Teacher Magazine (ACER)

Each year, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute announce winners to a range of ChooseMaths awards. At the 2019 award ceremony 11 educators were acknowledged and among them was Louise Puslednik. She took home the $20 000 award for mentoring girls in maths and she joins us in today’s episode.

She’s made a real impact on girls’ involvement in maths at her school, St Matthew’s Catholic School in Mudgee, New South Wales, which teaches around 900 students from K-12. Her work extends beyond the school, which is about three hours from Sydney, to the wider Mudgee area and Bathurst region.

The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute Schools Program Manager and ChooseMaths Project Director labelled her a champion for engagement of girls in maths, saying ‘Louise is a powerhouse mathematics mentor and educator whose innovation, passion, leadership and contributions to regional education have and will continue to transform engagement for the benefit of many’.

Louise says forming relationships with students is paramount for her. In this episode, we’re going to find out a little bit more about the initiatives she’s implemented at her school in order to empower girls by highlighting the relevance of mathematics to the real world, and what careers they could have in maths or science once they leave school.

Host: Dominique Russell

Guest: Louise Puslednik

Sponsor: Bank First

Our guest today is Ashley Stewart, a Mathematics teacher from Newton Moore Senior High School in Bunbury, Western Australia. Just recently, Ashley was named in the top 50 shortlist for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize and, in fact, she was the only Australian educator to make the coveted list for 2020. In today’s episode we talk about how she focuses on dissolving the gender gap in STEM at her school by boosting girls’ uptake and engagement in these subjects. Ashley also shares details of some of the STEM programs she’s introduced, including a spatial training program and an international school partnership, which have improved academic achievement, but also student engagement and enjoyment in their lessons.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Guest: Ashley Stewart

Sponsor: EnhanceTV

This month has been has been one characterised by a lot of fear and uncertainty as the world grapples with the challenge of containing the spread of the coronavirus. In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we do a round-up of what we’ve published so far related to Covid-19, as well as other more general content that we thought would be of interest.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

St Helena Secondary College in Victoria embarked on a journey to improve the quality and accuracy of teacher judgements on their student reports, in order to better reflect student achievement. We’re joined by Kate Williams to hear about the process and where they’re at on their journey.

Guest: Kate Williams

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Researchers have found that to improve behaviour in class, teachers should focus on praising students for their good behaviour, rather than telling them off for being disruptive. Professor Paul Caldarella joins Teacher to discuss his three-year project that looked at the relationship between the praise-to-reprimand ratios and the extent to which students focused on class activities.

Guest: Professor Paul Caldarella

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Sponsor: EnhanceTV

In this episode of Teacher Staffroom, we take a look at how schools have been kicking off the 2020 school year, and some new resources that have become available to assist with getting students the best start to school and processing the recent bushfire crisis.

Host: Dominique Russell

The topic for this episode is something we’ve had a lot of requests for – trauma informed education practices. Studies show that exposure to trauma in childhood is widespread. Our guest today is Dr Emily Berger, an educational and developmental psychologist at Monash University here in Melbourne. We’ll be talking about some of the terminology, the benefits of trauma informed practice in schools (for all students), and different approaches to creating trauma informed classrooms.

Guest: Dr Emily Berger

Host: Jo Earp

Sponsor: YSoft be3D eDee

As the name suggests, ‘foundation skills’ are crucial to future learning. The Association of Independent Schools New South Wales (AISNSW) has been working with 38 of its schools on a targeted early years program that aims to help students in Kindergarten to Year 2 master key literacy and numeracy skills. The initiative has been led by the association’s Head of Student Services, Lisa Ridings. She joins us now to share what’s been happening in the program and the impact it’s already having.

Guest: Lisa Ridings

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

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

And just like that, we’re already into a new school year and already in the full swing of things here at Teacher magazine. Throughout this episode, we're going to be sharing some of the highlights of the past month and giving you a bit of an overview of what we’ve been working on. But remember, there’s links to all the stories we mention in the transcript of this podcast, so if you’d like to delve deeper into any of the topics, you’ll find everything you need at teachermagazine.com.au.

Host: Rebecca Vukovic

Our guest for this episode of The Research Files is Dr John Munro, a Professor of Educational Psychology and Exceptional Learning at The Australian Catholic University. He is also a trained primary and secondary teacher and a registered psychologist. We sat down in Melbourne to talk about gifted learners – in particular, how to identify these learners, how to understand their learning needs and how to encourage them to reach their potential in the classroom and beyond. John offers some really interesting insights and practical strategies for teachers as well.