Centre for Applied Research in Learning, Engagement, Andragogy and Pedagogy (LEAP)

The Centre for Learning, Engagement, Andragogy and Pedagogy was established in 2008 to promote scholarly enquiry into personalised learning and innovative teaching through institutional and cross-institutional interdisciplinary research.

• The “One Goal, One Community: Moving beyond bullying and empowering for life” initiative has resulted in local, national and international positive publicity for both the LEAP Centre and Bond University. In less than 18 months, the “One Goal, One Community” program has established partnerships with 25 primary and secondary schools in five Australian states (Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia) and in Canberra (ACT), as well as two regions of the USA (Boston, Massachusetts and Tyler, Texas). To date, we have selected our program partners to intentionally represent a variety of school types (with an associated variety of student demographics). We are working with schools that are large and small, urban and rural, private and public, traditional and special needs, day program and boarding school, and traditional open selection as well as one school that consists of only Aboriginal and Cook Island students. To date, over 40,000 people on two continents have made commitments to engage in positive anti-bullying ways through this program. 
• Four LEAP Grant Applications have been successful:
  • Pad-agogy: A quasi-experimental and ethnographic pilot test of the iPad in a blended mobile learning environment, Bond Quality Teaching and Learning grant
  • Investigating the pedagogical advantage of enriched ebooks.in Anatomy, Bond Quality Teaching and Learning grant
  • “One Goal, One Community: Moving beyond bullying and empowering for life” anti-bullying initiative: An empirical outcomes assessment, submitted to Bond University Community Engagement Research Project Fund
  • Exploring best practices guidelines for successful university-community engagement partnerships in Australia, Bond University Vice-Chancellor’s Research Grant Scheme
• Our internal management board members have been very active in promoting the activities and research projects housed out of LEAP to the larger academic and practitioner communities. As a testament to this, the three faculty members that Bond’s Vice-Chancellor, recommended to St. Hilda’s School to represent Bond at the first TEDx conference to be held on the Gold Coast were all LEAP members. Dr.s Jeff Brand, Amy Kenworthy, and Allan Stirling were the three members of the presentation team that were sent to this event from Bond. 
• During the period 2010-2011, LEAP have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cross-disciplinary projects that our internal board members have both led and become a part of. A number of these projects include more than one of our internal board members as leaders. As the goal of LEAP is to serve as a catalyst and resource for developing cutting-edge research and knowledge generation in the area of learning and engagement, the fact that we are now all actively and publicly “walking the talk” of cross-disciplinary research programs is a fantastic achievement for the Centre.

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