Teacher Magazine (acer)

In today’s world, young people must be financially literate to perform common, day-to-day tasks, like using a debit card or choosing a mobile phone plan. But, how financially literate are teenagers in Australia? And, how do they compare to their international peers? The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (or PISA, as it’s commonly referred to) includes an optional assessment that examines 15-year-old students’ understanding of money matters and financial literacy. This week, the Australian Council for Educational Research released a report that analyses Australian students’ performance in the latest PISA Financial Literacy survey. It’s titled PISA 2018: Financial literacy in Australia. A total of 117 000 students from 20 countries and economies participated in the financial literacy survey, including over 9400 Australian students from 740 schools. In today’s episode, we're joined by one of the report’s co-authors, Lisa DeBortoli, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. We discuss some of the

Year 10 gifted and talented students at St Matthews Catholic School in regional New South Wales collaborated with academics at the University of Sydney on a research project. In today’s episode we speak with Professor Patrick Brennan and Brooke Colley about how the collaborative nature of this project strengthened students’ STEM skills in areas like data analysis, experimentation and scientific writing. Host: Dominique Russell Guests: Professor Patrick Brennan and Brooke Colley

At Teacher magazine, we love to share the research-based innovative classroom activities from educators across Australia, and the world. In today’s episode we're going to take you through some of the engaging learning activities educators have been using during this pandemic. We’ve heard from Arts educators, researchers in Science and teacher educators on pre-service teacher experiences. We’ll take you through all of their stories in today’s episode. We’ll also be posing some questions throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context. Host: Dominique Russell

My guests today are Allan Shaw, Principal and CEO of The Knox School in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, and Ben Righetti, The Knox School’s Character and Leadership Programs: Lead Consultant and WELS Founder and Director. They join us today to discuss the Character and Leadership Model implemented at The Knox School between 2017 and 2020. It represents the most significant change in how the school develops student character and leadership capabilities in the history of the school. One of the key aims of the project is to foster the development of young people of character who will be ethical citizens and community leaders. It also involved a major redesign of camps, excursions, outdoor education and community-based learning at each year level, from Year 6 to Year 11. The school has documented its journey, what they learned and the implications of their findings in a report titled 'Character and Leadership Model: Student Character and Leadership Development through Purpose-Designed, Experiential, Community-Based

A new series of research papers relating to science learning in the early years has been published by ACER (the Australian Council for Educational Research). The series aims to help educators of children in preschool to Year 2 to incorporate the latest research into science learning into their teaching. The authors discuss the significance of the particular subject, the relevant research, how it links to outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework (or EYLF) as well as some aspects of the Australian Curriculum. They also describe a handful of activities that can be completed with children to help develop their science inquiry skills, like observing plants, and exploring light and shadows. These activities can also assist educators in monitoring the science learning of the children they’re teaching. They’re suitable for parents whose children are learning at home, as well. In this episode, we're joined by a co-author of the series, Gayl O’Connor, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. You’ll pick up on the bi

Teacher content draws on the wealth of knowledge and expertise that exists within the education community. This month, we’ve had the opportunity to speak with several experts in education on a range of different topics, and in today’s podcast, we take you through some of the highlights. Host: Rebecca Vukovic Sponsor: Bank First

With students returning to face-to-face classes here in Australia, we thought it might be a good time to take a breath and reflect on what’s certainly been an intense couple of months for everyone. Our guest in this episode is Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy, Director of the ACER Institute and the Centre for School and System Improvement. We’ll be talking about what’s happened and where to from here – continuity of teaching and learning during COVID-19, trying to understand and mitigate the impacts on student outcomes, how schools have adapted to ‘emergency remote teaching’, and how the experience could lead to future changes and innovations in practice. Host: Jo Earp Guest: Pauline Taylor-Guy Sponsor: EnhanceTV

Our guest today is Pasi Sahlberg, a Professor of Education Policy at the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW Sydney. He joins Teacher to discuss the ongoing research project he’s been working on that explores how the widespread use of media and digital technologies is impacting the wellbeing, health and learning of Australian children. The findings have been published in the Growing Up Digital Australia: Phase 1 Technical Report, co-written with Dr Amy Graham, a Research Fellow at the Gonski Institute. To give you a bit of a snapshot, the first phase of the study asked teachers and school principals to compare what they are observing in their schools and classrooms regarding students’ use of media and digital technologies, to what was happening three to five years ago. A total of 1876 respondents completed the survey, three-quarters of them were female and, for the most part, respondents were experienced educators, with 48 per cent of the sample having more than 20 years’ teaching experience. Half of th

With the COVID-19 pandemic comes a dramatic change to education and a lot of questions about the continuation of learning. At Teacher magazine, we’ve published a lot of content looking at navigating this challenge. In this podcast, we take you through some of the highlights. Host: Dominique Russell Sponsor: Bank First

Each year, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute announce winners to a range of ChooseMaths awards. At the 2019 award ceremony 11 educators were acknowledged and among them was Louise Puslednik. She took home the $20 000 award for mentoring girls in maths and she joins us in today’s episode. She’s made a real impact on girls’ involvement in maths at her school, St Matthew’s Catholic School in Mudgee, New South Wales, which teaches around 900 students from K-12. Her work extends beyond the school, which is about three hours from Sydney, to the wider Mudgee area and Bathurst region. The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute Schools Program Manager and ChooseMaths Project Director labelled her a champion for engagement of girls in maths, saying ‘Louise is a powerhouse mathematics mentor and educator whose innovation, passion, leadership and contributions to regional education have and will continue to transform engagement for the benefit of many’. Louise says forming relationships with student

Our guest today is Ashley Stewart, a Mathematics teacher from Newton Moore Senior High School in Bunbury, Western Australia. Just recently, Ashley was named in the top 50 shortlist for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize and, in fact, she was the only Australian educator to make the coveted list for 2020. In today’s episode we talk about how she focuses on dissolving the gender gap in STEM at her school by boosting girls’ uptake and engagement in these subjects. Ashley also shares details of some of the STEM programs she’s introduced, including a spatial training program and an international school partnership, which have improved academic achievement, but also student engagement and enjoyment in their lessons. Host: Rebecca Vukovic Guest: Ashley Stewart Sponsor: EnhanceTV

This month has been has been one characterised by a lot of fear and uncertainty as the world grapples with the challenge of containing the spread of the coronavirus. In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we do a round-up of what we’ve published so far related to Covid-19, as well as other more general content that we thought would be of interest. Host: Rebecca Vukovic

St Helena Secondary College in Victoria embarked on a journey to improve the quality and accuracy of teacher judgements on their student reports, in order to better reflect student achievement. We’re joined by Kate Williams to hear about the process and where they’re at on their journey. Guest: Kate Williams Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Researchers have found that to improve behaviour in class, teachers should focus on praising students for their good behaviour, rather than telling them off for being disruptive. Professor Paul Caldarella joins Teacher to discuss his three-year project that looked at the relationship between the praise-to-reprimand ratios and the extent to which students focused on class activities. Guest: Professor Paul Caldarella Host: Rebecca Vukovic Sponsor: EnhanceTV

In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we take a look at how schools have been kicking off the 2020 school year, and some new resources that have become available to assist with getting students the best start to school and processing the recent bushfire crisis. Host: Dominique Russell

The topic for this episode is something we’ve had a lot of requests for – trauma informed education practices. Studies show that exposure to trauma in childhood is widespread. Our guest today is Dr Emily Berger, an educational and developmental psychologist at Monash University here in Melbourne. We’ll be talking about some of the terminology, the benefits of trauma informed practice in schools (for all students), and different approaches to creating trauma informed classrooms. Guest: Dr Emily Berger Host: Jo Earp Sponsor: YSoft be3D eDee

As the name suggests, ‘foundation skills’ are crucial to future learning. The Association of Independent Schools New South Wales (AISNSW) has been working with 38 of its schools on a targeted early years program that aims to help students in Kindergarten to Year 2 master key literacy and numeracy skills. The initiative has been led by the association’s Head of Student Services, Lisa Ridings. She joins us now to share what’s been happening in the program and the impact it’s already having. Guest: Lisa Ridings Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Thanks for downloading this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight and action. And just like that, we’re already into a new school year and already in the full swing of things here at Teacher magazine. Throughout this episode, we're going to be sharing some of the highlights of the past month and giving you a bit of an overview of what we’ve been working on. But remember, there’s links to all the stories we mention in the transcript of this podcast, so if you’d like to delve deeper into any of the topics, you’ll find everything you need at teachermagazine.com.au. Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Our guest for this episode of The Research Files is Dr John Munro, a Professor of Educational Psychology and Exceptional Learning at The Australian Catholic University. He is also a trained primary and secondary teacher and a registered psychologist. We sat down in Melbourne to talk about gifted learners – in particular, how to identify these learners, how to understand their learning needs and how to encourage them to reach their potential in the classroom and beyond. John offers some really interesting insights and practical strategies for teachers as well.

Building positive relationships is at the centre of the behaviour management strategies used by Dapto High School. The additional focus on boys’ wellbeing has seen the school volunteer for the Top Blokes mentoring program and create a new staff role – Boys’ Mentor. Our guests for this episode of Behaviour Management are Dapto High School’s Deputy Principal Daniel Inness and Boys’ Mentor Andrew Horsley. They’ll be taking us through the mentoring approach, how it works alongside some of the other behaviour management strategies at the school, and some of the savings it’s led to – in time and money. Interviewee: Daniel Inness, Andrew Horsley Host: Jo Earp Sponsor: Monash Education