams and how this development can be enhanced. It combines three perspectives investigating: how research and innovation communities create interdisciplinary knowledge, how interdisciplinary teams learn to function effectively and the personal resourcefulness that enables individuals to participate in interdisciplinary work. The outcomes will provide a much better understanding of the qualities that help individuals and groups to work productively across disciplinary boundaries. They will be used to create better strategies for supporting interdisciplinary learningRead moreRead less
Raising the literacy bar for economically-disadvantaged students. This project aims to promote higher order literacy skills among economically-disadvantaged students. Higher order literacy is critical for productive engagement in academic, economic and personal spheres of life in literacy-rich knowledge economies. Opportunities for disadvantaged students to develop advanced literacy skills are limited if schools serving these students focus predominantly on basic skills training. This project ....Raising the literacy bar for economically-disadvantaged students. This project aims to promote higher order literacy skills among economically-disadvantaged students. Higher order literacy is critical for productive engagement in academic, economic and personal spheres of life in literacy-rich knowledge economies. Opportunities for disadvantaged students to develop advanced literacy skills are limited if schools serving these students focus predominantly on basic skills training. This project will investigate contradictions in policies and practices in Australia and Hong Kong to understand why and how disadvantaged students are supported or unsupported to learn higher-order literacy skills. It also explores successful practices that promote such learning, alongside basic skills, for disadvantaged students. This will provide significant benefits such as providing new conceptual understandings of the policy-practice interface and empirical evidence to inform the design of effective practices that promote higher-order literacy skills, alongside basic skills, for economically-disadvantaged students in Australia and Hong Kong.Read moreRead less
Improving disadvantaged students’ writing engagement and achievement. Economically disadvantaged students are disproportionally represented among those who fail to attain minimum benchmarks in writing in successive rounds of national testing. Our knowledge, however, is limited on why, how and under what circumstances disadvantaged students engage in or disengage from writing. Addressing this knowledge gap, this project examines how disadvantaged students experience and engage in writing, and ho ....Improving disadvantaged students’ writing engagement and achievement. Economically disadvantaged students are disproportionally represented among those who fail to attain minimum benchmarks in writing in successive rounds of national testing. Our knowledge, however, is limited on why, how and under what circumstances disadvantaged students engage in or disengage from writing. Addressing this knowledge gap, this project examines how disadvantaged students experience and engage in writing, and how their writer identities and knowledge about writing develop, as they participate in writing events in different communities in school, out of school and online. The project promotes writing engagement and enhances achievement by making writing personally meaningful and by developing enabling writing communities.
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Data analytics-based tools and methods to enhance self-regulated learning. This project aims to develop student self-regulated learning skills by harnessing the potential of Big Data analytics. The project expects to generate new knowledge at the intersection of learning analytics, educational technology, learning sciences and teaching practice resulting from novel data collection and analysis tools and methods. The outputs are expected to include insights into metacognitive, motivational, and t ....Data analytics-based tools and methods to enhance self-regulated learning. This project aims to develop student self-regulated learning skills by harnessing the potential of Big Data analytics. The project expects to generate new knowledge at the intersection of learning analytics, educational technology, learning sciences and teaching practice resulting from novel data collection and analysis tools and methods. The outputs are expected to include insights into metacognitive, motivational, and technical issues facing analytics-based personalised feedback. The outcomes are intended to offer benefits for developing pedagogical and the design of educational technology. The outcomes can result in improved student learning outcomes in higher education to ensure graduates are prepared for the digital economy.Read moreRead less
Enabling students' critical mathematical thinking. The capacity to use mathematics critically is essential for making prudent decisions and forming balanced judgements about economic, health, environmental and other challenges facing society. Developing Critical Mathematical Thinking (CMT) in the classroom provides students with the necessary skills to address complex real-world problems. Fostering CMT, however, is difficult and teaching practices around its development are under-researched and ....Enabling students' critical mathematical thinking. The capacity to use mathematics critically is essential for making prudent decisions and forming balanced judgements about economic, health, environmental and other challenges facing society. Developing Critical Mathematical Thinking (CMT) in the classroom provides students with the necessary skills to address complex real-world problems. Fostering CMT, however, is difficult and teaching practices around its development are under-researched and under-theorised. This study aims to generate new insight into teaching practices that can promote or inhibit students' CMT development. To address this aim, we use an innovative video-based methodology that integrates researcher and teacher perspectives on students' CMT development.Read moreRead less
Educating preservice teachers to teach diverse learners. This project aims to investigate links between teacher educators’ reflexive decision making and the preparation of teachers for teaching in socially and culturally diverse Australian classrooms. The project takes a transdisciplinary approach, bridging the fields of epistemic cognition and reflexive decision making, to explore how rigorous teaching can be enacted in socially and culturally diverse classrooms. Expected outcomes include enh ....Educating preservice teachers to teach diverse learners. This project aims to investigate links between teacher educators’ reflexive decision making and the preparation of teachers for teaching in socially and culturally diverse Australian classrooms. The project takes a transdisciplinary approach, bridging the fields of epistemic cognition and reflexive decision making, to explore how rigorous teaching can be enacted in socially and culturally diverse classrooms. Expected outcomes include enhanced capacity of those preparing future teachers for new classroom conditions, which will provide benefits for a quality teaching workforce.Read moreRead less
The Material Science of Biomimetic Soft Network Composites. Nature combines stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a weak polymer matrix of proteoglycans into soft tissues with outstanding mechanical durability and biological properties. We converge a biomimetic design strategy inspired in the architecture of natural soft tissues and a novel additive manufacturing technology termed melt electrowriting (MEW) to manufacture advanced biomimetic soft network composites (BSNC). The SNCs ....The Material Science of Biomimetic Soft Network Composites. Nature combines stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a weak polymer matrix of proteoglycans into soft tissues with outstanding mechanical durability and biological properties. We converge a biomimetic design strategy inspired in the architecture of natural soft tissues and a novel additive manufacturing technology termed melt electrowriting (MEW) to manufacture advanced biomimetic soft network composites (BSNC). The SNCs are composed of a weak polymer matrix and a MEW reinforcing fibrous phase printed at the nanometre scale, containing patterns mimicking the natural tissue architectures. Advanced computational tools are applied for the rational design of the SNC while reducing costs and times associated to experimental work.Read moreRead less
Planet Formation at Solar System Scales with the James Webb Space Telescope. Planetary systems like our own form within vast disks of primordial gas and dust around newborn stars. This project will observe such disks spanning a range of ages with the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal the detailed in-situ physics of planet-forming disks themselves. We will deliver the sharpest-ever infrared images in astronomy, exploiting the only Australian-designed instrument on the spacecraft: the Aperture ....Planet Formation at Solar System Scales with the James Webb Space Telescope. Planetary systems like our own form within vast disks of primordial gas and dust around newborn stars. This project will observe such disks spanning a range of ages with the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal the detailed in-situ physics of planet-forming disks themselves. We will deliver the sharpest-ever infrared images in astronomy, exploiting the only Australian-designed instrument on the spacecraft: the Aperture Masking Interferometer. This yields new physics for actively growing protoplanets, carved rings and gaps in disks, and gravitationally sculpted patterns of leftover cometary debris. Confronting state-of-the-art models with these data will immediately yield profound insights into planetary system formation, including our own.Read moreRead less
EEG Based Global Network Models and Platform for Brain States Assessment. This project aims to generate new knowledge and tools in global brain network modelling and deep learning technology. It addresses the significant issues in higher brain function state assessment using brain signal EEG. The project applies global brain networks to model brain dynamical activities as a whole, and assesses higher brain functions such as consciousness, fatigue, sleep, stress and depression, and their step by ....EEG Based Global Network Models and Platform for Brain States Assessment. This project aims to generate new knowledge and tools in global brain network modelling and deep learning technology. It addresses the significant issues in higher brain function state assessment using brain signal EEG. The project applies global brain networks to model brain dynamical activities as a whole, and assesses higher brain functions such as consciousness, fatigue, sleep, stress and depression, and their step by step evolution in real-time using innovative deep learning approaches. The expected outcomes are optimised brain network models and a platform technology. The intended results can be applied to greatly improve the sleep quality and productivity of general community, and the safety of workplace and transportation.Read moreRead less
RNA structure prediction by deep learning and evolution-derived restraints. This project addresses the long-standing structure-folding problem of Ribonucleic acids (RNA) whose solution is essential for elucidating the roles of noncoding RNAs in living organisms. The proposed approach will detect hidden homologous sequences and enhance evolutionary covariation signals by developing new algorithms for search and smarter neural networks for deep learning. The project expects to generate new tools ....RNA structure prediction by deep learning and evolution-derived restraints. This project addresses the long-standing structure-folding problem of Ribonucleic acids (RNA) whose solution is essential for elucidating the roles of noncoding RNAs in living organisms. The proposed approach will detect hidden homologous sequences and enhance evolutionary covariation signals by developing new algorithms for search and smarter neural networks for deep learning. The project expects to generate new tools for structure-based probing of RNA evolutional and functional mechanisms. The outcomes should provide significant benefits by high-accuracy computational modelling of RNA structures that are difficult and costly to solve by current structural biology techniques but important for enabling biotech and clinical applications.Read moreRead less