Teachers play a critical role in the implementation of inclusive education in their schools. In this paper, we report on a study that investigated teacher perceptions of their capabilities to implement effective inclusive practices in their classrooms at an urban, primary (elementary) school in south-east Queensland, Australia. Participating…

The importance of using dialogue as a pedagogical tool to enhance student learning in science has been widely recognised in research literature. Effective classroom dialogue is dependent upon teaching which successfully engages students in critical thinking and deep learning, requiring many teachers to think and work differently in science…

In early childhood education, a long-standing debate exists around issues related to school readiness and the transition to school. This paper describes an action research project implemented by teachers in an urban Australian preschool which gathered multiple stakeholder perspectives about school transition. The project was initiated to support…

Thirty years ago Australian researchers led the development of language and content integration in schools, advocating systematic teaching of language across the curriculum to meet the needs of English as an additional language (EAL) students. However, despite significant improvements in initial teacher education, targeted professional development…

This article explores the interplay of the 'live' experience of drama learning in the classroom and curated digital content on learner meaning making, collaborative creation and subjectivities. It examines a case study conducted in an inner-city secondary school in Sydney, Australia, as part of a larger innovative international collaborative drama…

Fine art education provides students with opportunities to acquire knowledge and skills to respond creatively to their experience of society and culture. Fostering creative ways of knowing, thinking and doing requires studio learning conditions that promote the exploration of embodied perceptions, material sensibilities and conceptual ideas that…

In this article the authors report on the use of a scaffolding pedagogy (Gibbons, 2009), informed by systemic functional linguistics, to support the writing of English language learners in middle years curriculum learning. They focus on the work of one teacher and her English class across the first 18 months of a longitudinal design-based literacy…

This article examines how insights from multimodal theory and research may assist teachers working with a range of multicultural students, for whom English is not their first language, in a typical urban classroom. These students have previously been referred to as "English as a Second Language Learners" (or ESL) in Australia while…

Two classrooms of diverse 5-year-old children were set the task of exploring ways of realising music invention through the semiotic import of composing resources. In both a rural and an inner-urban setting in Australia, children demonstrated syncretism in bilingual practices in communication. Visual multimodal analysis demonstrated how children…

"MyScience" ("www.myscience.edu.au") is a pioneering primary science initiative that uses a distinctive team approach, with primary teachers, primary students and volunteer mentor scientists working collaboratively as students conduct authentic scientific investigations to find answers to their own questions. The initiative is…

This paper explores a Sport Education pilot project as a case study of the approach in a primary school setting. The data was obtained from the end of unit written reflections of a class of upper primary students in an urban Australian primary school. The Sport Education unit of work was implemented by the school's physical education teacher who…

This article discusses a study of three Australian middle-years teachers who deployed Learning by Design principles and practice to support multiliteracies learning through students' production of digital/multimodal texts. The aim of the research was to develop an understanding of how three teachers embraced new e-learning pedagogical designs for…

From 1999-2005, the Mathematics in Indigenous Contexts (MIC) project was implemented by the Board of Studies, New South Wales (NSW), in conjunction with the NSW Department of Education and Training, and academics from two universities. MIC project members worked with schools and communities at two sites: a primary school in an urban community in…

In 2004 the Australia Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) released a report entitled "New teaching, new learning: A vision for Australian education". This report was prepared on behalf of the ACDE by Mary Kalantzis and Andrew Harvey, respectively the President and Executive Officer of the ACDE. The argument put forward in the report is…

This research project investigated the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in K-12 education. Exploration of the use of IWBs in six different school settings provided insights into the activities, approaches, roles and beliefs of students and teachers in a range of primary and secondary class contexts and discipline areas. The study was informed…