Evidence-based practice

In the latest Teacher reader survey, you let us know you’d like more content on the topic of curriculum implementation. At the ACER Research Conference 2025, poster presenter Dr Liana Luyt showcased her research into effective incorporation of the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. Here, she shares the details and an implementation guideline resource for school leaders. 

‘Students are uniquely placed to bring to conversations something which only they can, their lived experience of what it means to be a learner in their school.’ In today’s article, John Cleary asks if ‘student voice’ is enough, and discusses how educators can instead partner with students to ensure their voices (and views) are heard and acted upon.

New research published in the Australian Journal for Education examines the coping strategies teachers use to deal with stress and trauma. The study explores how this can impact a teacher’s ‘compassion satisfaction’, where they experience pleasure and fulfilment from helping others, or ‘compassion fatigue’.

In his first Teacher column Professor Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of the South Australian Department for Education, discusses a worrying trend in education and PISA 2022 evidence that ‘our greatest strength in education is the professional judgement of our teachers’.

In today’s School Improvement podcast, Professor John Munro explores leadership for the provision of gifted education. Drawing on themes from his book published by ACER Press, Leading Improvement for Gifted and Talented Students, Munro discusses what it takes to develop a vision, putting together an action plan, upskilling teachers and collaborating with the wider community. 

In this episode of The Research Files, Dr Claire Scoular joins us to unpack 2 new freely available frameworks that have been published as part of the essential skills suite – Communication and Self-regulation – and shares how they support classroom educators to develop these skills in the classroom. 

What are the essential skills we need for learning and life, and how can teachers help students to develop them? The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has been working with more than 30 countries to identify 5 essential skills and design a suite of free educator resources. Dr Claire Scoular shares more details in this expert Q&A.

‘Educational provision includes what students learn … how they will be taught … and the culture in which they will be taught ... Gifted students benefit from the opportunity to interact with differentiated versions of each of these.’ Professor John Munro explains 3 areas of differentiation, and shares examples of what this could look like in the classroom.

‘What we've done is aimed to answer the questions about how to enact global citizenship and what does it look like when you do it well?’ In this episode of our Global Education podcast, Dominique Russell is joined by ACER Senior Research Fellow, Rachel Parker, to unpack the new Global Education Monitoring Toolkit. 

Over the last 5 years, staff at St Mary’s School in Geelong, Victoria, have had a focus on lifting student outcomes through evidence-based instruction. What started with Foundation phonics has now spread across the curriculum and year levels.