What should Australian schools and teachers focus on in order to improve students’ general understanding of mathematics and science? In her final Teacher column of the year, Dr Sue Thomson explores newly released TIMSS 2019 data to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of Australian students at the national level.

We’re at the end of another year and what a year it’s been for everyone. We’ve spoken to some amazing educators and experts during 2020, so in this special episode, the Teacher team are looking back at some of our personal podcast highlights.

Andreas Schleicher – Director for Education and Skills at the OECD and long-time Teacher columnist – joins us from Paris for this episode to give his take on all things 2020, talk about the longer term impacts of the school shutdowns and share how different education systems have responded to the pandemic restrictions.

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) measures how well Year 4 and Year 8 students from around the world are performing in science and mathematics. In this infographic we look at Australian student achievement over time.

The annual Global Teacher Prize has been awarded for 2020. Ranjitsinh Disale, a primary school teacher in India who has transformed education for girls in his community, has been named winner of the US $1 million award. Here, we look at how he’s improving learning at his school.

Australian students have performed significantly better in the latest cycle of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in Year 8 mathematics and Year 4 and Year 8 science – but not in Year 4 mathematics – than they did in 2015. Here, we take a closer look at the results.

One-to-one and small-group tutoring have emerged as a catch-up strategy for schools to address student learning gaps as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with government funded programs announced here in Australia and overseas. Dr Pauline Ho and Dr Tanya Vaughan look at the evidence and give five key takeaways for school leaders and teachers.

In today’s article, we speak to Dr Clare Collins, a Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Director of Research in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Newcastle. We discuss the relationship between food and mental health, and she outlines some key things you could incorporate into your diet to help with the fuelling and functioning of your brain.

In today’s piece, Kylie Kickbusch, a Sports Program Leader at Chanel College in Gladstone, Queensland, talks about how cooking helps her to relieve stress and shares a recipe that she uses in her food technology classes.

In this monthly series, we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online catalogues. This month’s theme is science education.