This paper reports on a new initiative of collaborative work between the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and Cambridge University as part of the 2020-21 review of the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics Foundation -- Year 10. The ACARA mathematics curriculum development team worked with the Cambridge Mathematics…

Modern biotechnology has a large and rapidly increasing impact on society. New advances in genetics, stem cells and other areas hold great potential for human health but also presenting socioscientific issues that commonly divide public opinion. While knowledge is necessary to develop informed opinions about biotechnology, they may also be…

Despite significant research in the field of educational technology, there is still much we do not fully understand about students' experiences with technology. This article proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing that pays attention to the understandings and lives of learners. Within…

This research focuses on the use of ethical frameworks as a pedagogical model for socio-scientific education in implementing the "Science as a Human Endeavour" (SHE) strand of the Australian Curriculum: Science in a Year 10 biology class in a Christian college in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. Using a case study approach, a mixed…

In late 2008, the Australian Government announced funding for a national collaborative project to develop a curriculum framework for courses of study in Chinese (Mandarin), Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean for "heritage speakers" of these languages at the senior secondary school level. This article examines some of the issues surrounding…

A sample of Australian secondary school students was used to explore the relationships among a set of standardised Year 7 numeracy and literacy tests, measures taken at Year 10 of mathematics attitude and schoolwork effort, and Mathematics and English scores in a state-wide Year 10 examination. Additionally, the predictive capacity of the numeracy…

An outcome of science education is that young people have the understandings and skills to participate in public debate and make informed decisions about science issues that influence their lives. Toulmin's argumentation skills are emerging as an effective strategy to enhance the quality of evidence based decision making in science classrooms. In…

Past research has documented a link between negative problem orientation (NPO) and poor emotional well-being, but little of this research has focused on adolescence or has collected multiple waves of data. The authors conducted a 3-wave longitudinal survey of 841 adolescents in Grades 8, 9, and 10 (428 boys, 411 girls, 2 unidentified). The survey…

Over the past decades, genetics has remained a difficult topic in school science. This paper presents an interactive multimedia program, "BioLogica", used to teach Grade 10 (14- and 15-year-olds) Australian students about genetics. Over six weeks, the teacher used different representations in the teaching and engaged students in computer…

The Second International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM2009) was held at the University of Cordoba, Spain, on July 1-3, 2009. EDM brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large data sets to answer educational research questions. The increase in instrumented…