Education Commons^™

The Contribution Of Learning Trajectories To Enacting The Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, Caroline Cohrssen

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia v2.0 (EYLF) guides pedagogy and practice with children aged from birth to 5 years and states that ‘over time, children engage with increasingly complex ideas’. With 5 learning outcomes and 8 principles of practice, this requires educators to be highly skilled in facilitating children’s engagement with increasingly complex ideas. It also assumes that all educators recognise children’s demonstrations of understanding, and know what knowledge (or capabilities) likely preceded this understanding, and what comes next. As a framework, this specific information is missing from the EYLF. Learning trajectories may assist educators to recognise demonstrations …

Understanding Early Cognitive Development: Using Pat Early Years To Support Student Learning, Sandra Knowles

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The correlation between early cognitive and psychosocial development is well established. For this reason, some measurement tools, such as UNICEF’s Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI2030), provide a single score as an overall indicator of a child’s development because performing poorly in one area is likely to mean inadequate development across all areas. While these broad indicators can be useful at a system level, understanding children’s development in discrete domain areas is essential for meaningful intervention. This presentation will explore how measurement tools, such as ACER’s Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) for the Early Years, can be used to support targeted intervention …

Conceptual Development: How Do Early Educators And Teachers Support Children's Early Thinking In Stem?, Marilyn Fleer

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

As national and state-based reforms in early education roll-out across Australia, concern for building a well-qualified workforce to meet growing demand has intensified. In parallel with the reforms, teachers and educators are reminded by the recently released 2022 Early Years Learning Framework to design programs that support intentionality in play-based learning. However, the literature shows that despite the concept of intentional teaching being around since 2009, difficulties with how to do this remains. This presentation takes up this challenge, by 1) sharing the collective findings of 6 Australian Research Council-funded research projects into play and learning in STEM; and 2) …

Mathematical Mindsets: Fostering Student Engagement And Positive Mindsets Through The Use Of Challenging Tasks, Alison Hall

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This paper explores the planned use of challenging mathematical tasks. These tasks provide the opportunity for students to improve mathematical thinking by working on problems that they do not yet know how to answer. This research involved a heterogeneous class of year 3 students from a Catholic parish primary school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. A rubric was also developed to use in conjunction with these tasks, to support discussions with students, broaden their strategies in finding solutions and thereby improve their conceptual understanding. These pedagogical approaches were found to support the improvement of both students’ conceptual understanding in …

The Journey To Becoming A Reader: Relationships Between Home Activities, Attitudes And Reading, Kylie Hillman

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Progress in International Reading Study – PIRLS for short – has been running since 2001, with Australia joining in 2011. Along with a well-researched measure of students’ reading comprehension, PIRLS includes a number of questionnaires for students, teachers, principals and parents/guardians that provide background and context for students’ performance in the reading assessment. This presentation will provide educators with an introduction to PIRLS and discuss what PIRLS can tell us about various home, attitudinal and behavioural factors that relate to Year 4 students’ performance in the PIRLS reading comprehension assessments.

We will discuss relationships between reading scores and factors …

Bringing Learning Progressions Down To 2-Year-Olds In Reading And Mathematics, Prue Anderson

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

ACER’s learning progressions in reading and mathematics describe growth that is mainly focused on skills students demonstrate at and beyond school. These progressions have recently been extended down to describe earlier levels of growth so we now have seamless progressions from skills and understandings toddlers might demonstrate up to highly sophisticated skills and concepts. This presentation briefly outlines ACER’s work and identifies key implications for educators. The pathways that support early reading development were described in progressions for listening comprehension and sounds and letters. Along with an early mathematics progression, these were conceptualised as embedded in an oral language progression. …

Does Play Belong In The Primary School Classroom?, Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Rachel Parker

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Learning through play has emerged as an important strategy to promote student engagement, inclusion, and holistic skills development beyond the preschool years. If we want to build an education system preparing children for lifelong learning, we can use these strategies and achieve a balance of academic growth, holistic skills and a joy of learning. This presentation addresses the disconnect between policy, research, and practice, by summarising 5 key findings from international studies and 4 challenges to connect policy and practice. The evidence that play supports learning is considerable, and a new framework can create continuity between the early years learning …

Themes, Resources And Uptake Of Acer’S Science In The Early Years Suite, Gayl O'Connor

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Science in the early years series was developed to assist preschool and Foundation to year 2 primary educators to incorporate the latest research in science learning into their programs and teaching practice. This paper focuses on the educator resources developed to support early years educators implement activities to assist children to develop science concepts and inquiry skills. The activities are underpinned by evidence-based research that revealed 4 themes in the early years’ science literature.

Assessment Is Coming And The Early Childhood Sector Must Lead The Way, Dan Cloney

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Assessment is a core component of quality early childhood practice. It is explicitly highlighted in the new Early Years Leanring Framework V2.0 and is a standard within Quality Area 1 of the National Quality Standard. In everyday early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings, and in initial teacher education, assessment is often limited to observational and narrative-driven approaches. Recent reviews of the literature highlight that there are few other assessment tools readily available to educators. What assessment looks like in early childhood is changing. The Commonwealth, as part of the Preschool Reform Funding Agreement, is developing, trialling, and implementing a …

Partnerships In Early Childhood Education: Engaging Families In Professional Conversations, Simone Griggs, Greta Rollo

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Effective monitoring of learning and development involves integrating multiple perspectives from a child’s parents, carers, family, and their educators. A collaborative approach between educators and families not only recognises the family’s critical importance in their child’s life but it has also been shown to benefit children with learning difficulties, delays and behavioural concerns (Parenting Research Centre, 2012; Prior et al., 2011). Efforts made towards the integration of multiple perspectives can also support stronger inclusion of diverse families into communities of early childhood education and care. However, discussions with parents and carers about issues regarding their children’s development can be a …

More Than Phonics To Teach Spelling, Clare Iacono

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This poster presents research into using more than phonics to teach students, in the middle primary school years, to spell. It uses document analyses and grounded theory to consider two research questions: Could instruction in metacognition and self regulation also improve skills in spelling? Is there evidence of instruction in metacognition and self regulation in current spelling lessons?

Developing A Learning Progression For Teachers To Support Effective Thinking And Self-Regulation, Hannah Campos Remon, Adam Kuss

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Brisbane Grammar School has undertaken four years of systematic research to develop a learning progression to support teachers in the development of their students’ capacity for learning, including self-regulation. The learning progression offers a comprehensive, learning-focused tool for teachers to consider how their students are developing as learners over time. Whilst it is not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive, or to produce a grade for ‘learning’, it offers a purposeful sampling of important components of effective thinking.

The Impact Of Dog-Assisted Wellbeing Interventions On Student Motivation And Engagement In The School Setting, Yvonne Howard

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This poster summarises a proposed mixed methods study conducted by a researcher teacher to understand the impact of a therapy dog working in a co-educational day school through two research questions: What are the social and emotional benefits of a school-wide dog-assisted wellbeing intervention for students? How does a dog-assisted wellbeing intervention influence students' motivation and affective engagement at school?

Teaching, Teaching, Wherefore Art Thou? Exploring The Artistry In Teaching, Sean Casham

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Teachers do unforgivably complex work, and part of this complexity is the artistry in teaching practice. This poster outlines research on artistry in teaching involving a literature review and a qualitative multi-site case study design across New South Wales, ACT and the Northern Territory.

Seeing In: Qualitative Shifts In Children’S Critical Understanding Of Their Artworks, Janna Adams Tess

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This poster outlines research to better understand the continuity of children’s learning in primary school Visual Arts, so that art can be better taught and learned. Research Questions include: What do children’s critical judgements of the meaning and value of their artworks reveal about their role and development as artists? How do these critical judgements change from early to late childhood?

Wellbeing Policies And Practices Within A Primary School Context, Lyle Righetti

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This poster outlines research to explore current mental health and wellbeing policies and programs for primary-aged students, and to examine primary teachers’ perceptions of school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) practices in relation to wellbeing policies and programs.

Transdisciplinary Stem Enactment: An Exploratory Case Study In The Queensland Context, Kristie Schulz

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Enacting STEM education in Australian schools is an ambitious task, in a climate of unclear definitions and little implementation advice. Should STEM education simply refer to an umbrella-term of subjects that Australian students need to improve in, or could a cross-disciplinary pedagogy that engages students in authentic problem-solving be realised? This poster outlines a project in which Parklands Christian College designed and enacted a transdisciplinary student-centred ideology of STEM education in 2017. The program has continually evolved using a transdisciplinary pedagogical framework.

Student Drawings: An Ai-Eschewed Means To Show Curriculum-Based Change, Anne Knowles

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This poster focuses on the use of drawings as a way to illustrate change. It presents research undertaken in the Pacific Group of Christian Schools (PGCS) exploring how supplementing curriculums with Personal Viewpoints Pedagogy (PVP) practices has led to change in self-prioritisation which positively influences prosocial behaviour. This Poster reports the use of student representations of thinking through drawings to provide evidence of this change. It shows that student-generated drawings could be used to gauge other-focused thinking, represented as self-conceit, conditional, unconditional, and sacrificial choices in response to socially problematic situations. Learner-generated drawings are a non-textual format offering a window …

Research Conference 2023: Becoming Lifelong Learners. Proceedings And Program, Kylie Burns (Ed.)

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

We know learning in the early years sets the foundations for people’s ongoing academic, cognitive and socio-emotional development. Education across those formative first 12 years is currently segmented, with children often starting fresh in new systems. How can each of us make learning in the early childhood and primary years more effective? Research Conference 2023 will examine research around how we can improve the continuity of learning from birth to 12 years. It will bring together leading international and Australian researchers to provide insights into the best ways to identify, conceptualise, develop and assess these new linkages for learning.