This year there are two Australian educators in the Top 50 shortlist for the US $1 million Global Teacher Prize. In today’s article we catch up with one of the finalists, Rooty Hill High School teacher Yasodai Selvakumaran.

Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast have been working with staff at a Queensland high school to ensure student voice is an integral part in the development of student leadership programs.

Once a fortnight the Teacher team ventures down to Room 3 – the basement archives at the Australian Council for Educational Research – to bring you education quotes from some of our favourite historical titles.

According to Dr Jeff Thomas in today’s podcast, the beginning of the school year is an amazing opportunity to build relationships with students and to establish explicit expectations around student behaviour. But he says, it’s important to plan for positive behaviour.

In today’s reader submission, teacher educators Dr Dawn Castagno-Dysart and Dr Bryan Matera consider the importance of learner persistence and the role of both teacher and student in the ‘productive struggle’.

Dr Brendon Hyndman from Charles Sturt University shares his latest research into how mobile school playground facilities can enhance students' creativity by increasing the number of play options and variables available during outdoor learning.

In the third article in a series related to ACER’s Communication Student Learning Progress project, Dr Hilary Hollingsworth and Jonathan Heard highlight some of the observations that they’ve made in their early analysis of teacher comments on school reports.

Dr Lyn Sharratt explores three practical learning, teaching and leading approaches – writing to improve critical literacy skills, bump-it-up walls, and collaborative assessment of student work – that each support teachers’ focus on creating critically literate graduates.

To increase the leadership capacity of principals in South Africa, Dr Louise van Rhyn founded a program named Partners for Possibility, which pairs business leaders with principals for a 12-month structured leadership development program.

The importance of early childhood learning as a foundational building block to lifelong learning is well recognised. This is the first article of two that will explore the place of the Arts in early learning in Australia.