Australia Association for Research in Education
Predatory publishing scams ravage the world of academic researchers
Research and publication are quintessential elements of the academic profession. Publishing is a key performance indicator, without it, job security is at peril. It has been this way for a long time. As far back as 1942, in a book on American higher education called The Academic Man, sociologist Logan Wilson documented that academics were …
Teachers ‘must show’ emotional intelligence but how will it be measured? (And other questions)
All initial teacher education graduates must now “show superior cognitive and emotional intelligence measured via a psychometric assessment” before they will be considered for teaching jobs in New South Wales public schools. This requirement is part of the Teacher Success Profile launched last year by the New South Wales Education Minister Rob Stokes. I asked …
Let’s talk about job satisfaction for teachers, not just about who leaves and when
In Australia we have been talking about rates of attrition in the teaching profession for a long time. Yet when we focus on attrition we miss the bigger picture. The key issue is not just who is leaving and when, but how we can improve job satisfaction for teachers so that they can flourish within …
Music ed isn’t a luxury. All of our children should be learning music
Learning music can increase thinking skills, enrich strategies for learning and creativity, and enhance connections across subjects. We keep discovering more reasons to foreground music education in our schools. So why haven’t state governments acted to support music education and reform? As I see it, music education has now been in the ‘too hard basket’ …
Into this silence the children said – we are not the problem we are the solution
“…And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking, people hearing without listeningPeople writing songs that voices ever shared, no one dared disturb the sound of silence…” (Excerpt from Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel, 1965) There is a silence echoing within government chambers, as the need to …
Academics and Twitter: the good, the bad and how to survive out there
Twitter is the social media of choice for many academics. At least one in forty academics in an institution is on twitter, contributing to the 4.2 million tweets about education every day. If you are involved in education in any way it is probably a good idea to get on there and see what is …
Ghosts in the classroom: insights into passive disengagement in the middle years
Students who passively disengage from classroom learning usually go unnoticed by their teachers. However, they can be identified and helped. Specifically, students’ own perspectives on what is going on in their classrooms can help us understand what issues might be contributing to their disengagement. In Australia, research efforts, policy, and school initiatives have attempted to …
Don’t trust banks to teach financial literacy to children. Here are some teacher insights
For generations, schools, teachers and parents around Australia have relied on the finance industry for money-related expertise and …
National Evidence Institute: let’s push for quality of USE, not just quality of evidence
The use of evidence in education has never had a higher profile. In Australia much interest in school …