Educationreview

Dimi Stathopoulos is an occupational and speech therapist who has a lot of experience working with children with Austim Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a host of other learning disabilities and difficulties.The occupational and speech therapist asserts that conditions such as ASD have "become more prevalent in the last 20 years", with only 1 in roughly 10,000 children diagnosed with the condition 20 years ago. Now, that figure is approximately 1 in 100 and is predicted to be as common as 1 in 10 in the future.As conditions such as ASD have become far more common in society, they have also become commonplace within classrooms. While many teachers may have some or a lot of knowledge of such conditions, knowing how to manage them at the coalface can be a daily challenge for both the teacher and the student if no strategies are in place.For a while now Stathopoulos has been using a new technology called My Burrow in her own clinic and recommending it for teachers to us

Professor Sandra Milligan from the University of Melbourne and her fellow experts were inspired to write the report 'Future Proofing Students: What they need to know and how educators can assess and credential them' after noticing a disconnect between "what teachers want students to learn and how they are credentialed" or assessed.The authors of the report also found that employers often knew little of what a student could really do based on a report card. Students, too, often complained that some credentials didn't reflect who they really were.Education Review spoke to Milligan about this issue as well as the skills all students will require now and into the future. Depending on the context, these skills are called different things: soft skills, 21st century skills, general capabilities and graduate qualities.They include teamwork and collaboration, communication in a range of forms, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving, to name a few. Milligan refers to them as "learning skills" as they are e

School principals are often characterised by their leadership abilities, educational excellence and ability to meet government requirements through reporting of a whole range of data. But, according to Eduinfluencers founder and managing director Rochelle Borton, adopting many CEO practices and mind frames could improve the performance of principals, school leaders and, ultimately, students.Eduinfluencers aims to equip principals and other school leaders with skills for the 21st century education sector. Borton firmly believes there are several CEO practices that improve student outcomes and overall school culture. “Principals and school leaders need to think like CEOs and be taught skills in HR, leadership, school planning, business strategy as it is a massive opportunity save money and become more efficient,” Borton says. During her podcast with Campus Review, Borton said the main aspect of principals thinking more like CEOs is building their capacity to have a clear vision, almost a “mandate” and build the

Dr Danielle Einstein is a Sydney-based clinical psychologist who has her own practice where she works with students of various ages. Since 2013, she has also been heavily involved in many schools' wellbeing programs.Year 12 has been a difficult and disrupted year in 2020, but Einstein believes students "need to develop skills in being able to pivot and readjust their goals". The psychologist also talks a lot about "uncertainty bombs" that need to be defused before they turn into more serious conditions.Einstein also believes young people need to learn about the healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with anxiety, and not to lean on friends for serious issues. While a lot of funding and work has gone into school-based wellbeing programs over the years, Einstein thinks they've forgotten one crucial element: how to manage our worries, which she argues is critical.Einstein has developed a downloadable COVID-19 Chilled and Considerate Bootcamp course available for parents, teachers and councillors to teach in schoo

Professor Philip Riley, from Deakin University's School of Education, on principal stress and burnout and COVID-19.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Submissions will close next month into the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation independent inquiry into the value of teachers’ work. The inquiry will be chaired by former WA premier and Professor Emeritus Dr Geoff Gallup as well as respected industrial relations expert Dr Tricia Kavanagh and Patrick Lee, the former head of the NSW Institute of Teachers. NSWTF president Angelo Gavrielatos commented: “It’s been more than 15 years since the last investigation into the nature and value of teachers’ work." Angelo Gavrielatos spoke to Education Review about why the independent inquiry was called and why it’s needed. Firstly, the NSWTF president said a review had taken 15 years to take place because the "government had changed the laws". He also added that an "industrial relations system exists that is quite simply contemptuous of teachers".Gavrielatos also emphasised the seismic changes that education has gone through every five to six years in terms of curriculum, technology and pedagogy. This, of course, places

They are the leaders of the school - the individuals who are ultimately responsible for the wellbeing of everyone in their school communities.And while the majority of school principals are highly satisfied with their jobs, Professor Phil Riley's most recent Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey highlights that they're are increasingly suffering from a range of serious health problems related to the stress of their jobs, including burnout, sleep and anxiety disorders. This has only gotten worse for many principals with the COVID-19 pandemic.Education Review spoke to Associate Professor Richard Niesche from the UNSW about the stress and frustrations many school principals are experiencing right now, From struggling to obtain hygiene essentials like soap in a timely manner to the mixed messaging of governments, from being concerned about their staff's wellbeing to the added administrative responsibilities they must now undertake. It's not an easy time to be a school principal, es

Michael Lawrence is a Victorian teacher and author of the forthcoming book - TESTING 3,2,1: What Australian Education Can Learn From Finland: A Teacher’s Perspective by Michael Lawrence.Now that he's teaching almost entirely online, Lawrence argues that old disciplinarian models of behaviour management are untenable, and, more than ever, students will need a meaningful purpose to engage in learning other than simply receiving an impressive grade or fulfilling subject requirements.In this insightful interview with Education Review, he also points out the vagaries of technology and internet speeds, as well as how some learners will thrive in the digital realm while others will fall by the wayside.It's not all negative though - indeed, far from it. Lawrence believes COVID-19-induced remote learning could make both Australian students and teachers more adaptable learners and less beholden to rigid assessment rubrics and standardised tests and re-imagine the purpose of learning.See omnystudio.com/listener for priv

Ed Media Commercial Podcast Sample by EducationReviewSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Poulomee Datta is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University's School of Education, with a special interest in direct/explicit instruction and education access for students of all ability levels. Campus Review reached out to Datta to discover what she thought about the latest parliamentary inquiry into the state of NSW education, which was chaired by Mark Latham.As she mentions in the podcast, Datta believes NSW's performance in tests such as PISA and NAPLAN are rightly concerning and solutions must be canvassed to at least slow down or reverse the decline. Based on a strong corpus of research evidence, Datta also supports the mandatory adoption of direct/explicit instruction in NSW schools, although cautions that some activities may require a different pedagogical approach.The Macquarie University academic also believes a school inspector should be able to enter classroom without notice, provided their "temperament" is right and they are offering "constructive feedback". She also believes the school inspec

In August last year the NSW government developed LifeLauncher, an online tool to help both students who know what they want to do and those who haven't yet made up their mind.The tool quickly ascertains which type of student a person is and asks a series of questions to connect them to courses and careers. For the unsure, it asks questions to elicit their strengths and build a stronger understanding of what they might be able to do in the future. Education Review spoke to mother of twins Lesley Stewart about the how helpful the platform has been as her children move into the post-school years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The education landscape in Australia is constantly shifting and this year was no different. NAPLAN went online, mobile phones were banned in all public Victorian schools and the way in which teachers assess and report on student achievement was under the microscope.But the perennial issues remained and were reported on frequently. Why are our students' scores slipping internationally? What is the best way to teach reading? And are our teachers teaching the 'right' things for the jobs of the future?These stories and more are covered in our year in review. I'm Wade Zaglas, the education editor for Education Review, and I look forward to bringing you more stories that matter to you next year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a long career in the public service and and working as a education consultant, Fleur built the data analytics platform PeopleBench to help principals, in particular, "build an organisational strategy that could set the direction for a school for the next years. As Flue pointed out, an organisational strategy is vastly different from the usual teaching cycles and decision-making that is short-sighted and doesn't articulate the values underpinning a school's ethos and ambitions. Data analytics systems helps principals make purposeful, informed decisions about where their school stands compared to similar and dissimilar schools and can inform national debate surrounding national trends. Fleur states that principals are expected to be "experts in everything these days", but often they lack the training in organisational strategy and using analytics to inform sound decision-making. While many principals rely on their "lived experience" and support from HR to run a school, additional coaching and evidence-bas

Dr Majeda Awawdeh is a former high school teacher who exited the education sector "after 15 years of frustration".In this podcast, she talks about some of the causes of Australian students' slide in maths across the years and considers addressing the problem as national priority.The academic, founder of Global Education Company and textbook writer, identified some key areas Australia must focus on if it is to improve its maths results. These include increasing the ATAR entry score for teaching, having adequately trained and well-remunerated teachers who are experts in their subject/s, and using quality resources such as textbooks to guide learning and avoid a "scattergun" teaching approach, which leaves students confused,See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, I’m Wade Zaglas, education editor at Education Review. This week was all about Australia’s underwhelming 2018 PISA results, so thought it would be best to produce a Response from the Sector, a five - to 10-minute run down of what Australia’s educations experts (not the media or the politicians) think about the results.Dr Steven Lewis, a research fellow from Deakin University, said "We should remember that these numbers often indicate an equity problem.”"While Australian students’ performance remain above the OECD average in reading and science, the fact that we are now equal to it in mathematics should be cause for concern, and there has been a steady decline across all domains since testing began in 2000."The failure to address the needs of Indigenous Australian students was also brought up in academic discussions, with some arguing the Closing the Gap initiative has done little to address education disadvantage.A more controversial view was esposed by Asssocuiate Profesor Jihyun Lee from the UNSW."Th

A recent Indeed report concluded that searches for teaching jobs declined in 2019, with some states recording sharp drops. This follows an article in The Conversation last year lamenting the drop in first-preference applications in teaching, as well as a host of anecdotal accounts.But is interest in teaching declining or is this just a lot of media hype?Education Review spoke to Associate Professor Joanna Barbousas, Acting Head of School of Education at La Trobe University. Barbousas believes the decline is indeed real and can be attributed to many factors, including the changing requirements in becoming a teacher and negative reportage that is becoming more frequent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Feelings. It's probably not a word that many of us would associate with mathematics. But according to Dr Carol Aldous from Flinders University, feelings and intuition play a critical role in solving novel maths problems - problems that require students to tap into the subconscious or "fringe conscious" parts of their brain.Aldous came to the conclusion after observing 405 students solving novel maths problems at the Australian Mathematics Challenge and has recently published a book on the topic, entitled 'Unlocking Creativity in Solving Novel Mathematics Problems: Cognitive and non-cognitive perspectives and approaches'.Aldous spoke to Education Review about her research and what she witnessed at the Australian Mathematics Challenge in the way students used phrases like "I feel" when solving truly novel maths problems.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Linguist, writing aficionado, consultant and founder of Lifelong Literacy Lyn Stone will be explaining – through her trademark eloquent language - just how difficult writing is, and the number of things teachers can do to improve their students’ writing, which has been consistently worse than reading in this country for some time.Her piece is entitled The Pen is mightier than the sword. I urge all teachers, particularly kindy, preschool and primary teachers to listen to the messages in this piece.In it she discusses the Simple View of Writing (SVW), which covers everything from pen control; spelling, punctuation and sentence constructions; and vocabulary and ideation. Stone is so passionate about this as these skills must be taught early in schools by well-trained teachers, with automatic the end goal.Her fear is that, once all training has been exhausted, the "ship has sailed" as far as students' writing achievement, contributing to lifelong disadvantage. . She also tackles issue with the a well ingrained id

Hello, Education editor Wade Zaglas here focussing on the top story of the week. One story that struck me as particularly impressive was Australia being ranked fifth in the number of Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs) in the sciences and social sciences fields according to analytics company The Web of Science Group. Indeed, one of the most notable finding was that Australia had tripled its number HCRs in six years: there were only 80 Australian HCRs named in 2014, compared with 217 in in 2019. While Australia has been actively recruiting HCRs from overseas since 2014, there has also been a steep increase in the number of homegrown HRCs.Our population is modest (24,6 million), but that is not holding us bavck from being at the cutting-edge of research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week's damning revelations about the treatment of some students with a disability in Australia involved tales of seclusion, segregation and even abuse. While the disability royal commission centered on a few horrific stories only, there are doubtless many more examples of such treatment occurring across the country every day.Campus Review spoke to Andrew, which is not his real name, about his son's experience of primary school. Although being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and having some behavioural issues, Andrew's son is a bright, loving child who is now thriving at high school.However, Andrew's son's primary school years were a awful experience, reminiscent of some of the experiences heard at the royal commission. Andrew says his son was effectively babysat most of the time, denied access to the curriculum, and generally treated as burden to the school. More disturbingly, he was set upon by an older group of students, leaving him with black eyes, an incident the school failed to investigate