It’s no surprise that a teacher’s self-efficacy has a huge impact on their classroom teaching. But what aspects of work as a beginner teacher has an influence on how perceived self-efficacy develops? A research report has looked into this and we discuss the findings in this podcast episode.

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.

In Strong Foundations: Evidence informing practice in early childhood education and care, Associate Professor Anna Kilderry and Honorary Professor Bridie Raban lead a team of 34 contributors, sharing knowledge and insights from research and links to everyday practice. This exclusive extract for Teacher readers discusses the ‘Principles of quality assessment’.

You and your students may have access to lots of technology in your classroom, but are you making the most of it? The Digital Pedagogies Lighthouse Project at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School has seen staff make the shift from using tech tools for productivity and presentations to embedding them in authentic mathematics learning.

At Tulliallan Primary School in Melbourne, teachers and students have been working with local Indigenous groups to create an immersive Acknowledgement of Country. STEM teacher Nick Pattison shares the story from different perspectives.

‘While this crisis has exposed the many inadequacies and inequities in our education systems, this moment also holds the possibility that we won’t return to the status quo when things return to “normal”,’ Andreas Schleicher writes in his latest Teacher column.

To assess student access to remote learning during school closures due to COVID-19, UNICEF collected data about broadcast (television and radio) and digital (internet-based) instruction policies from more than 100 ministries of education around the world. Today’s infographic shares some of the findings.

In this episode of our Teaching Methods series we talk to Maura Manning, Director of Learning at the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, about the blended learning model at School of Now – what it means for teachers and teaching, the focus on equity of access, and how students are supported in their learning.

‘Evidence shows that both young people and adults need to have both sets of skills and knowledge – numeracy and mathematics are different, but mutually beneficial and critical. Hence the critical need to connect the two, and not ignore either.’

‘While it will take us some time before we understand the full effect of temporary school closures on student learning long term, we’ve (in the meantime) learnt some important things to inform our teaching practices going forward.’