Australia Association for Research in Education
21 simple design elements that will make any School Assessment Task sheet accessible
If you have a child in secondary school in Australia, you are probably familiar with assessment task sheets. They outline the task a student has to complete and how it will be assessed. The criteria and standards that will be used to evaluate the performance are included. Often the task sheet will also aim to …
It’s time to be honest with parents about NAPLAN: your child’s report is misleading, here’s how
You know there is something going wrong with Australia’s national testing program when the education minister of the largest state calls for it to be axed. The testing program, which started today across the nation, should be urgently dumped according to NSW Education Minister, Rob Stokes, because it is being “used dishonestly as a school …
NAPLAN testing begins for 2018 and here’s what our children think about it
Australia’s national literacy and numeracy testing program, NAPLAN, for 2018 begins today, on Tuesday 15th May. Classrooms have …
TeachING quality is not teachER quality. How we talk about ‘quality’ matters
The language we use to discuss the work of teachers in the public domain matters. It matters to our shared understanding of education as a society and it impacts on teachers’ work both directly and indirectly. My research at the moment focuses in part on the notion of quality in education, specifically how issues of …
Here’s what is going wrong with ‘evidence-based’ policies and practices in schools in Australia
An academic‘s job is, quite often, to name what others might not see. Scholars of school reform in …
Embracing the past: creatively using millennials’ growing interest in ceremonies of commemoration
This week many teachers will be turning their attention to the next event in the school calendar, the …
How it feels to slay the dragon: handing in my PhD thesis
As I come to the end of my doctoral journey, having recently submitted my thesis, I have been …
Which national publication is responsible for (almost) all Australian children wearing school uniform?
Recently unisex uniforms have taken centre stage in the annual school uniform debate in Australia. Our research has …
Labor proposes a new $280m Evidence Institute for Schools, but where is the evidence we need it?
The Australian Labor Party recently announced it would invest $280 million to fund a new educational research institute …