Student achievement

How can we make assessment work for learners and learning in a rapidly changing world? How can we establish where students are at in their learning, including in the hard-to-measure skills and attributes they need to flourish in life? These questions will be explored at ACER’s Research Conference 2022, where the theme is ‘Reimagining assessment’.

The fourth topic in a series revisiting the ‘big five’ challenges in Australian education asks what progress has been made towards ensuring all children get off to the best start in life. Ahead of their webinar this week, expert panellists Dr Dan Cloney, Myra Geddes and Mary-Ruth Mendel give Teacher readers an overview of what they’ll be discussing.

‘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.

‘One of the biggest challenges facing educators is to find better ways to meet the learning needs of the many students who fall behind in our schools.’ In her latest Teacher column, Dr Sue Thomson explores the issue in an Australian context, and the progress made in recent years.

Professor Geoff Masters AO shares details of a special ACER five-webinar series, where expert practitioners, researchers and policymakers will revisit the major challenges in school education he wrote of six years ago, and ask what progress has been made on each, and what needs to happen next.

One of the biggest challenges we face in improving quality and equity in our schools is to better address the learning needs of the many children who, on entry to school, are at risk of being locked into trajectories of long-term low achievement, writes Professor Geoff Masters AO.

STEM specialist teacher Britt Gow reviews a book that provides research-based strategies for helping underperforming students.

One of the biggest challenges educators face is to find better ways to meet the learning needs of the many students who fall behind in our schools, fail to meet year-level expectations (often year after year) and, as a consequence, become increasingly disengaged, writes Professor Geoff Masters AO.

If we really want to improve student achievement we need to focus on the person who closes the classroom door and performs the teaching act – the teacher - but to do that we need to open classroom doors.