Education Commons^™

Equipping Students For Life After School, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

Identifying and developing the knowledge, skills and attributes required for life and work is an ongoing challenge in school education.

Embracing Learner’S Ideas About Diffusion And Osmosis: A Coupled-Inquiry Approach, Ryan Sweeney, Lisa Martin-Hansen, Geeta Verma, John Dunkhase

Geeta Verma

Learning about osmosis and diffusion is often a challenging task for middle school students. Here the authors present a lesson that was converted from a “cookbook” lab (McLaughlin and Thompson 2007) into a more inquiry-oriented lab that uses inquiry teaching strategies and hands-on investigations to teach middle-grade students about osmosis and diffusion.

Dean's Desk: Legal Clinics Cultivate Essential Lawyering Skills, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

A Developing Story: The Literacy Demands Of The Curriculum, Marion Meiers

Marion Meiers

The need for explicit teaching of the literacy demands of the curriculum has been and remains a significant area of interest for all teachers. An example of how this interest has evolved can be seen in Nea Stewart-Dore's careerlong interest in literacy learning. This was a key aspect of her major contribution to professional knowledge and understanding of literacy learning. Nea's story provides a useful retrospective insight into the shaping of the strong current focus of the literacy of the disciplines.

Cultural Vibrancy: Exploring The Preferences Of African American Children Toward Culturally Relevant And Non-Culturally Relevant Lessons, Darlene Sampson, Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Despite the laudable intent of various educational initiatives in raising the achievement level of all children, limited progress has been made. In an effort to diminish the achievement gap of students of color, some researchers have examined the cultural relevancy of the curriculum in promoting student achievement. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the preferences of African American children toward culturally relevant and non-culturally relevant lessons, through a six-week series of lessons in an American History classroom. Critical Race Theory and Racial Identity Development provided the theoretical underpinnings of this study. This study takes place in …

The New Australian Curriculum, Teachers And Change Fatigue, Jessica Lyle, Christine Cunningham, Jan Gray

Dr. Christine Cunningham

A new national curriculum has recently been implemented across Australia. This paper reports on a case study of a regional Western Australia government school as they re-wrote and taught the phase one learning areas: maths, English, science and HASS. Results showed what it is like to work in an environment where continual change is not only expected, but also seen as best practice. Cynical, realistic and even enthusiastic teachers suffer change fatigue after years of rapid and continual curriculum change. The research traces back the reasons why teacher change fatigue might occur using Intuitive Inquiry (Anderson & Braud, 2011) as …

Place, Profession And Program In The History Of Special Education Curriculum, Scot Danforth, Steve Taff, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"This chapter explores how three topical threads: place, professionalism, and program, have woven their way through the history of special education. The authors argue that these themes have played out over the last 200 years in the United States in a way that provides a helpful explanatory narrative for the evolution of policies and practices for children with disabilities. The authors' narrative looks at three key eras. First, they look at the influence of the French Enlightenment on American social activists in the middle of the 19th century. This was a time when the theme of place held sway as …

Same Year, Same School, Same Curriculum: Different Mathematics Results, Catherine Pearn

Catherine Pearn

Year 4 students from a large metropolitan school in Melbourne were tested using the One Minute Tests of Basic Number Facts and a paper and pencil Number Screening Test developed by the author and colleagues. Observation of classes during the assessment procedures highlighted the vast difference in the students’ speed and accuracy when recalling basic facts and the types of strategies they used when solving whole number arithmetic tasks. When the results were analysed there were differences noted in the class results and when the results were presented to the teachers their reactions to these results varied considerably. This paper …

Meeting The Challenge Of Disciplinary Literacies, Marion Meiers

Marion Meiers

Year-Level Expectations Can Impede Learning, Expert Warns, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

Some of the ways in which school education is organised and delivered may be contributing to our highest and lowest achieving students making little annual progress in their learning.