At Teacher magazine, we love to share innovative and research-based classroom activities from educators across Australia and the world. In today’s podcast, we take take you through some of the engaging learning activities educators have been using during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students can play an important part in co-decision making within a school that can impact not only their learning, but that of other learners also. In the Northern Territory, students have been leading change projects in their schools for the past four years.

In today’s article, Kate Hill – an Australian teacher from Melbourne who is currently teaching Year 7 and 8 English at Braeburn School in Nairobi, Kenya – gives an international perspective on learning during the pandemic.

As educators in Australia return to face-to-face teaching, and schools around the world grapple with new ways of working to provide continuing support to students during the pandemic restrictions, readers have been getting in touch to share what’s been happening in their own context.

Dr Sue Thomson explores how the COVID-19 crisis has propelled schools to an online learning environment, and draws on data from the OECD’s 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) to shed light on students’, teachers’ and schools’ preparedness for the ‘new normal’.

In her first article for Teacher magazine, Julia Gillard outlines the priorities of the new Education Cannot Wait campaign and calls on Australian educators to lend their expertise to the cause.

One of the biggest challenges we face in improving quality and equity in our schools is to better address the learning needs of the many children who, on entry to school, are at risk of being locked into trajectories of long-term low achievement, writes Professor Geoff Masters AO.

Real reform and significant progress in improving the quality and equity of Australian schooling depend on tackling our deepest and most stubborn educational challenges, writes Professor Geoff Masters AO.

By the turn of the century, the observation had been made in many countries that substantial increases in expenditure on schools had failed to deliver measurable improvements in student performance. But just how effective are incentives as an improvement strategy?

A willingness to acknowledge and learn from failure is essential for all progress, writes Professor Geoff Masters AO.