Learning activities

Recorded live at the National Education Summit in Melbourne, Dominique Beech sits down with Professor Miriam Tanti from La Trobe University to find out about the research she and her colleagues have been conducting into the science of learning and Generative AI which has culminated in a free, practical guide for secondary school teachers. 

‘The most formidable change we have seen so far is consistency in AI use. Along with staff, students from years 5 to 12 are now working off the same scale and AI use is thought about before a task is set, not discussed after.’ In this article, Jill Fitzsimons, Director of Teaching and Learning at Loreto Toorak shares how staff and students have been supported to use AI, and how the impact of AI is shaping assessment.

‘Tour a school and you’ll likely see many classrooms displaying finished student work … perfection is visible; process is private. … The Thinking Museum is a classroom routine that makes intellectual growth visible, celebrated, and unforgettable.’ Find out more in our latest reader submission from K-12 teacher Varun S Nair.

Indigenous Literacy Day, founded by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, offers teachers the opportunity to help students discover the richness and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories, cultures and languages. Read on to find out how you and your students can get involved.

‘The practical challenge of designing units that genuinely extend gifted learners within a mixed-ability classroom, without simply adding more of the same work, remains one of the more complex tasks in primary teaching’. Wesley College’s Lanella Sweet shares a tiered unit of work built around real-world measurement tasks.

In this blog series, Little J & Big Cuz’s Miss Chen shares practical Foundation to Year 2 classroom ideas. In today's activity, her students learn more about natural and processed materials in Foundation Science.  

More than a competition, Trop Jr is a rich learning experience that supports curriculum outcomes while strengthening creative confidence and student agency. Find out more about Trop Jr, the benefits, and free classroom resources for Years 5 to 10, including a Teacher Guide to support planning, assessment and curriculum alignment, in this article.

‘In classrooms, silence is often interpreted as lack of ability or confidence. But in many cases, it reflects a lack of safe, structured opportunities to participate.’ In today’s reader submission, senior secondary teacher Manisha Pundir explores 5 structured classroom routines that she’s used to help build student confidence to participate in classroom discussions. 

‘If we equip the next generation with the foundational literacies to understand how AI works, the creative confidence to build with it, and the critical judgement to know when and how it should be used, the possibilities are extraordinary.’ In this Q&A, Andrew Sliwinski, Vice President and Head of Product Experience at LEGO® Education, answers questions about computer science and artificial intelligence instruction in the classroom, and what we can do now to empower student agency in a changing world.

Our guest on today’s podcast is Kayla Borg from St Mary’s Primary School in Whittlesea, Victoria. She shares how she went about co‑designing a podcast lesson for her year 5 and 6 students in partnership with the eSmart team at the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, what her students learned from this experience, and why real‑world, student‑led digital learning can have such a powerful ripple effect across the entire school community.