Evidence-based practice

Helping students to retain information is a fundamental challenge in education. Staff at Coolum State High School have partnered with researchers to investigate one promising technique for improving retention: Retrieval Practice.

After a pandemic pause in 2020, the ACER Research Conference is back. In today’s Q&A, conference organiser and ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Claire Scoular tells us more about this year’s theme, and the focus on providing practical solutions for attendees.

The process of comparative judgement for schools in the first ever Australian project resulted in student data that provided a writing age and an assigned NAPLAN band. The question for the Year 3/4 Team at Templestowe Heights Primary School was what to do with the information.

For many schools, the shift to remote learning during the pandemic has led to new conversations about the possibilities of Blended Learning as a more integral aspect of regular learning and teaching programs. Today’s article looks at how a research-practice partnership is supporting four schools in Queensland to investigate this further.

Staff at St Rita’s College in Brisbane have worked with researchers to implement an academic reading skills intervention for Year 7s. The ‘Lost in Transition’ project merges evidence from the literature with research in the context of the school to meet student needs.

What is evidence-based practice? And, how do schools determine which programs and methods have solid foundations in research? These questions have been explored in several articles and podcasts on Teacher this month. Throughout this Teacher Staffroom episode, we’ll be exploring some of the key messages to come from these pieces.

Translating academic research into classroom practice is traditionally a one-way relationship – from research to practice. University of Queensland colleagues Stephanie MacMahon, Jack Leggett and Annemaree Carroll share details of a collaboration with educators making it a two-way process of engagement.

The term ‘evidence-based practice’ is widely used in education. Schools are continually presented with strategies, programs and approaches that claim to be ‘research-based’ or ‘evidence-based’. But what is evidence-based practice? And, how do schools determine which of these programs and methods have solid foundations in research?

‘Grades do not assist parents to see and monitor their children’s growth in an area of learning across the years of school.’ In his new Teacher column, Professor Geoff Masters AO explores why there is such a mismatch between parents’ beliefs in their child’s learning, and how ready the child is for the year’s curriculum.

How are teachers and school leaders accessing and using research and evidence? What challenges do they face when doing so? And, what enables quality use of research and evidence? Members of the research team for the Monash Q Project join us in today’s episode to explore these questions.