Evidence-based practice

Students in Australia and across the world faced disruptions to their learning in 2020 as they moved to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Small group tutoring has emerged as a strategy to support those students who’ve fallen behind. In today’s article we explore how to identify these students and why school leaders have a critical role in co-designing the programs.

There are many ways to approach decorating your classroom with wall displays. Here, we speak to Professor Peter Barrett about what the research says on how to utilise classroom displays to encourage student belonging and ownership.

Many opportunities lie in how teachers can use the walls, doors, ceiling and floors in their classroom to display student work and topic material throughout the school year. Here, we speak to Professor Peter Barrett about how to best utilise classroom displays to improve student learning.

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.

‘This alternative paradigm is more than a different way of structuring the curriculum; it invites new ways of thinking about teaching, learning, assessment and reporting—in a sense, a redefinition of “normal” practice,’ Professor Geoff Masters AO writes in a new Teacher article.

‘Through careful reflection, design and planning of daily learning activities, teachers can identify opportunities for teaching resilience in their classroom.’ Dr Sarah Tillott and Dr Michelle Neumann discuss learning activities that foster resilience in the classroom.

‘There are several cognitive strategies that support the development of resilience … these are the skills we want to encourage children to develop in the early years.’ In part two of her series on resilience, Dr Sarah Tillott discusses the adaptive and maladaptive traits of resilience.

‘Being exposed to adversity is inevitable. How we manage and adapt as a response is what can make the difference between poor outcomes, or outcomes that signify growth from the experience.’ Dr Sarah Tillott explores resilience theory and the brain, and the importance of developing resilience skills from an early age.

‘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.’

The way that a student engages with mathematics influences the quality of their mathematical learning. One of the most significant factors that can shape this engagement in the classroom is mathematics anxiety – feelings of worry and nervousness when performing mathematical tasks.