Teacher Magazine (ACER)

Thanks for downloading this episode of Teacher Staffroom – where we catch you up on the latest evidence, insight and action. I’m Dominique Russell.

We’re going to be delving into a lot of recent research in today’s episode. That’s because a lot of interesting studies have been published recently, and quite a few point to the importance and impact of mental health in a school setting.

And, don’t forget, I’ll be posing some questions about this content throughout the next 10 or so minutes, so if you’re listening along with colleagues, that’d be a great time to discuss your thoughts and ideas, because this a topic that affects each and every one of us. So let’s dive in.

In this episode of The Research Files, we’re looking at a project that was conducted in New Zealand, and it’s all about game-based learning practices.

Our guest is Rachel Bolstad. She’s a Senior Researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) and began this research with the aim to investigate how games of all kinds might deepen and enrich student engagement with learning across the curriculum. Students as young as Grade 3 and as old as Year 13 were involved, along with their teachers, and the results really do point to the potential game-based learning could have.

In today’s episode of our School Improvement series we're joined by Tasmanian educator Steve Harrison. Steve is Assistant Principal in Senior Secondary at Huonville High School, and he also coordinates the nationally accredited Aquaculture course at the Huon Valley Trade Training Centre – a vocational training centre which was established in 2012 for both student and adult learners. He joins us today to chat about the establishment of the centre, who was involved in the process and the courses available to students. Steve also shares more about the hands-on skills that students are learning in particular industries like Aquaculture, as well as the broader ‘soft skills’ that they could apply to any future employment opportunities. And importantly, Steve also shares more about the success of the program and how students are choosing to move into the Tasmanian Aquaculture industry once they leave school. We cover a lot in today’s episode, but to kick things off, I ask Steve to explain why there was a need in the community for the trade training centre in the first place.

Australia’s school principals are overwhelmed by the amount of work they’re doing; they’re having great difficulty sleeping; and they are experiencing high rates of offensive behaviour and physical attacks, according to 2018 data collected for the Principal Health and Wellbeing Survey. The survey monitors school principals', deputy or assistant principals’ health and wellbeing annually. Since it first began in 2011, data has been collected from about 50 per cent of Australia’s 10 000 principals.

Associate Professor Philip Riley from Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Positive Psychology and Education is the survey’s chief investigator and he is our guest in this episode of The Research Files. In today’s chat we discuss some of the interesting points to come out of this data collection, and why principals receive interactive feedback after completing the survey. We also discuss the impact that long work hours are having on principals’ wellbeing, their family life and their ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

In today’s episode I’m going to share some of the interesting interviews and articles we’ve published on Teacher this month. There were plenty to choose from but I’ve gone ahead and selected the pieces that I think you’d find the most useful in your own school settings. After all, here at Teacher we’re always focusing on the practical ways that you can use the research in your own classrooms.

Throughout the episode you’ll hear me posing lots of questions. They’re designed to get you talking with your colleagues – in staffrooms or team meetings perhaps – and to get you thinking critically about the content we’re sharing.

We’re taking you to the Northern Territory in this episode of Teaching Methods, where a primary school was purposefully built to house classrooms of students taught by co-teachers. The school, Rosebery Primary, is in its ninth year this year, and Principal Gail Smith joins us on the line today to discuss how co-teaching has improved outcomes for students, how trusting co-teacher relationships are maintained and some possible hurdles to adopting the process. We begin this episode with Gail providing some context of her school.

Teacher Staffroom is an opportunity to change the pace a little, and really take some time out with your colleagues to discuss what implications the content we’ve covered recently could have for your own school setting. You’ll hear me posing some questions throughout the episode, so you can chat about your thoughts with co-workers, and let us know where those conversations end up.

Imagine knowing you have a one in 10 chance of winning US $1 million. Well, that’s the reality for Rooty Hill High School teacher Yasodai Selvakumaran. Yasodai has been an educator for the past nine years and has won a slew of awards throughout her career. But this year, she has found herself amongst the top 10 finalists for the 2019 Global Teacher Prize, an award that recognises one exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the teaching profession.

Yasodai is a Humanities teacher and a Leader in Professional Practice at her western Sydney school. She’s passionate about her job and the students she works with. She joins us today to talk about her interest in social justice, how she connects with students from different backgrounds and how she uses her lessons to help students to understand the world around them and their place in it. We also discuss her approach to personalised learning plans and how to go about building confidence in students.

Our guest today is Dylan Wiliam – Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London. He’s a former school teacher, over the last 15 years his academic career has been focused on the use of assessment to support learning, and he now works with teachers all over the world on developing formative assessment practice.

We caught up with him in Melbourne to talk about effective questioning in the classroom. Over the next 20 minutes, he’ll be explaining what’s wrong with the traditional teacher approach of ‘I’ll ask a question and you put your hands up to answer’, sharing a classroom display technique called ‘the parking lot’, and describing how to plan your lesson around checkpoints that he calls ‘hinge questions’.

Welcome to the first episode of a new series. Our podcast subscribers have told us that they love the option to listen (and learn of course) during the daily commute, while they’re out for a walk, taking a break with a cuppa and even doing the household chores (apparently we make a particularly good soundtrack for cooking and hanging out the washing). So, with that in mind, we’ve decided to introduce another way for you to catch up with all things Teacher.