Twelve-hour days and big classes are realities that Singapore's teachers face daily. Such conditions create stressful work environments which impede their capacity to live up to their global reputation for teaching excellence. They are usually too exhausted to be the classroom innovators they ...
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How to keep kids cyber-safe at school
The constant changes in technology can be overwhelming for schools. While the increasing adoption of online learning is transforming education, it’s also opening the door for sophisticated security threats, as well as a rise in cyber bullying, radicalisation and child ...
More »Why PISA is moving towards creativity
Along with a relatively small number of countries such as New Zealand, Singapore and Finland and Scotland, Australia is unusual in that, as well as a focus on knowledge and skills, its national curriculum explicitly requires schools to teach certain ...
More »When did human rights become racist? A reflection on relativism in Australian education
I am an agnostic left-leaning history academic and a high school teacher committed to the defence of human rights and, in the era of alternative facts, truth and civility. I had always assumed that most humanities teachers in this country, ...
More »Data literacy: embracing the digital age
Like reading and writing, data literacy must be developed early in a child’s education. In today’s digital economy, making sense of data is paramount to organisations far and wide. As such, data and analytics skills are in demand across all ...
More »Teaching children with autism: opinion
"I hear so many times from parents and teachers whose time is taken up with children in the classroom – whether they have a disability or whether they are autistic – that it is taking up the teacher’s time. These ...
More »Q&A ‘school special’ unusually frank
Last Monday night, a duo of opposing politicians - minister for the environment and energy Josh Frydenberg, and shadow health minister Catherine King - fronted ABC's Q&A panel. This may sound like the usual Monday evening lineup, but this time, it ...
More »Opinion: good edu-businesses are good for schools, teachers and students
The involvement of commercial organisations – so called edu-businesses – in schools, is a vexed issue. Teachers, unions and parent groups are right to demand transparency over the activities of entities whose interests may not be aligned with their own: ...
More »Coffee shop classrooms and other 21st century alternatives to rigidy
Flexible learning spaces have transitioned from industry buzzword to the current directional norm. What does this mean for students and educators? Traditionally, a classroom has a central focus in the form of a whiteboard, with all furniture facing in the ...
More »Gonski 2.0 reactions range from welcoming to irate
After its relatively whirlwind journey, the Gonski 2.0 school funding package has passed into law, thanks to the support of several crossbenchers. The Independent Schools Council of Australia (ISCA), for one, is satisfied. ISCA executive director Colette Colman told Education Review the ...
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