Teaching skills

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. 

‘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.

The first ever PISA assessment on creative thinking revealed Australia’s 15-year-olds were among the world’s top performers. Now, new analysis offers insights into student performance and attitudes, and how teachers are fostering creative thinking. Find out the results from your state and territory in this article.

‘There is growing consensus internationally that creative thinking needs to be cultivated to help learners succeed. Beyond identifying the importance of the skill, however, there is little guidance on how to develop and teach it…’ In today’s article, ACER Senior Research Fellow, Dr Claire Scoular, shares 6 suggestions for teaching creative thinking skills.

You may have experienced it as a teacher, or a school leader – out-of-field teaching remains a big issue. Professor Merrilyn Goos and Professor Linda Hobbs join Teacher editor Jo Earp for a special podcast episode to talk about the current situation in Australia, challenges and possible solutions.

In our most recent annual Teacher reader survey, many of you asked for more content and support in the area of explicit instruction. So, in this article, we delve into a new practice guide from the Australian Educational Research Organisation (AERO) on teaching explicitly.

UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report for 2023 focuses on technology in education. According to the report’s Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews for 211 education systems, 51% have set ICT standards for teachers ‘in a competency framework, teacher training framework, development plan or strategy’. Here is an international snapshot for 2022.

At Brighton Grammar School in Victoria, a year 12 student was given the opportunity to conduct their own educational research project. In this article, we speak with Deputy Headmaster Dr Ray Swann, teacher Oliver Lovell, and student Tim Tso about the process and impact of this project.

While schools across the country are grappling with critical teacher shortages, it’s certainly no surprise to hear that out-of-field teaching is occurring. A new Deakin University report which was co-written by ACER and Griffith University, looks at the issue of out-of-field teaching and proposes 46 recommendations.