Large scale research into school break times suggests relatively simple changes to daily routines could drastically reduce teachers’ exposure to UV radiation and risk of skin cancer. Ben Dexter tells Teacher more about the findings.

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.

Explicit teaching of vocabulary helps students develop their speaking and listening skills, writing and reading comprehension. Oxford University Press has analysed the word choice and grammar use of students in 2020. Here, we take a look at their findings.

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.

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.

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 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.

Researchers at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales have been working with teachers and school leaders around Australia to better understand what motivates them to be involved in school-university partnerships. Here they share some of their study findings.