In Australia, it has been observed that there have been significant declines in the proportion of students studying senior sciences over the last two decades (Commonwealth of Australia 2017 & 2018; Steidtmann et.al, 2023). It has been suggested that one of the causes for this decline could be a link between students' literacy achievement and…

According to creative writing pedagogies academic Susanne Gannon ("English in Australia, 54"(2), 43-56, 2019), and the Federal government-commissioned NAPLAN review (McGaw et al., 2020), NAPLAN has restricted how writing is taught in secondary schools. A NAPLAN-influenced structural approach to teaching writing has subsumed the…

The purpose of this article is to present and discuss two recommended sequences of learning the areas of polygons, starting from the area of a rectangle. Exploring the algebraic derivations of the two sequences reveals that both are valid teaching progressions for introducing the area formula for various polygons. Further, it is suggested that…

Students with mild intellectual disabilities need explicit vocabulary instruction with multiple exposures in different contexts and extra practice in associating meanings to unfamiliar words to build their word knowledge. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of multimedia-based computer assisted instruction on learning the meanings…

South Australia's PISA performance has been in constant decline since 2003 with the proportion of PISA participants meeting the Australian national proficient standard dropping from 73% (in 2003) to 50% (in 2018). In contrast, Singapore is a consistently strong performer. To better understand student readiness in answering PISA questions, this…

Background: Since 1982 many student-centred physical education teaching approaches have been proposed as viable alternatives to the traditional teacher-centred methodology. However, research indicates that their uptake by physical education practitioners has been limited. This is concerning, particularly given the prominence of alternative…

This paper discusses educational insights drawn from a mixed-methods study in Religious Education (RE). The study involved 238 teachers and school leaders, working in 65 Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA). The focus of the study was the educators' perceptions of a large-scale, standardised assessment (LSA) called "The Bishops'…

'Intercultural understanding' (ICU) and its core concept 'interculturality', was introduced in the new national curriculum, implemented across Australia from 2013 (Australian Curriculum, ACARA. [2013]. Australian curriculum V.60. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/copyright). This paper draws on a study conducted in Victoria,…

The science teacher in the modern high school acts as the designer and driver of the in-class practice. In this role, the teacher must broadly assess the effect of the practice on the student. This would rely on accurate self-knowledge of how they act in class and impact their students. In this study we explore these issues by comparing the…

How are teachers who identify as "digital literacy trailblazers' exploring and experimenting with digital tools in their English classrooms? Based on a study of English teaching with digital tools, this paper draws on the case of one secondary school teacher and her year 9 class as they read Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) and engage with…

Although the benefits of addressing cognitive, social and affective aspects of learning in order to support conceptual change have been discussed in the literature, there are few studies of such interventions in the normal classroom. This study used a multidimensional conceptual change framework in order to teach five biology and physics topics…

Reflective practice in mathematical teaching improves teaching skills and confidence. This paper investigates affect-based critical moments as a reflective practice for pre-service teaching. An embedded case study is presented by one regional university as a discovery into the "reflective" phase of the Enhancement-Learning-Reflection…

Guided Inquiry (GI) is an emerging pedagogy based on the Information Search Process (ISP), a research-based information-literacy model identified by Carol C. Kuhlthau (1985, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, 1989b) and operationalized by the Guided Inquiry Design (GID) process (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2007, 2012, 2015). This study investigated…

An algorithm is presented for factorising a quadratic expression to facilitate instruction and learning. It appeals to elementary geometry which may provide better insights to some students or teachers. There have been many methods for factorising a quadratic expression described in school text books. However, students often seem to struggle with…

The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics calls for the concurrent development of mathematical skills and mathematical reasoning. What are the big ideas of mathematical reasoning and is it possible to map their learning trajectories? Using rich assessment tasks designed for middle-years students of mathematics, this symposium reports on the…