Specialists

‘As the world faced a global pandemic, the spotlight shone on our wonderful Auslan interpreters in the media, and more and more schools began to show interest in including Auslan in their curriculum.’ In today’s reader submission, Auslan educator Kerrie Taylor shares how schools can bring Auslan into the classroom in a way that embraces the richness of the language, and respects and honours the Deaf community.

At Warrigal Road State School in Brisbane, the focus on inquiry learning in Science was an identified area of improvement. Lead Science teacher Brett Crawford explains what Science education was like before he began mentoring teachers, and shares details of a couple of his budget-friendly experiments.

At Brimsdown Primary School in the UK, British Sign Language is taught to all children from Nursery to Year 6. In today’s article, Headteacher Dani Lang and Deaf Instructor Tina Kemp share how these lessons improve the lives of all students, not just those who are hearing impaired.

When Greg Ashman took on a job at Ballarat Clarendon College, he was immediately impressed by the school’s focus on research. This inspired to him to pursue a PhD in instructional design and led him to his current role as Head of Research at the school. In today’s Q&A, we find out more about the role.

Can computers think? What is intelligence? Can we build a robot that learns from its past experiences? These are some of the tricky questions Year 6 students have tackled as they explore the role of robots and machine technology in society while learning to code.

Following the release of its Teaching Sport to Children discussion paper, the Australian Sports Commission wants to hear from teachers about a range of issues, including professional development needs, and building links with parents and volunteers.

Three Deakin University academics ­– Dr Linda Hobbs, Associate Professor Coral Campbell and Associate Professor Colleen Vale – recently visited ACER to share their research on out-of-field teaching. In today’s School Improvement podcast, we share some highlights from their presentation.

A new ACER report looks at the extent to which secondary school teachers in Australia are teaching subjects they haven't specialised in during their studies. It includes data on the proportion of Years 7-10 teachers teaching out-of-field in 20 subject areas.

Just over one-quarter of Year 7-10 teachers in Australian schools are teaching out of field, with those at the start of their careers more likely to be teaching a subject they haven’t specialised in.

Coding is a hot topic in education. But, as one UK teacher explains, it's not all about sitting in front of a computer.