Scholarly Life

David: In one particular subject, in the one I was referring to, the Key Issues one, the quality of the presentations was so high, that we actually put all of the PowerPoint presentations that the students produced onto a CD and made this generally available. I think that was an appropriate recognition. I think it's also an indication of the extent to which we see these people as being colleagues rather than simply students. Now this leads in I think directly to the relationship, the professional association, that Teresa and I have had in regard to her project, where this was not an arbitrary and artificial research project. It was not a hypothetical. There's real data there that needed to be analysed, and Teresa and I had a conversation about what would be the sort of project that would be both of value to the community at large and of personal value to Teresa. You might want to comment on that.

Teresa: Yes, because I realised if I wanted to do a project, it would be better if it was something that could be related back to Singapore, because that was where I was going to go back to after a year. We managed to build up a project which involved a Singapore school, and we had to analyse questions asked in a mathematical classroom. I thought that would be a perfect opportunity for me to work on that data, so that when I go back, at least I would be able to present that data to those who are interested in it back in the education system.

David: Because the project of which this data is a part is a twelve country study, and it's already produced one book, I fully anticipate that the results of Teresa's analysis will be a chapter in the next book in this research series. Teresa's work, her preliminary report, has already been sent to my colleagues in Singapore, who thought it was an excellent piece of work, and some nice things have happened as a result of that too. Do you want to talk about that?

Teresa: Yes. What is really nice out of this whole thing is that when I go back to Singapore in two weeks' time I have a job waiting for me, and I hope that it is going to be a job which is based on what I have done this year. It's a continuation of my research, which is really good because it's not as though I just came to Australia to do my Masters and I'm just going to go back and carry on with life there. What I have done this year, what I've learnt this year, there is going to be a continuity and I am going to use it back home in Singapore.