This chapter focuses on dance and learning in the early years, presenting a theoretical framework that reflects the changing Australian cultural context for dance. Building upon an earlier model for dance education, culturally responsive pedagogy is an inclusive approach to dance learning from birth to age eight. Key influences are introduced with attention given to aesthetic experiences, early dance relationships, ‘dance-play’, young children’s engagement with technology and the explosion of dance on screen. Consideration is given to established truths about dance and the emerging presence of Indigenous dance within dance education. Examples of dance artists in education settings, along with visual and transcribed examples, are provided, demonstrating how early years educators may support young children’s agency as critically responsive co-creative participants in dance.

The importance of effective communication between the adults in the lives of children and young people has gained prominence in theory, policy and practice, and throughout the different contexts in which students participate. In educational contexts throughout the world, it has been well established that the best outcomes occur for children and youth when the adults in their lives come together to support them. Communication is at the core of interaction and provides the building blocks for positive relationships to emerge and develop. Such relationships enhance learning and support students, their families and teachers to recognise and reach their full potential. The field of communication offers some sound insight into effective communication between adults, including different models that aid in developing a better understanding about the complex nature of communication in education-based settings.

Teachers work across a diverse range of learning environments in an array of different contexts, sectors and settings. Therefore, teachers need to organise and manage particular learning environments according to a number of factors, including the age range, learning needs and number of students they are teaching, the nature of the learning context, and the aims and purpose of the teaching and learning being undertaken. The first section of this chapter explores this theme, and provides insight into how classroom management practices are historically, socially and culturally contextualised. In the second section, we introduce some of the theoretical principles and practical issues associated with establishing and maintaining positive, supportive, safe and inclusive learning environments that encourage all students to participate fully in educational opportunities. Theories are of little use in classroom management if they exist only at the level of abstract thought, so we explore ways in which theory can be enacted in practice across learning contexts.

This chapter discusses techniques that help us estimate parameters and summarizing statistics for random variables from data. The chapter discusses techniques such as the method of moments, least-squares, and maximum likelihood. The chapter also touches on concepts of Monte Carlo simulation, which is a technique that can be used to approximate the summarizing statistics of random variables from random samples or from data. The chapter also highlights how one can characterize the quality of such approximations using the central limit theorem and the law of large numbers.

Directors’ duties can be classified into two themes: duties in relation to care and skill, and duties in relation to loyalty and good faith. This chapter is the first of two chapters addressing the duties of loyalty and good faith. These duties fall into two categories: those concerned with the way in which directors exercise the powers and discretions vested in them, and those concerned with the standard of conduct expected from directors. This chapter will focus on the first category, which includes the duty to act bona fide in the best interests of the company and for proper purposes, its counterpart in s 181 of the Corporations Act, and the limitations on directors not to fetter the future exercise of their discretions.

This chapter starts with a discussion of the general law in relation to the duty to act bona fide in the best interests of the company and for proper purposes. The discussion examines how the law developed historically and how it exists today. It then considers s 181 of the Corporations Act, before moving to consider alternative approaches to this area of law, which demonstrate a development of the stakeholder approach to corporate theory.

This chapter discusses techniques to measure uncertainty/risk and to make decisions that explicitly take risk into consideration. The chapter also discusses how to use principles of statistics and optimization in advanced decision-making techniques such as stochastic programming, flexibility analysis, and Bayesian optimization.

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), as introduced in Chapter 1, require that teachers not only know the content and how to teach it, but also know their students and how they learn. This chapter introduces the concept of pedagogy and examines the centrality of relationships between teacher, student and content, as a defining feature of pedagogy. Pedagogy is the most outward expression of how a teacher considers that teaching and learning best take place. Teachers should always base their decisions on ‘how’ to teach on their understanding of how the students in their class learn best. This involves a number of considerations, such as their stage of development (physical, cognitive and social), individual interests and preferred ways of learning. A number of different pedagogical frameworks are explored in the chapter, which concludes with a discussion of some of the key elements of exemplary teaching and how these elements are embedded in pedagogy.

Planning for learning is essential for creating environments conducive to deep learning and to developing student understandings. Standard 3 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) specifies the need for all graduate teachers to be able to ‘plan for and implement effective teaching and learning’. Quality planning involves the systematic use of feedback data to design activities that encourage the assimilation and synthesis of information, leading to the creation of new understandings. Student learning should always be the goal.