Teacher Magazine (ACER)

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight, and action.

In this episode, we’re looking into leadership. Many educators are engaging in leadership practice as part of their day-to-day work, no matter what position they hold in a school. So, whether you're a principal, a leading teacher or an aspiring leader, there's something for you in this episode.

Like each edition of Teacher Staffroom, we'll take you through these topics, along with other noteworthy stories. I'll also be posing some questions throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context.

Host: Dominique Russell

In this episode in our School Improvement series, we're joined by Vanessa Rauland, Portia Odell and Karen Murcia, who have recently published an examination of a two-year pilot study which encouraged schools to actively try to reduce their carbon emissions. Their study, and resulting report titled Schools: An Untapped Opportunity for a Carbon Neutral Future assessed which actions proved to be most effective, considering both the cost involved and the outcome achieved.

The study came about after Vanessa Rauland and her colleagues conducted the two-year pilot program, the Low Carbon School’s Pilot Program, between 2015 and 2017. Fifteen schools were involved in this, and then PhD candidate Portia Odell, decided to investigate further as part of her PhD research. Thirteen of the original 15 schools jumped on board for this further examination, and it’s the examination of these schools which we’ll discuss today. Alongside Vanessa and Portia, we’re joined by Karen who was the supervisor for this research of Portia’s.

As we’ll discuss in the episode, their report reveals that 60 per cent of the actions employed by schools involved no cost at all. Some of these actions included things like using less paper, improving recycling habits, obtaining quotes for solar panels and many other initiatives. The schools worked as a network throughout the pilot, meaning they could access each other’s energy consumption data, which proved to be particularly useful. All of this work led to the development of ClimateClever, Vanessa Rauland’s organisation, and specifically their app, which helps schools, businesses and homes reduce their carbon emissions.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Vanessa Rauland, Portia Odell, Karen Murcia

Sponsor: Quality Teaching Academy

Casual relief teachers, or CRTs, are an integral part of the teacher workforce, but many often report feeling a lack of support and exclusion at schools they’re working in. We know this ourselves at Teacher magazine, with many of you getting in touch to share these same challenges you’ve faced as a CRT.

Minami Uchida from Macquarie University has analysed the experiences of casual relief teachers working in primary schools in Australia. Her study involved surveying 104 teachers who were at various points in their career as casual teachers, and interviewing executive staff for their perspectives. Common challenges faced by casual teachers emerged, as well as useful supports that can be provided by executive school staff to mitigate these concerns.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guest: Minami Uchida

Sponsor: Bank First

The term ‘evidence-based practice’ is widely used in education. Schools are 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? These questions have been explored in several articles and podcasts on Teacher this month. Throughout this episode, I’ll be taking a deeper dive to explore some of the key messages to come from these pieces. I’ll also highlight some of the contributions we’ve published, as well as some of my favourites pieces to be featured on Teacher this month. I’d be keen to hear if these were some of yours as well, as well as any general feedback you may have, so please leave a comment on the transcript of this podcast on the Teacher magazine website, or rate and review us in your favourite podcast app.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

As a primary school teacher, how confident would you say you are at teaching music? Do you feel adequately prepared to teach music, or incorporate music into your lessons? What areas of music do you feel you need the most support in?

A pilot professional development program on music teaching in primary schools has been assessed in a new report. The program involved five separate sessions on different areas in music, like composition, singing and instruments. The confidence of the teachers involved in the program were assessed before the program commenced, and after they’d completed all the sessions. The main contributor to their increase in confidence was the simple activities they were able to pick up, which we’ll share in this episode.

We're joined in this episode by the report’s authors, Benjamin Thorn and Inga Brasche. Benjamin is a composer and a casual lecturer in Creative Arts education at the University of New England, and Inga Brasche is a former university lecturer and currently teaches at Presbyterian Ladies' College in Armidale, New South Wales, the same region where this study took place. Let’s jump in to hear more about their research.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Benjamin Thorn and Inga Brasche

You’ll be well aware that here at Teacher we are all about promoting quality teaching and leading and assisting school improvement at a grassroots level. We aim to support educators by sharing stories using evidence-based approaches which you can trust and adapt for use in your own school settings. We also ask you how you use Teacher content in your practice in our annual reader survey, and so many of you always tell us about how stories we’ve shared have motivated school change, or inspired discussion with colleagues.

But on a broader scale, 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?

The research team for the Monash Q Project is looking at all of these questions in a report they have just released. The report shares data from a survey they conducted of teachers and school leaders on how they’re using research and evidence in their work. The Monash Q Project is a much larger project than this one report – it’s a five year partnership between Monash University and the Paul Ramsey Foundation with the broader aim of improving the use of research evidence in schools.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Jo Gleeson, Lucas Walsh

Sponsor: Bank First

Thanks for listening to this episode of Teacher Staffroom, where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight, and action. I'm Rebecca Vukovic.

In 2015, Teacher columnist and ACER CEO Professor Geoff Masters penned a column for Teacher on the ‘big five’ education challenges facing Australian schools. This influential column remains the most popular article to ever be published on Teacher, collecting hundreds of thousands of page views over the past six years.

This year, ACER decided to hold a five-part webinar series to revisit the big five challenges and ask what progress has been made on each, and what needs to happen next? To date, three of the webinars have already taken place, and in today’s podcast, we’ll be exploring each of them and providing details on how you can catch the next two, which will take place in May. By the way, if you’ve missed any of the earlier webinars, not to worry, they’ve all been recorded and I’ll provide links on how to watch them in the transcript of this episode.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

We’re taking you to Tasmania in today’s episode, where staff at Bowen Road Primary School have been working with a local electrical engineer for a few years now to teach students about coding.

The partnership came about through the CSIRO’s STEM Professionals in Schools program, which invites STEM industry professionals from across the country to volunteer in schools to share their expertise and real-world perspectives with students.

We're joined in this episode by the electrical engineer volunteering at Bowen Road Primary School, Robbie Bell, from Hydro Tasmania, which is Australia’s largest generator of renewable energy. Lynne Hanlon, the educator at Bowen Road Primary School who facilitated this partnership, also joins us to offer her perspective.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guests: Robbie Bell, Lynne Hanlon

A study has followed primary school teachers through an entire school year to document how they taught mathematics to be inclusive of children with Down syndrome.

Each teacher involved in the study had a student with Down syndrome in their classroom, and the researchers took note of examples of innovative mathematics teaching practice by observing lessons, looking at the maths work completed by children with Down syndrome, and one-on-one interviews with the teachers involved. As a result of this research, four different ways that teachers can include students with Down syndrome in their maths classrooms have emerged.

Associate Professors Rhonda Faragher, from the University of Queensland, and Associate Professor Barbara Clarke, from Monash University, have published their findings in the Mathematics Education Research Journal. Dr Faragher joins us today to discuss the research.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guest: Rhonda Faragher

As we settle in to the 2021 school year, teachers and school leaders are certainly grappling with the continued disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But how can school communities begin to implement change from things already learned from previous periods of remote teaching and learning? For instance, how has remote teaching and learning changed the way school communities collaborate? How can schools work more effectively with tutors to support students who might have fallen behind last year?

These are two topics we’ve covered at Teacher recently, and in today’s episode we’re going to take you through some of the most important points. And, like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions throughout the podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories could be relevant to your school context.

Host: Dominique Russell