Australia Association for Research in Education
The shock of dealing with Covid-19 has made teachers even stronger and better at their craft
Cast your mind back to the end of the first school term for 2020: Australian states and territories were rapidly moving into lockdown because of COVID-19. Political leaders were signaling – often using mixed signals – the likelihood and need to close schools and transition to distance learning. Here in New South Wales schools switched …
Children as content creators: ‘Learning by doing’ during the pandemic using technology
Instructional design in education – that is successfully designing what a student will learn and how they will learn it, both online and physical – is currently experiencing unprecedented attention and growth, which could prove to be one of the best things to come out of the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. All educators …
What does ‘back to basics’ really mean? What ‘reforms’ are being signalled this time?
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been describing the NSW curriculum review as a signal to go “back to basics” despite Professor Geoff Masters, who headed up the review, insisting it is more about decluttering the curriculum. To educators like me the phrase “back to basics” has signalled different education reforms over the years, which begs the …
Prescribed texts studied at school are not engaging our students and don’t reflect our diverse society
High school students read a range of self-selected texts in their everyday lives but they remain disengaged when …
How teaching online during COVID-19 lockdown made me think deeply about how physical presence matters
There’s a general feeling among teachers of pride and relief that we got through the recent few months when were teaching online. And at the moment, all of us are feeling for our school teacher colleagues in Melbourne who face returning to the challenges of teaching remotely again in just a week with their city …
University research funding and international student numbers rose, and will likely fall, together
Australia’s universities face multi-billion dollar annual budget shortfalls over the next few years. Fewer international student arrivals are the single biggest cause of falling revenues. In 2018 26 per cent of university revenue came from international students, up from just 3 per cent in 1990. Universities were warned about relying financially on international students. Since …
Virtual Reality in school education: Australia leads the way with groundbreaking research
In 2016, I attended a meeting and fortuitously sat next to the (now retired) principal of Callaghan College …
The ignorance of our shared history is shocking. Morrison’s denial shows us time for truth-telling is NOW
Never has the cultural gap been so evident. What I am talking about is the outright denial and whitewashing of the shared Australian history. The leader of colonial Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison proclaimed on commercial radio station 2GB that Australia was founded on the basis that there be no slavery. His failure to recall …
New evidence: Stark inequity of online access for rural and remote students
It’s long been known that those in regional and remote areas of Australia do not have access to …
Black Lives matter; We matter
So, I lie awake not being able to sleep, as the fire of my Ancestors burns inside me for change. I roll over trying to hide from it all, as I am tired, having just worked a full-time week, raising my gorgeous kids and teaching them from home, working and living for my Community, my …