Despite teacher interest in wanting to engage students in learning beyond the classroom, many don't have the skills or confidence to do so. Drawing from an earlier study that examined outdoor, environmental and sustainability pedagogies across three Australian primary (elementary) schools, this paper presents and examines two teaching and learning…

Capacity to teach the arts is a problem reported by many teachers in primary (elementary) school settings in Australia. This paper reports on research which explored how to build primary school teachers' capacity in arts-based pedagogy. It outlines the design and development of a co-mentoring program between arts mentor practitioners and…

This paper reports on the evaluation of the final year of a three-year professional learning intervention underpinned by a student-centred model of feedback. School leaders, teachers, and students in 13 Australian state schools participated in the research. The professional learning was contextualised in Year 3 English, with a focus on writing.…

Extensive work has been undertaken in North America on effective practices in early childhood education, early childhood special education, and autism-specific interventions. Much of this work, however, has not been disseminated in teacher-friendly ways nor has it been translated into useable formats that support teacher uptake and incorporation…

The increasing number of children on the autism spectrum entering mainstream schools requires classroom teachers with the knowledge and skills to create supportive and inclusive environments in which these students can thrive. This paper reports the perspectives offered by 33 teachers who volunteered to trial an Early Years Model of Practice…

There has been an evolution in the teacher professional learning literature on what constitutes effective process. This evolution has seen a shift from a focus on the design elements to the theory of action that integrates and drives these disparate elements to create effective professional learning. This study argues that a focus on a theory of…

The literature on play and learning attests many developmental benefits for children. The Australian curriculum endorses play-based learning (PBL) as an age-appropriate teaching pedagogy. However, what enables or prevents PBL in the classroom is not well documented. The present study examined the responses of 334 teachers currently employed in…

This paper reports on research conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Certification Modular Model 2.0 (CMM 2.0) offered by the Teacher Quality Institute of the Australian Capital Territory. The research evaluated the extent to which the CMM 2.0 was attractive, sustainable and developmental. The data was collected via two surveys conducted…

This paper describes a national statistics-oriented project-based learning activity, which has been delivered annually for five years in Australia and the outcomes of a particular collaboration of this initiative with the discipline of environmental sustainability. The national initiative engages primary- and secondary-school students from varied…

Purpose: Children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), their parents, Teachers of the Deaf, and other community stakeholders were involved in co-designing a web-based resource to support students' social-emotional well-being. The resource was designed to provide families and teachers with strategies to enhance the social and emotional…

Student and teacher wellbeing are now a prominent concern within education systems internationally. Meditation and mindfulness programs form part of the response to addressing this. Research and practice to date has focused on the benefits of such interventions for students "or" teachers, despite considerable evidence of connections…

Service-learning is used by universities to promote community engagement thatbenefits both the students and the recipient community; however, evidence largely demonstrates only the shortterm effects of such experiences. This paper presents ananalysis of the transformational learning of a group of Australian students who travelled to Fiji in an…

A number of studies have demonstrated visual schedules and work systems to be effective in assisting students on the autism spectrum to stay on task and work independently. However, evidence of effectiveness does not ensure a timely implementation of interventions in applied educational contexts. The translatability of interventions depends, to a…

Survey research among Australian teachers revealed that teachers experience tensions between student well-being concerns and the demands of academic performance and improvement agendas. Qualitative findings revealed teachers view student-teacher relationships as imperative to student well-being and academic development. However, in a time of…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" framework outlines scientific and engineering practices as a key element of student development. Educators are just beginning to discover effective and meaningful ways to teach science content to students with intellectual disability; however, the literature on teaching science practices is still…