Australia Association for Research in Education
Why Simon Birmingham is wrong about school funding
Education ministers from all of Australia’s governments, state, territory and Commonwealth, met on Friday to begin negotiations over school funding. Various claims have been made and strong positions taken. The Turnbull government’s education minister, Simon Birmingham, has claimed the model of school funding famously recommended by David Gonski had been “corrupted” by deals made with …
Fast policy: when educational research morphs into quick fixes and ‘silver bullets’
Education is increasingly positioned as a problem in need of fixing. Faced with demands for accountability and transparency in public policymaking, governments are constantly looking for solutions that are informed by ‘evidence’, are expedient and cost-effective, and likely to get favourable media coverage. Educational research that underpins policy has traditionally been the domain of academics …
How I blog for personal professional development: you can do it too
Why write blog posts? I write about whatever it is I want to yell to the rooftops at …
Full time teaching and doing a PhD: researching my own students taught me a lot
I am a full-time high school teacher and part-time researcher, doing a Doctorate of Philosophy, trying to make …
Positive personal attributes: why teachers need them and how teacher education can help (despite negative media)
Positive personal attributes such as fairness, humour and kindness, I believe, should be considered necessary attributes for a teacher. Currently much of the discussion around ‘quality’ teaching, teacher entry and teacher education is about a suite of high-level competencies and standards. However the nature of teachers’ work and the uniqueness of the education profession should …
The voice of the child in 21st Century education matters, now more than ever
In education systems today there is a real danger of children’s voices being swamped by those of bureaucrats, …
Why teachers and academics should use Facebook and Twitter
University students and most secondary school students today carry connected devices with them at all times. They constantly …
Pokémon Go in schools: should teachers be using it?
Pokémon Go has been sweeping the world like no other game before it. Since its launch in Australia on July 6th this year it has trended on every form of social media. So what is it, where did it come from? And most importantly, as educators how excited should we be about it? What is …