EducationReview

The teaching of phonics in the early years of reading has been a contested issue for decades now. While all teachers believe an understanding of the area provides a critical foundation for beginning readers, the ways in which it is taught by different teachers - the blended approach versus commercial synthetic phonics programs - has led to the oft-quoted "reading wars". However, with states such as NSW and SA implementing mandatory Year 1 phonics screening checks, it's clear that phonics - however it is taught - is being placed front and centre. In this interview early reading expert Professor Beryl Exley from Griffith University explains a number of points: the importance of not teaching phonics in isolation, different types of phonics instructions, the era of 'whole language', and how excellent reading instruction informs high-quality writing.

The Dr Suess Foundation's decision earlier this month to cease publishing six books in the collection has been applauded by many but also derided by others, who see this latest move as a society that has become far too politically correct. Education Review spoke to Associate Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Melbourne Larissa McLean Davies about this issues and she is supportive of the change. She also emphasises that racial and hurtful overtones found in many of the books collection has long been of interest to scholars around the world. Two of the key decisions McLean Davies supports is that children's books can affect their "sense of what it means to be in the world", whether that be one of power and privilege, or one of marginalisation and being the 'other'. She also believes the six books identified fall short in promoting "positive ways of understanding diversity". Finally, and most importantly, McLean Davies believes the Dr Seuss furore should encourage teachers, parents and children to to begin discovering the rich literary offerings about Australia, about our multicultural societies and about our own unique experiences.

Education, like many sectors in 2020, was severely disrupted in several states and territories, with lockdowns, border closures and remote learning models all characterising the school year. Now that we're out the other side, Education Review will be talking to a range of education professionals to get a better perspective on this unprecedented experience, including the lessons learnt and how they can be applied in the future. As part of our series ‘2020: Looking back and moving forward in education’, our second guest is former teacher and director of the Australian arm of New Tech Network Australia, Brad Scanlon. The company is a school development organisation operating in both Australia and the US.  In reflecting on the year, Scanlon said that teachers should be really proud about what they achieved, particularly in regards to teacher collaboration and utilising technology to maintain momentum and connection to students. However, while acknowledging that technology was key in getting students successfully through the year, he warned it would only help educators in the future if it were used "as a tool and not a toy", aiding students in collaboration, communication and critical thinking. Moving forward, Scanlon sees much can still be done in helping educators to explicitly teach the Australian Curriculum's general capabilities, as well as moving towards more project-based, student-centred learning approaches with real-life applications.

After being released in China in 2016 and globally the following year, TikTok has quickly become a social media phenomenon. With its ability to create quirky, short-form videos incorporating dancing and comedy, the platform has a devoted audience, particularly young people. But it’s not all good news for TikTok and several countries are taking the company to task on a number of concerns. Today I’m talking to Susan McLean, widely known as the ‘cyber cop’ and founder of Cyber Safety Solutions to learn more about these concerns.  While McLean acknowledges there is lots of fun stuff on the app, it's the refusal to take down inappropriate content and accounts in a more timely way concerns her. "They don't focus on child safety," she summed up.

Education, like many sectors in 2020, was severely disrupted in several states and territories, with lockdowns, border closures and remote learning models all characterising the school year. Now out the other side, Education Review will be talking to a range of education professionals to get a better perspective of this unprecedented experience, including lessons learnt. As part of our series - ‘2020: Looking back and moving forward in education’, our first guest is Adam Voigt. Adam is a highly experienced educator, speaker, author and media commentator, as well as the founder and CEO of Real Schools.

The last time I interviewed Michael Lawrence, the experienced music and English teacher had just published his book Testing 3, 2, 1: What Australian Education Can Learn from Finland, which was well received and questioned many of the practices and beliefs underscoring the Australian education system. In this podcast, Lawrence talks about his collaboration with Tampere University of Applied Sciences in Finland and the planned roll-out of professional development sessions in Australia. Called '21st Century Education Trends: A Finnish Perspective', the sessions will give Australian teachers a taste of how Finland became one of the most successful education systems in the world.

A new study conducted by Oxford University Press surveyed 1000 recent graduates and found that 88 per cent of them believed “soft skills” were necessary to their future career success. Even as these graduates prepare to enter an increasingly automated workforce, a substantial 78 per cent said such “soft skills will give them an advantage” in the workplace. Indeed, upskilling in soft skills in the workplace is predicted to be a new trend, with more than one third (38 per cent) believing that upskilling in this area will be an ongoing practice throughout their professional lives. But what, exactly, are “soft skills”, and have they always been viewed as being critical in the labour market? To discuss the importance of “soft skills” both now and in the future, Education Review spoke to Dr Alexia Maddox of Deakin University, one of the authors of the study. Maddox emphasised that "soft skills" compliment technical skills, and encompass how "we think, communicate, cooperate and collaborate and innovate". Within the domain of innovation are the "soft skills" of complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity - skills the students nominated as being the most important to their careers. Indeed, such is their importance of these skills that Maddox called them "the glue that make our professional lives work”. While the Deakin University lecturer noted that it is within the humanities and social sciences that these skills are traditionally acquired, the important thing is that they are taught to students, regardless of the discipline. In this podcast, Maddox also touches on some ways in which these critical "soft skills" can be taught.

Dr Kate de Bruin, an expert and lecturer in inclusive education at Monash University, recently provided evidence to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with a Disability. Her evidence related to barriers to accessing a safe, quality and inclusive school education and life course impacts for people with a disability. One of the key issues for the Monash lecturer is that educational neglect towards students with a disability is occurring on both systemic and school levels. de Bruin asserts that systemic educational neglect is common in Australia as different jurisdictions have different policies and funding agreements relating to the provision of quality inclusive education. Systemic educational neglect then trickles down to the school level where parents might be told, "we don't have the funding to support your child." School staff may also have a poor understanding of the policies and guidelines - and the National Discrimination Act - that are in place to ensure students with a disability receive the support they need and to which they are entitled. In this podcast de Bruin provides recommendations to address these key barriers. The Monash lecturer also discusses the use of suspensions and other exclusionary measures to discourage "challenging behaviours". According to recent research, de Bruin said the practice "still seems to be widespread" and disproportionally affects equity groups, such as ATSI students, students in out-of-home care, and students with a disability. Talking about such practices, de Bruin states: "We know it's really, really harmful. It puts pressure on families and it absolves the school from issues that are ongoing."

The phenomenon of "fake news" has been around since journalism first began, but the term itself and the power it can now yield has been linked with the ascendency of Donald Trump, threats to democracy and a post-truth world where facts – in some circles at least – don’t seem to matter. But now we have a powerful new tool to combat either misinformation or disinformation – the Debunking Handbook 2020. Penned by Dr Eryn Newman from the Australia National University, as well as 21 other prominent scholars, the handbook aims to “inoculate” citizens, teachers and students against misleading information before it’s encountered. The handbook is informed by both science and psychology, and provides a host of definitions (e.g. disinformation versus misinformation) as well as concise explanations about why "fake news" tends to stick. One of the most common explanations involves familiarity: the more an individual encounters false information, the more inclined they are to believe it. The handbook also contains a step-by-step guide for encountering fake news, which can provide teachers and students with a formulaic way to confidently refute the veracity of a piece of information. Another valuable section focuses on lateral searches for the truth - that is, expanding one's truth-finding exercise from one source to many.

As a country, we might want to think of ourselves as many-degrees removed from the atrocities that occurred during the Frontier Wars, the women who fought for the most basic of human rights ,and members pf the LGTBIQ* group, whose activities and lifestyles still sit uncomfortably with many around the world. But like all Western, liberal nations, however, orthodox ideas, characters and themes become vapid, old and eventually lose their allure. Empires cannot last forever. What readers are then searching for is that kaleidoscope of new worlds, characters and voices that represent them. This was the mission of University of Melbourne academics Alex Bacalja and Lauren Bliss. In terms of diversity, the research pair’s 10-year analysis of text lists from the Senior Victorian English Curriculum leaves a lot to be desired. After analysing 360 texts , the researchers could only find two print-based texts by Indigenous writers – one being Larissa Behrendt’s novel, Home. What about a poetry collection from Ali Cobby Eckermann, a brilliant poet who experiments with a range of form and meter, and has received international acclaim? The research project also shone quite a sad light on digital and audio texts still being treated like encumbrances and "kiddies' games" So, why do these outdated tests from the school cannon still get studied in Senior English in Victoria? For Bacalja, the issues of teacher familiarity and resource availability come into play, but they are peripheral issues if such a movement gained more momentum. Finally, Bacalja explains how conservative voices tend to influence - indeed takeover - the debate, saying "a backlash can be expected when teachers try to introduce new, more challenging texts into the curriculum,” Bacalja concluded.

Before an internal government report recently revealed that the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) was causing significant concern among pre-service teachers and universities, nine focus groups were created to brainstorm concerns about the test and possible changes to how it would be administered in the future, and by whom. Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Education at Southern Cross University David Zyngier was invited to participate in one of these focus groups by a group of education students who had been agitating online for change. However, after the report was released, Zyngier called it "flawed", saying the whole process appeared to have one pre-determined outcome: shifting the LANTITE test so it would be an entry requirement for undergraduate education courses. As an experienced researcher, he also thought the process involved in developing the report lacked rigour. But, according to Zyngier, the report eschewed other important concerns that students and other experts had identified with the test. These included the ongoing role of ACER in delivering and assessing relatively costly tests that provide little, if any, meaningful feedback, as well as the fact that undergraduate education students are being forced to take the test, despite many having no intention of entering the classroom. As he mentions, not all education undergraduates want to become teachers - some wish to become educational psychologists and trainers.

As the end high school approaches for students and high-stakes exams are soon to take place, knowing how to study most effectively could mean the difference between strong and outstanding grades. Luckily, a new book titled Your High Performance Guide to Study and Learning has just been released. Intended for teachers and students, the book is a collaboration between secondary school teacher Scott Francis and Dr Michael Nagel from the University of the Sunshine Coast. The book is heavily informed by the science of learning - that is "learning about how we learn". After becoming fascinated with Nagel's work, Francis approached Nagel (his former lecturer) to co-author a book on study strategies when he realised how the area of neuroscience "could have real practical applications for students in the classroom" in terms of how they approached learning and study. The book comprises 20 key study strategies for success, all prefaced with a foreword by Nagel. Some of the strategies included in the book are goal setting, having the right mindset and practising questions, The importance of sleep is also included, something Francis says "consolidates memories". A huge sports fan, Francis also believes high performance sporting teams are not so different from high performing students. Both require the creation of a high performance environment to thrive and be your best.

After a Dandenong primary school principal recently considered the benefits of keeping preschoolers back for another year, Education Review approached Associate Professor Christine Woodrow to obtain her thoughts on the idea. Woodrow highlighted how essential preschool is in terms of both social learning (learning to take turns, managing conflict, etc) as well as developing a rich idea of literacy and numeracy through rhymes, songs and finger plays. Importantly, however, she also said it was difficult to make broad-sweeping judgments such as 'All preschoolers must repeat their 2020 year." For the early childhood expert, it's more of a case of "Which schools and which students" might need to be held back? For instance, while young children who come from more affluent backgrounds with ready access to books and other cultural capital will probably transition easily, children from more disadvantaged backgrounds may need more consideration and assistance. Woodrow also emphasised that there is a "financial penalty" in making children repeat preschool that is bound to be unpopular in many circles . In terms of assisting disadvantaged students who may have difficulty transitioning from preschool, the early childhood expert recommends rich, play-based and discovery learning, as well as fostering more family engagement with the preschools.

An education expert from the University of Newcastle contends that Australia’s schooling system is largely stuck in the 19th century. Dr Maura Sellars, a former teacher with a wealth of experience, told Education Review that “the whole purpose of education at present is economic, instead of multi-faceted like it has been in the past.” The academic has also noticed that in many schools the “structural organisation” of classrooms at the moment emulates those in the 19th century, promoting a “transmission pedagogy” where the teacher stands at the front of the class and desks are neatly arranged. Teachers are expected to transmit information or knowledge to students, which the students are then expected to recall. Sellars equates this type of learning with the bottom rung of Bloom’s taxonomy of recalling and also says it coincides with pushes for direct instruction or explicit teaching, as others have called it. Sellars also notes that the current school system uses the language of factories in the 19th century, with words like “benchmarking” and “outcomes” used daily. In a nutshell, the University of Newcastle academic asserts schooling has become part of a neo-liberal agenda where “economic rationalism has been applied to education”. Although acknowledging their importance, she views the emphasis on numeracy and literacy in today’s schools as not dissimilar to the narrow focus on reading, writing and arithmetic in the 19th century. Consequently, Sellars believes many of today’s students are missing out on a rich education and are not developing the metacognitive skills to become lifelong learners.

Since COVID-19 entered our lives, the importance of jobs we once might have considered less desirable or important has changed dramatically. As well as our front line retail workers, teachers are experiencing a renaissance in terms of recognition and the importance we attach to the profession. To speak about this shift in the community's mindset, as well as a number of other key issues of the moment, I’m talking to Professor Donna Pendergast. Pendergast is Dean and Head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, and a member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE). The education expert attributes this reappraisal of teachers' status to the fact that "teachers' work became more visible" to parents and the wider community, as well as a recognition of the profession's complexity. She also refers to the excellent job teachers performed and continue to perform as this pandemic continues. As she puts it: "There was this amazing workforce around the nation keeping things happening." On the topic of remote learning, Pendergast asserts that "it can be as good as" classroom learning in an academic sense, but students still need school environments to experience "the hidden curriculum" - skills we learn through interactions and at school such as empathy and social interaction skills. We're not there yet, she argues. Finally, one of the silver linings of this pandemic experience for the academic is that it has reinvigorated an interest in teaching, stating that Griffith University's mid-year intake for education courses "did jump quite significantly".

Have we put too much emphasis on ATAR and attending university? Can the young people of today still expect to reap the rewards for hard work and dedication? And what’s the buzz around micro credentialing and will we be seeing it more in the future? To answer these questions and more, Education Review spoke to Tony McGuire, a veteran of the education and technology industries, and a former primary school teacher with 15 years’ experience. Later in his career he became passionate about technology and remote learning, and recently edtech and training platform D2L appointed him as the head of its Australian and New Zealand business. As McGuire points out, roughly 35 per cent of students will enrol in university without an ATAR. Universities are now offering a multitude of ways to achieve one’s goal, including bridging courses, embedded courses and mature-age entry. On the career front, however, McGuire does hold genuine concerns for the stability of young people, principally brought on by the GIG economy. He also stated that, however much their budgets are suffering, universities must find a way to keep their top pool of talent employed and sharing the ideas of tomorrow. Micro credentialing was another topic addressed in the podcast, which will become increasingly more common and will, as McGuire states, teach those skills that are essential but not necessarily taught and assessed in a formal qualification, such as soft skills and certain dispositions.

The hellish summer bushfires and the current COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a year most of us would rather forget. But one group, in particular, might find 'moving on' slightly more difficult than the rest of the population: students. Not only have the above events and school closures disrupted their lives, they, like many of us, are experiencing bouts of trauma and distress. To understand these issues more and what schools and teachers can do to improve student wellbeing, Campus Review spoke to Professor Helen Cahill from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Cahill and her colleagues recently published a report on the subject, titled 'Natural disasters and pandemic: supporting student and teacher wellbeing after a crisis.' In this podcast, Cahill underscores the centrality of the school in helping students deal with distress and trauma. As she says, “Often for children it’s their school teachers who are the only other significant adults in their lives." Cahill also calls schools "hope machines for the future" and places where students can escape the worries of the world and focus on routine learning to help ground them. The podcast also includes excellent tips for maintaining both student and teacher wellbeing, such as acknowledging good work by students and naming and modelling effective coping practices for students when they feel distressed and overwhelmed. For teachers, Cahill urges them "to take their foot off the pedal" when required in the learning environment, be realistic about what is achievable, and try not to internalise any blame and shame. After all, "teachers are first responders" as Cahilll rightly points out.

2020 has been a challenging and disruptive year for everyone with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but one group that is often thought about is students – particularly those completing Year 12 this year. To explore this issue more, Education Review spoke to Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne. Although he acknowledges that many Year 12s might be suffering socially this year as the final year of schooling is considered “a rite of passage”, Hattie sees many benefits associated with a remote or online model of learning. Firstly, he points out that thousands of students across Australia have studied online successfully for years. Hattie also adds that students learn to “self-regulate and own their learning” while learning remotely. The Visible Learning founder also refers to a recent study that found many Year 12s felt that could learn more efficiently in a remote learning context. Also, in light of many higher and vocational education courses being delivered online, Hattie sees the remote learning experience as “incredible preparation”. On the topics of ATARs and university entry, while Hattie says there is no need to drop ATAR, states and territories may look at other ways of calculating “what goes into it” and this may alleviate some of the anxiety and stress facing students. He also said that ATAR is often not the sole determiner for university entry; indeed, "for the last decade universities have used multiple indicators" to select applicants.

Dr Adam Fraser is a peak performance expert and director of research company E-LAB. Recently Fraser collaborated with Deakin University to explore parents' perceptions of teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has involved remote learning for many schools, especially in the eastern states. In the study of more than 1000 parents of children in NSW primary schools, Fraser and the other researchers were pleasantly surprised that the parents - who came from vastly different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds - were extremely satisfied with how teachers were handling the education of their children during the pandemic. Indeed, the survey revealed that 91 per cent of parents surveyed had a greater respect for their children's teacher, and an almost perfect 99.7 per cent were satisfied with the work of their child's teacher. The survey also revealed some other positive information, including parents realising the difficulty of the profession and getting to know their child's teacher more. However, while the study was remarkably positive in a number of ways, it also revealed the difficulty many teachers had in demarcating their professional and personal lives, and how parents also struggled with high expectations and feelings of guilt.

Dimi Stathopoulos is an occupational and speech therapist who has a lot of experience working with children with Austim Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a host of other learning disabilities and difficulties. The occupational and speech therapist asserts that conditions such as ASD have "become more prevalent in the last 20 years", with only 1 in roughly 10,000 children diagnosed with the condition 20 years ago. Now, that figure is approximately 1 in 100 and is predicted to be as common as 1 in 10 in the future. As conditions such as ASD have become far more common in society, they have also become commonplace within classrooms. While many teachers may have some or a lot of knowledge of such conditions, knowing how to manage them at the coalface can be a daily challenge for both the teacher and the student if no strategies are in place. For a while now Stathopoulos has been using a new technology called My Burrow in her own clinic and recommending it for teachers to use in the classrooms. Essentially "a soft stretchy place" for children to crawl into, My Burrow allows children who are experiencing sensory overload, agitation, anxiety and a fear to calm down and, in Stathopoulos's words, begin to "think clearer" and "disconnect between the brain and the body". Campus Review spoke to Stathopoulos about how the product works and what she and others have observed.

Professor Sandra Milligan from the University of Melbourne and her fellow experts were inspired to write the report 'Future Proofing Students: What they need to know and how educators can assess and credential them' after noticing a disconnect between "what teachers want students to learn and how they are credentialed" or assessed. The authors of the report also found that employers often knew little of what a student could really do based on a report card. Students, too, often complained that some credentials didn't reflect who they really were. Education Review spoke to Milligan about this issue as well as the skills all students will require now and into the future. Depending on the context, these skills are called different things: soft skills, 21st century skills, general capabilities and graduate qualities. They include teamwork and collaboration, communication in a range of forms, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving, to name a few. Milligan refers to them as "learning skills" as they are essential to the learning process. Milligan also discussed the idea of a learner profile, which is allows educators to assess these credentials - or general capabilities in school language - in a more detailed way than a report. She's hoping this new way of assessing credentials gains traction but admits there are big challenges in going forward.

School principals are often characterised by their leadership abilities, educational excellence and ability to meet government requirements through reporting of a whole range of data. But, according to Eduinfluencers founder and managing director Rochelle Borton, adopting many CEO practices and mind frames could improve the performance of principals, school leaders and, ultimately, students. Eduinfluencers aims to equip principals and other school leaders with skills for the 21st century education sector. Borton firmly believes there are several CEO practices that improve student outcomes and overall school culture. “Principals and school leaders need to think like CEOs and be taught skills in HR, leadership, school planning, business strategy as it is a massive opportunity save money and become more efficient,” Borton says. During her podcast with Campus Review, Borton said the main aspect of principals thinking more like CEOs is building their capacity to have a clear vision, almost a “mandate” and build their leadership teams. She says they should “know their teams intimately, including their strengths, behaviour types and histories. In addition to building better teams, Borton encourages “robust conflict” between team leaders, as long as it’s performed in a respectful and constructive way, as well as frank and fearless assessment of leaders' strengths and weaknesses. Finally, principals have traditionally been expected to know everything that’s happening around their school and be involved in many tasks. Borton discourages this, using a pithy quote to sum up a more CEO-like approach to being a principal: “If everything is important, than nothing is.”

Dr Danielle Einstein is a Sydney-based clinical psychologist who has her own practice where she works with students of various ages. Since 2013, she has also been heavily involved in many schools' wellbeing programs. Year 12 has been a difficult and disrupted year in 2020, but Einstein believes students "need to develop skills in being able to pivot and readjust their goals". The psychologist also talks a lot about "uncertainty bombs" that need to be defused before they turn into more serious conditions. Einstein also believes young people need to learn about the healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with anxiety, and not to lean on friends for serious issues. While a lot of funding and work has gone into school-based wellbeing programs over the years, Einstein thinks they've forgotten one crucial element: how to manage our worries, which she argues is critical. Einstein has developed a downloadable COVID-19 Chilled and Considerate Bootcamp course available for parents, teachers and councillors to teach in school and at home. As Einstein puts it, "the program takes them through a step-by-step guide on strategies and tools in managing uncertainty, anxiety and worry in these COVID-19 times".

Professor Philip Riley, from Deakin University's School of Education, on principal stress and burnout and COVID-19.

Submissions will close next month into the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation independent inquiry into the value of teachers’ work. The inquiry will be chaired by former WA premier and Professor Emeritus Dr Geoff Gallup as well as respected industrial relations expert Dr Tricia Kavanagh and Patrick Lee, the former head of the NSW Institute of Teachers. NSWTF president Angelo Gavrielatos commented: “It’s been more than 15 years since the last investigation into the nature and value of teachers’ work." Angelo Gavrielatos spoke to Education Review about why the independent inquiry was called and why it’s needed. Firstly, the NSWTF president said a review had taken 15 years to take place because the "government had changed the laws". He also added that an "industrial relations system exists that is quite simply contemptuous of teachers". Gavrielatos also emphasised the seismic changes that education has gone through every five to six years in terms of curriculum, technology and pedagogy. This, of course, places a lot of pressure on teachers too, particularly when it is overlaid with ACARA's national curriculum requirements. While the recommendations of the independent inquiry will not be binding on the government, the NSWTF president hopes the government will listen carefully to the views of a range of community members.

They are the leaders of the school - the individuals who are ultimately responsible for the wellbeing of everyone in their school communities. And while the majority of school principals are highly satisfied with their jobs, Professor Phil Riley's most recent Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey highlights that they're are increasingly suffering from a range of serious health problems related to the stress of their jobs, including burnout, sleep and anxiety disorders. This has only gotten worse for many principals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Education Review spoke to Associate Professor Richard Niesche from the UNSW about the stress and frustrations many school principals are experiencing right now, From struggling to obtain hygiene essentials like soap in a timely manner to the mixed messaging of governments, from being concerned about their staff's wellbeing to the added administrative responsibilities they must now undertake. It's not an easy time to be a school principal, especially in underequipped, disadvantaged schools. For Niesche, an expert in school leadership, the current pandemic exposes not only fault lines in the current school funding and equity model, but school principals' tendencies to excel at looking after everyone else's wellbeing but neglecting their own.

Michael Lawrence is a Victorian teacher and author of the forthcoming book - TESTING 3,2,1: What Australian Education Can Learn From Finland: A Teacher’s Perspective by Michael Lawrence. Now that he's teaching almost entirely online, Lawrence argues that old disciplinarian models of behaviour management are untenable, and, more than ever, students will need a meaningful purpose to engage in learning other than simply receiving an impressive grade or fulfilling subject requirements. In this insightful interview with Education Review, he also points out the vagaries of technology and internet speeds, as well as how some learners will thrive in the digital realm while others will fall by the wayside. It's not all negative though - indeed, far from it. Lawrence believes COVID-19-induced remote learning could make both Australian students and teachers more adaptable learners and less beholden to rigid assessment rubrics and standardised tests and re-imagine the purpose of learning.

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Dr Poulomee Datta is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University's School of Education, with a special interest in direct/explicit instruction and education access for students of all ability levels. Campus Review reached out to Datta to discover what she thought about the latest parliamentary inquiry into the state of NSW education, which was chaired by Mark Latham. As she mentions in the podcast, Datta believes NSW's performance in tests such as PISA and NAPLAN are rightly concerning and solutions must be canvassed to at least slow down or reverse the decline. Based on a strong corpus of research evidence, Datta also supports the mandatory adoption of direct/explicit instruction in NSW schools, although cautions that some activities may require a different pedagogical approach. The Macquarie University academic also believes a school inspector should be able to enter classroom without notice, provided their "temperament" is right and they are offering "constructive feedback". She also believes the school inspector strategy should be more varied, with the opportunity to give schools one day's notice, and so on.

In August last year the NSW government developed LifeLauncher, an online tool to help both students who know what they want to do and those who haven't yet made up their mind. The tool quickly ascertains which type of student a person is and asks a series of questions to connect them to courses and careers. For the unsure, it asks questions to elicit their strengths and build a stronger understanding of what they might be able to do in the future. Education Review spoke to mother of twins Lesley Stewart about the how helpful the platform has been as her children move into the post-school years.

The education landscape in Australia is constantly shifting and this year was no different. NAPLAN went online, mobile phones were banned in all public Victorian schools and the way in which teachers assess and report on student achievement was under the microscope. But the perennial issues remained and were reported on frequently. Why are our students' scores slipping internationally? What is the best way to teach reading? And are our teachers teaching the 'right' things for the jobs of the future? These stories and more are covered in our year in review. I'm Wade Zaglas, the education editor for Education Review, and I look forward to bringing you more stories that matter to you next year.

After a long career in the public service and and working as a education consultant, Fleur built the data analytics platform PeopleBench to help principals, in particular, "build an organisational strategy that could set the direction for a school for the next years. As Flue pointed out, an organisational strategy is vastly different from the usual teaching cycles and decision-making that is short-sighted and doesn't articulate the values underpinning a school's ethos and ambitions. Data analytics systems helps principals make purposeful, informed decisions about where their school stands compared to similar and dissimilar schools and can inform national debate surrounding national trends. Fleur states that principals are expected to be "experts in everything these days", but often they lack the training in organisational strategy and using analytics to inform sound decision-making. While many principals rely on their "lived experience" and support from HR to run a school, additional coaching and evidence-based data will be needed in the future, Fleur says, to lift school workforce achievement.

Dr Majeda Awawdeh is a former high school teacher who exited the education sector "after 15 years of frustration". In this podcast, she talks about some of the causes of Australian students' slide in maths across the years and considers addressing the problem as national priority. The academic, founder of Global Education Company and textbook writer, identified some key areas Australia must focus on if it is to improve its maths results. These include increasing the ATAR entry score for teaching, having adequately trained and well-remunerated teachers who are experts in their subject/s, and using quality resources such as textbooks to guide learning and avoid a "scattergun" teaching approach, which leaves students confused,

Hello, I’m Wade Zaglas, education editor at Education Review. This week was all about Australia’s underwhelming 2018 PISA results, so thought it would be best to produce a Response from the Sector, a five - to 10-minute run down of what Australia’s educations experts (not the media or the politicians) think about the results. Dr Steven Lewis, a research fellow from Deakin University, said "We should remember that these numbers often indicate an equity problem.” "While Australian students’ performance remain above the OECD average in reading and science, the fact that we are now equal to it in mathematics should be cause for concern, and there has been a steady decline across all domains since testing began in 2000." The failure to address the needs of Indigenous Australian students was also brought up in academic discussions, with some arguing the Closing the Gap initiative has done little to address education disadvantage. A more controversial view was esposed by Asssocuiate Profesor Jihyun Lee from the UNSW. "The PISA 2018 report shows that Australia will need to seriously address the issue of classroom discipline," said Lee. "Simply put, if students don’t listen to what the teacher says, if there is noise and disorder in a learning space, and if a teacher has to wait for a long time for students to quiet down, how can we expect students to learn effectively in school?" "Australia ranked 70th out of all 77 PISA 2018 participant countries/economies on this classroom disciplinary dimension. Forty-three percent of Australian students reported that there is noise and disorder in their language-of-instruction lessons in every or most lessons, which is the 5th highest percentage among all countries/economies."

A recent Indeed report concluded that searches for teaching jobs declined in 2019, with some states recording sharp drops. This follows an article in The Conversation last year lamenting the drop in first-preference applications in teaching, as well as a host of anecdotal accounts. But is interest in teaching declining or is this just a lot of media hype? Education Review spoke to Associate Professor Joanna Barbousas, Acting Head of School of Education at La Trobe University. Barbousas believes the decline is indeed real and can be attributed to many factors, including the changing requirements in becoming a teacher and negative reportage that is becoming more frequent.

Feelings. It's probably not a word that many of us would associate with mathematics. But according to Dr Carol Aldous from Flinders University, feelings and intuition play a critical role in solving novel maths problems - problems that require students to tap into the subconscious or "fringe conscious" parts of their brain. Aldous came to the conclusion after observing 405 students solving novel maths problems at the Australian Mathematics Challenge and has recently published a book on the topic, entitled 'Unlocking Creativity in Solving Novel Mathematics Problems: Cognitive and non-cognitive perspectives and approaches'. Aldous spoke to Education Review about her research and what she witnessed at the Australian Mathematics Challenge in the way students used phrases like "I feel" when solving truly novel maths problems.

Linguist, writing aficionado, consultant and founder of Lifelong Literacy Lyn Stone will be explaining – through her trademark eloquent language - just how difficult writing is, and the number of things teachers can do to improve their students’ writing, which has been consistently worse than reading in this country for some time. Her piece is entitled The Pen is mightier than the sword. I urge all teachers, particularly kindy, preschool and primary teachers to listen to the messages in this piece. In it she discusses the Simple View of Writing (SVW), which covers everything from pen control; spelling, punctuation and sentence constructions; and vocabulary and ideation. Stone is so passionate about this as these skills must be taught early in schools by well-trained teachers, with automatic the end goal. Her fear is that, once all training has been exhausted, the "ship has sailed" as far as students' writing achievement, contributing to lifelong disadvantage. . She also tackles issue with the a well ingrained idea that spelling is based on some opaque and archaic system, which doesn't follow any predictable rules. Stone brings writing back to the micro level, urging her students to "give her a few effective sentences" rather than a full page of incoherent, clumsy text, which is often asked of primary school students.

Hello, Education editor Wade Zaglas here focussing on the top story of the week. One story that struck me as particularly impressive was Australia being ranked fifth in the number of Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs) in the sciences and social sciences fields according to analytics company The Web of Science Group. Indeed, one of the most notable finding was that Australia had tripled its number HCRs in six years: there were only 80 Australian HCRs named in 2014, compared with 217 in in 2019. While Australia has been actively recruiting HCRs from overseas since 2014, there has also been a steep increase in the number of homegrown HRCs. Our population is modest (24,6 million), but that is not holding us bavck from being at the cutting-edge of research.

Last week's damning revelations about the treatment of some students with a disability in Australia involved tales of seclusion, segregation and even abuse. While the disability royal commission centered on a few horrific stories only, there are doubtless many more examples of such treatment occurring across the country every day. Campus Review spoke to Andrew, which is not his real name, about his son's experience of primary school. Although being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and having some behavioural issues, Andrew's son is a bright, loving child who is now thriving at high school. However, Andrew's son's primary school years were a awful experience, reminiscent of some of the experiences heard at the royal commission. Andrew says his son was effectively babysat most of the time, denied access to the curriculum, and generally treated as burden to the school. More disturbingly, he was set upon by an older group of students, leaving him with black eyes, an incident the school failed to investigate or do anything about. Suspensions were also frequent as was being left in a room with an iPad for entertainment, Andrew's son's experience, like others in similar situations, took a heavy toll on the family.

As parents and guardians, we place a lot of trust I teachers. Not only do we need to trust them for more pragmatic reasons like needing to return to work, but the idea of socialising a child hinges on the trust that a teacher – and by extension school leadership – can provide. As you can imagine, these issues of trust are compounded when you have a child with a disability, no matter how mild or serious it may be. This week the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability kicked off in Townsville, with a four- day hearing devoted to the educational experiences of children with a disability in Australia. In must be said from the outset, that well-trained, well-suited and supported mainstream teachers are doing incredible jobs in some parts of the country. Three north Queensland schools, in particular, have introduced policies of full educational inclusion, adjusting curriculum requirements and making students feel valued and welcome. However, as testimony after testimony made clear, one instance of violence, abuse and segregation of a child with disabilities is one too many. Listen to the podcast to hear how the sector needs to change.

Having been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, Samwise Holmes's high school years were characterised by relentless bullying, feeling isolated constantly and even having his head flushed down a toilet. But being subjected to such extensive and cruel bullying didn't defeat him. With the help of his partner Cynthia Guthrie, who was regularly bullied at school and experienced severe anxiety and depression, Samwise or Sam as he likes to be called has established a program to tackle the issue of bullying in an active and engaging way. Called Backflips Against Bullying, the program uses acrobatics and parkour (a sport involving obstacles, commando rolls and efficient ways to get from A to B) to engage K-12 students before getting them to understand the issue of bullying on a deeper level. The program has been successful, being performed in 150 schools in NSW already and there are plans afoot for national expansion. The Backflips Against Bullying programming supports the the anti-bullying curriculum developed by the NSW Department of Education and is supported by psychological experts in the field. Show one is devoted to schoolyard bullying, while show two addressees bullying in the cyber sphere. Sam spoke to Education Review about the program and its importance in supporting schools tackling bullying.

Professor Pamela Snow is is the Head of the La Trobe Rural Health School and will soon become the Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the School of Education at La Trobe. In this podcast, Snow talks about how blended reading approaches, which are a mixture of whole language and phonics approach to reading, have become popular in many classrooms, yet they risk not providing vulnerable students with the foundation skills necessary to move on to more complex texts.. The world-renowned reading expert also addresses the so-called Reading Wars, saying Whole Language approaches make sense to many teachers because reading is essentially about meaning-making. However, she also cautions that explicit phonics, vocabulary and comprehension instruction need to occur before such meaning-making can be realised by the student. While she agrees that some knowledge of reading instruction is helpful for secondary teachers, the aim should be that "95 per cent" of students have basic reading skills by the time they leave primary school. She also details some troubling links between reading instruction and anxiety and depression, as well as chronic disengagement and encounters with the juvenile detention system. Listen to the full podcast for more of Snow's observations and findings.

This week the NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell announced she wanted “an overhaul” of ATAR. Her decision was based on research showing the population has lost faith in it and it was causing students too much stress. AS 61,000 NSW students begin their HSC examinations, Mitchell said the way the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank is calculated should be discussed, as well as extra issues related to the test. The NSW Teachers Federation, however, disagrees with the idea of an overhaul, arguing “meddling” with it could advantage wealthy students and compromise the Higher School Certificate, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Although the “tool” for university entry has been in use for decades, educators and other stakeholders argue that it encourages students to select subjects that will lift their rank, rather than ones they are talented at or find interesting. Secretary of the NSW Department of Education Mark Scott has been a critic of ATAR, calling it a “strait jacket around our kids”. Listen to the podcast for more information, including the Gonki Institute of Education's findings and how universities are currently treating the ATAR.

Dr Susan Long has taught in various roles, states and even countries since the 1980s. Her PhD focused on maths and science education and she is passionate about inspiring people who don’t necessarily aspire to become leaders in schools to do so. Currently she is head of innovation at a Catholic all-girls school in east Melbourne. In this podcast, Long emphasises wellbeing as the biggest challenge facing Australian schools, with many students suffering from mental illness and trauma, some of which is intergenerational. In regards to international tests such as PISA, Long recommends not getting too caught up in league tables and instead focusing on the information that can be gleaned from the tests. After all, in her words: "It's one test that students take when they're 15." She does mention, however, that there may be some lessons to be learnt from high-performing states such as the ACT, which she contends score around the top 10 per cent in such tests in the world. Long also presents evidence that the five-year burnout phenomenon has been around since the 1980s, and the real shame in her view is losing highly competent and experienced older teachers who have either had enough or been overlooked for positions as they aren't great at "self-promotion". Finally, she believes more needs to be done to see whether we are "stretching" our top students. Listen to the podcast for the full interview.

A major story that emerged today appeared in The Age and is related to an earlier story we wrote on a maths teacher shortage in Australia. According to the article, far too many secondary school teachers who are unqualified to teach math, particularly in the senior years, are being forced to so. This trend has been witnessed by The Academy of Technology and Engineering, with the think tank warning that unqualified maths teachers are causing fewer VCE students to select maths in the senior years. Fewer than 10 per cent of VCE students took advanced maths in 2017, a 20-year low. Nationwide, the outlook isn’t much better – in 2017 there were only 9.4 per cent of Australian students enrolled in higher mathematics in Year 12 , the lowest recorded level in 20 years. Although recent data placed Australia above the OECD average in terms of mathematics, it was identified as one of 10 countries that experienced a steep decline in mathematical literacy between 2012 and 2015. Listen to the podcast for the full report.

Karen McDaid is an experienced Mathematics teacher and is now the Head of Department for Mathematics at Cluey Learning, an online tutoring service that provides personalised education in Mathematics, Chemistry, English and NAPLAN. In this podcast she provides teachers with some useful tips to share with their students when preparing for Year 11 and Year 12 exams. From compiling topic learning logs to handwriting formula sheets to better engage students' cognitive processing, Karen shares what works when preparing for high-stakes Mathematics tests.

A new report is proposing a rethink on how educators approach senior schooling and tertiary education, and calls ­for the ATAR to be supplemented with a more comprehensive “learning profile”. The Australian Learning Lecture (ALL) position paper, titled Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change, is the culmination of more than a year’s work, with the input of several working groups, and a comprehensive mix of leading academics and education experts. In this podcast, ALL's founder, Ellen Koshland, talks about the key ideas behind the report and argues that out current system of 'single score' assessment is not fit for purpose and tells very little about a young person's talents, interests and potential.

With HSC exams just around the corner and university exams not too far away, helpful tips could mean the difference between flunking and succeeding. But as Geoff Kinkade from Studiosity's Academic Advisory Board tells Education Review, the broader picture of life needs to be kept in perspective. This podcast offers top tips and sage advice.

Commencing at the Domain in Sydney’s CBD, the school-day Climate Strike 4 Action protest attracted an estimated 80,000, while Melbourne drew an even larger crowd of 100,000. Indeed, protesters from over 100 cities and towns across Australia took part in similar strikes and. globally, it is estimated that millions marched in the name of climate change, Australian political leaders continued to downplay the issue and commentators with more conservative opinions of climate change have dismissed the global strikes as promoting "hysteria", with some journalists even calling 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg 'mentally ill" after her emotional and accusatory speech at the UN on climate action.

Lectures are quickly becoming dead. Well, that's the view of Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University Professor Marcia Devlin. Listen to the podcast for Devlin's key observations on traditional lecturers as well as how learning is changing at the university through the "VU Way".

At last week's COAG meeting, Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan called on all states and territories to follow Victoria's lead and ban mobiles phones during school hours. However, many experts and parents disagree with a blanket ban, with many believing an outright ban denies learning opportunities and discourages self-regulation.