With federal Labor pledging $393 million to train 25,000 specialist STEM teachers, its Victorian state counterpart has already allocated $27 million to train these teachers – via a program to be rolled out through Deakin University. The Victorian education minister, ...
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‘Sound Storm’ game helps kids fight hearing issue
Some parents may now want their kids playing more video games. Well one game anyway. The federally funded National Acoustics Laboratory (NAL) has developed "Sound Storm", a game app that it says improves the listening ability of children with spatial processing disorder. ...
More »Recognise teachers’ areas of excellence vary: Rickards
Excellent teachers need to be recognised for their work and for their strengths in various areas, but not with performance pay, the dean of one of Australia’s top teacher schools has argued. Melbourne Graduate School of Education professor Field Rickards said good ...
More »Refugee advocates lobbying for student loan changes
One of the leaders behind a program mentoring high school students from refugee backgrounds is marking this year’s World Refugee Week by calling for those on temporary protection visas and asylum seekers to be eligible for federal government assistance to meet ...
More »The ‘difficult’ children need teachers the most
"They’re never going to do well on NAPLAN or any other goddamned level of academic excellence, but they still matter.” That’s Maggie Dent, a former high school English teacher – now an author and parenting specialist – calling on teachers, ...
More »Abolish homework, punishments and rewards: Kohn
‘Let’s get rid of homework and grades.’ Any teacher who told a classroom this would probably become very popular with the kids. ‘Now let’s get rid of giving rewards if you do what I tell you.’ The kids may scratch ...
More »Can smartphone apps solve Georgie’s long list of problems?
Georgie, aged 16, has depression. She also has frequent panic attacks, she’s very stressed out, she just broke up with a high school sweetheart, some of her friends have depression, she doesn’t often sleep, and when she does, she snores loudly. Georgie ...
More »Vic, NZ trade ideas for building design, teaching
School building and refurbishment is now a booming industry in New Zealand and Victoria. And one architect said educators from both sides of the Tasman Sea are trading ideas for their pet projects. New Zealand’s last federal Budget allocated NZ$882.5 ($825.7 million) ...
More »Children design own school, based on a treehouse
It’s not every day that kids get to design the school they learn in. But that’s exactly what the students of Bendigo’s Golden Square Primary School did. Now the school resembles a treehouse. When architects K2LD were commissioned to design ...
More »Principals directly influence exam results: study
University of Melbourne economists have determined that school principals have a direct impact on students’ scores in standardised testing, such as NAPLAN. Using Victorian Education Department public school data, economist Dr Mick Coelli found that principals who set clear strategic objectives ...
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