In this episode of The Research Files, we’re focusing on The Smith Family’s Pathways, Engagement and Transition Study. We’ll be unpacking some of the early findings and student feedback on how teachers and careers advisers can best support them in making informed decisions about possible jobs and pathways, connecting with employers, and applying for further study or training.

Continuing teaching and learning from home throughout the pandemic has increased the reliance on digital technology. This has extended to completing professional learning online. Here, we share the results of a recent rapid review which identified 5 principles for effective online professional learning.

Music education has a range of benefits, not only for students’ music learning, but for improving their capacity as a learner more broadly. In this article, we outline 5 further readings which explore Music education – from funding to frameworks, the benefits for teachers and students, and how the pandemic has affected Music education over the past 3 years.

The latest instalment of Teacher’s bookshelf features Empowering Teachers and Democratising Schooling, Perspectives from Australia – edited by Keith Heggart and Steven Kolber. This exclusive extract, written by Stephanie Salazar, looks at the New Teacher Tribe network she developed and shares some key principles for starting one at your own school.

‘PD needs to be well-designed, selected, and implemented so that the investment is used well.’ In our latest reader submission, Hannah Matthews and Susannah Schoeffel from Evidence for Learning share the mechanisms of professional development, and how schools can consider the overall quality of PD programs for their school setting.

Lots of researchers have been capturing the impact of the pandemic in relation to school education and, as these studies come to fruition, we’re starting to gain new insights about what happened and the lessons we can learn for the future. One new study is from the perspective of Australian teachers.

We know that, overall, female participation in STEM is lower than that of males, and that schools can play an important part in encouraging girls to pursue education and careers in this area. In this podcast, we’re joined by Jessica Huynh, Managing Director of Go Girl, Go for IT, a free one-day technology conference for girls, and teachers from a school that participated this year.

Quality improvement in early childhood education and care (ECEC) starts with robust data collection. But how data is analysed and utilised in education is crucial to achieving meaningful improvement through evidence-based practice. In this article, we outline 5 further readings which explore data and improvement in Australian ECEC settings, and offer strategies for effective and informed teaching.

Since 2014, ACER’s STEM Video Game Challenge has invited students to design and build their own video game. In this article, we share the winning games of the 2022 challenge, and former challenge winners share the impact their experience has had on their post-school journey.

In their final video in a 3-part series for Teacher, Teacher Librarian Mali Jorm shares the details of the third area in a targeted program, The Three Spheres of Library Skills, which scaffolds students to achieve success in 3 core areas of library skills: Readers, Researchers, and Thinkers.