Australia Association for Research in Education
Creativity in Australian schools suppressed by onerous testing regime and crushing teacher restrictions
Once upon a time early childhood teachers used to learn singing and playing the piano, primary school teachers could study electives (and even majors) in areas such as drama and art, and universities could add new courses (such as ones in teacher as entrepreneur or global citizenship) through putting in a course variation form to …
4 critical questions to ask when attending education research conferences
There is nothing more disappointing than spending precious time, and worse, forking out hard earned money, on a dud conference. And I really dislike being sold a conference as one thing, only to find out (sometimes much later) the agenda was something else completely and I have been duped. So, as we are now in …
‘Zero tolerance’ is the wrong approach to classroom behaviour management
The Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, has demanded a zero tolerance approach to students’ bad behaviour in Australian classrooms. …
Children with disabilities in schools: how we started the parliamentary inquiry and what’s happening
We were extremely disturbed by the increasing reports of children with disability across Australia being abused and discriminated …
Persistent bullies: why some children can’t stop bullying
Bullying is a universal problem that affects individuals of all ages. To date, interventions in schools have achieved …
Arts education is vital to help foster creativity and innovation
I have a dream that this nation will achieve its full creative and economic potential and that Arts education will rightfully be seen as central to making this happen. It worries me that current thinking and policymaking around national innovation concentrates on increasing participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects while the teaching …
Expensive new government funded website for schools fails to deliver
Students with disabilities often struggle in Australian schools. There have been many inquiries and reports over the years …
How educators might work in the fake news world
I want to share here the deep concern I have for the role of educational researchers and teachers …
Here’s what is wrong with testing teachers and Teach For Australia
Soul-searching and navel gazing into the quality of teaching and teacher education in Australia has been rife lately. There were already concerns about the decline in Australia’s international rankings. Then came the Grattan Report that identified a lack of engagement amongst large numbers of students in Australia’s schools. More recently we have series showing on …