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We’re talking about blended learning. It’s an approach adopted by the School of Now – that’s a program launched in 2019 to broaden subject choice for students from two schools in the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, New South Wales, and connect them with expert teachers. It’s grown since then of course, and it’s fair to say it came into its own during the COVID-19 school shutdown. Our guest is Maura Manning, Director of Learning in the diocese. We’ll be talking about how the blended learning model operates at the School of Now, what it means for teachers and teaching, the focus on equity of access, and how students are supported – both online and at their home schools.

Changing school practices means everyone working together – leaders, teachers, support staff, students, parents and the wider community – toward the goal of improving outcomes for students, including their levels of achievement and wellbeing. At Teacher, we’ve heard plenty of inspiring school improvement stories, and in today’s episode we're going to take you through some recent highlights. Like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll take you through these topics, along with other noteworthy stories. We’ll also be posing some questions throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context. Host: Dominique Russell Sponsor: Bank First

Teachers are asked to respond to new and uncertain situations all the time – from keeping abreast of curriculum and subject knowledge updates to making quick pivots when a lesson isn’t quite going according to plan. Our topic for this episode is teacher adaptability and our guest is Dr Rebecca Collie – a DECRA Fellow and Scientia Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology in the School of Education at UNSW. Dr Collie and colleagues recently published a paper in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, on their study into adaptability among science teachers in schools across eight countries. We’ll be talking about the study findings, and the research around teacher adaptability. We’ll also talk about the link between teacher adaptability and self-confidence, behaviour management and student self-efficacy. And, there’ll be some recommendations for school leaders in there around the importance of professional learning communities. Host: Jo Earp Guest: Rebecca Collie Sponsor: Bank First

In today’s episode we're joined by Principal Elizabeth Humphries and Assistant Principal Nicole Wilson from East Derwent Primary School in Tasmania. Since 2018, they’ve been on a journey of school improvement which has seen significant progress in student engagement and achievement, as well as staff retention and teacher welfare. We’ll discuss the steps they’ve taken which have resulted in suspensions at the school decreasing by 75 per cent and fewer staff members leaving the school. A big part of this journey has been the school’s involvement in a Tasmanian Department of Education initiative called Refocus Teaching and Learning, which will be explained in much more detail later on in the episode. Host: Dominique Russell Guests: Elizabeth Humphries, Nicole Wilson Sponsor: Bank First

The content published on Teacher magazine this month has been packed full of contributions and insights from those working in the education community – from teachers and school leaders, to researchers, education consultants and university academics. We're always blown away by the wealth of knowledge and expertise that we’re able to share with you, our readers and listeners. In today’s episode, we're going to whip through the contributions we’ve published, giving you some snippets to come from the articles, videos and columns. We’ll also share some insights from the three podcasts we published this month – one on creativity, another on leadership coaching and one that explores co-creating bullying policies. Host: Rebecca Vukovic Sponsor: EnhanceTV

What bullying policies and procedures are in place at your school? Do they focus on a particular age range? And, do you run a specific anti-bullying education program? Our guest today is Dr Lesley-anne Ey, a Senior Lecturer at the University of South Australia. Lesley-anne and her UniSA colleague Professor Barbara Spears have been working with early childhood teachers to identify problems with bullying in their own school context and co-design tailored education and prevention programs. In this episode we’ll be discussing early childhood intervention, the Participatory Design method, and the feedback from the teachers and schools involved. Host: Jo Earp Guest: Lesley-anne Ey

We’re going to be talking about leadership coaching today. Our guests are Karen Snibson, who is Principal of Phoenix P-12 Community College in Victoria, and Angela Mina, a leadership coach and executive consultant. They’ve been working together as part of a two year Menzies School Leader Fellowship Program. Now, the focus of the program is on increasing collective teacher efficacy and it uses an ‘incubator model’ where the leadership Fellows are encouraged to trial strategies and interventions within their own school context. We’ll find out a little bit more about the model and the program, but we’ll be delving deeper into the developmental leadership coaching that’s being used, and how it differs from an approach that existing school leaders may be used to. And, of course, we’ll be chatting about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Karen and Angela’s plans and progress. Host: Jo Earp Guests: Angela Mina, Karen Snibson Sponsor: University of Newcastle, Australia

Which is more creative, the Arts or the sciences? My guest, Professor David Cropley from the University of South Australia, joins us today to discuss this question and to delve into his research into whether any specific differences exist between creativity in the Arts and creativity in STEM. David is an internationally recognised expert on creativity and innovation. He’s appeared on several television programs on the ABC, including Redesign My Brain and Life at 9. The study we’re focusing on today was co-authored by Kim van Broekhoven and Phillip Seegers from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The study surveyed over 2000 German undergraduate students enrolled in STEM courses and in Arts courses, to explore how creativity differed across the disciplines. In this episode, David takes us through how they conducted the study, some of the key findings, and the practical implications of this research for educators working in the K-12 space. Guest: David Cropley Host: Rebecca Vukovic

A few reports have been released lately which point to how we’re tracking across the world when it comes to equality and equity in education. At Teacher, we’ve looked a report showing how the experiences of young people living with a disability and without a disability compare. We also highlighted some resources on Indigenous literacy, in the lead up to Indigenous Literacy Day, which aims to improve remote Indigenous children's educational outcomes. Like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll take you through these topics, along with other noteworthy stories in education. We’ll also be posing some questions throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context. Host: Dominique Russell

We're joined today by Chemistry teacher Chris Buswell from Mountain Creek State High School on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Chris is passionate about integrating technology into science and leveraging opportunities for students in their local community. He’s worked hard for years towards both of these goals and student outcomes and their post-school destinations are really reflecting this. As you’ll hear in this episode, Chris has facilitated the use of virtual reality with senior secondary students to help them understand complex chemistry concepts through a partnership with their local university, the University of the Sunshine Coast. He’s also part of a network of schools who have partnered with schools in Papua New Guinea for a program which aims to empower future leaders in STEM. And, of course, he’s doing important work as well with younger students to build those important 21st Century skills. Guest: Chris Buswell Host: Dominique Russell

Our guest today is Lisa Seewraj, a teacher at Child Side Playgroup and School in Boyanup, Western Australia, about 200 kilometres south of Perth. Child Side School is an independent, co-educational school covering Kindergarten to Year 10. The school was founded in 2002, with a focus on relationships, engagement and connectivity. The school’s founders and co-principals Karron McDonald and Leonie O’Connell say they strongly believe that each person’s story matters to them and should matter to the students themselves; they help children value their own story and communicate and advocate it’s worth over and above any reports, grades, scores and other stats and data. Lisa Seewraj teaches a multi-age class of 23 students across Years 7-10. She does this with a co-teacher who teaches maths and science, and the two teachers are in the class for most of the week. Lisa also teaches these students for the four years they are in this year range. In today’s episode we discuss how she manages the classroom on a daily bas

Mathematics education has been a clear focus of our editorial content this month, and in this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we’re going to share some of the highlights. At the same time, we’ll be sharing some pieces on curriculum reform and requirements, as well as some contributions written by teachers, school leaders and researchers. Host: Rebecca Vukovic

In today’s world, young people must be financially literate to perform common, day-to-day tasks, like using a debit card or choosing a mobile phone plan. But, how financially literate are teenagers in Australia? And, how do they compare to their international peers? The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (or PISA, as it’s commonly referred to) includes an optional assessment that examines 15-year-old students’ understanding of money matters and financial literacy. This week, the Australian Council for Educational Research released a report that analyses Australian students’ performance in the latest PISA Financial Literacy survey. It’s titled PISA 2018: Financial literacy in Australia. A total of 117 000 students from 20 countries and economies participated in the financial literacy survey, including over 9400 Australian students from 740 schools. In today’s episode, we're joined by one of the report’s co-authors, Lisa DeBortoli, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. We discuss some of the

Year 10 gifted and talented students at St Matthews Catholic School in regional New South Wales collaborated with academics at the University of Sydney on a research project. In today’s episode we speak with Professor Patrick Brennan and Brooke Colley about how the collaborative nature of this project strengthened students’ STEM skills in areas like data analysis, experimentation and scientific writing. Host: Dominique Russell Guests: Professor Patrick Brennan and Brooke Colley

At Teacher magazine, we love to share the research-based innovative classroom activities from educators across Australia, and the world. In today’s episode we're going to take you through some of the engaging learning activities educators have been using during this pandemic. We’ve heard from Arts educators, researchers in Science and teacher educators on pre-service teacher experiences. We’ll take you through all of their stories in today’s episode. We’ll also be posing some questions throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context. Host: Dominique Russell

My guests today are Allan Shaw, Principal and CEO of The Knox School in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, and Ben Righetti, The Knox School’s Character and Leadership Programs: Lead Consultant and WELS Founder and Director. They join us today to discuss the Character and Leadership Model implemented at The Knox School between 2017 and 2020. It represents the most significant change in how the school develops student character and leadership capabilities in the history of the school. One of the key aims of the project is to foster the development of young people of character who will be ethical citizens and community leaders. It also involved a major redesign of camps, excursions, outdoor education and community-based learning at each year level, from Year 6 to Year 11. The school has documented its journey, what they learned and the implications of their findings in a report titled 'Character and Leadership Model: Student Character and Leadership Development through Purpose-Designed, Experiential, Community-Based

A new series of research papers relating to science learning in the early years has been published by ACER (the Australian Council for Educational Research). The series aims to help educators of children in preschool to Year 2 to incorporate the latest research into science learning into their teaching. The authors discuss the significance of the particular subject, the relevant research, how it links to outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework (or EYLF) as well as some aspects of the Australian Curriculum. They also describe a handful of activities that can be completed with children to help develop their science inquiry skills, like observing plants, and exploring light and shadows. These activities can also assist educators in monitoring the science learning of the children they’re teaching. They’re suitable for parents whose children are learning at home, as well. In this episode, we're joined by a co-author of the series, Gayl O’Connor, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. You’ll pick up on the bi

Teacher content draws on the wealth of knowledge and expertise that exists within the education community. This month, we’ve had the opportunity to speak with several experts in education on a range of different topics, and in today’s podcast, we take you through some of the highlights. Host: Rebecca Vukovic Sponsor: Bank First

With students returning to face-to-face classes here in Australia, we thought it might be a good time to take a breath and reflect on what’s certainly been an intense couple of months for everyone. Our guest in this episode is Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy, Director of the ACER Institute and the Centre for School and System Improvement. We’ll be talking about what’s happened and where to from here – continuity of teaching and learning during COVID-19, trying to understand and mitigate the impacts on student outcomes, how schools have adapted to ‘emergency remote teaching’, and how the experience could lead to future changes and innovations in practice. Host: Jo Earp Guest: Pauline Taylor-Guy Sponsor: EnhanceTV

Our guest today is Pasi Sahlberg, a Professor of Education Policy at the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW Sydney. He joins Teacher to discuss the ongoing research project he’s been working on that explores how the widespread use of media and digital technologies is impacting the wellbeing, health and learning of Australian children. The findings have been published in the Growing Up Digital Australia: Phase 1 Technical Report, co-written with Dr Amy Graham, a Research Fellow at the Gonski Institute. To give you a bit of a snapshot, the first phase of the study asked teachers and school principals to compare what they are observing in their schools and classrooms regarding students’ use of media and digital technologies, to what was happening three to five years ago. A total of 1876 respondents completed the survey, three-quarters of them were female and, for the most part, respondents were experienced educators, with 48 per cent of the sample having more than 20 years’ teaching experience. Half of th