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The Research Files

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Welcome to Episode 1 of our Teaching Methods series. Today we speak to John Fleming, a leading advocate for education reform and someone whose views are highly sought-after by education professionals throughout Australia, about the method known as explicit instruction.

Teaching Methods - John Fleming

By building strong professional learning communities (PLCs) school leaders can improve not only the quality of teaching, but also student outcomes. So, what does an effective PLC look like and how do you go about building one? My guest is Dr Lawrence Ingvarson, a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). He’s developed ACER’s Professional Learning Community Framework (PLCF). The framework covers five key domains: professional culture; leadership; a focus on student learning, wellbeing and engagement; a focus on improving professional knowledge and practice; and teachers who think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.

School Improvement Episode 10: Effective professional learning communities

Dr David Armstrong from Flinders University is our guest in today’s Behaviour Management podcast. We explore how certain behaviour management models are simply ineffective, particularly for students with learning or mental health difficulties, and discuss his research in this area.

Behaviour Management Episode 4: Behaviour approaches for children with disabilities

The team’s on the road this week at the ACER Research Conference in Sydney, where the theme for 2018 is ‘Teaching practices that make a difference: Insights from research’. In this special episode, we share highlights from the ‘In Conversation’ session on evidence-based teaching practices between Laureate Professor John Hattie and ACER CEO Professor Geoff Masters AO. The facilitator was Tony Mackay AM, of the Centre for Strategic Education in Melbourne.

Podcast Special: John Hattie And Geoff Masters In Conversation

Oral language is the system we use for spoken words to communicate ideas, knowledge and emotions. It has a strong relationship to reading and writing and is recognised as a component of early reading instruction. Here we begin the first of a two part discussion podcast with Jane Beale, a speech pathologist, to hear her views on oral language.
Further resources:
Deslea Konza, Phonological awareness
https://speldnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1.2-phonological-awareness.pdf

Deslea Konza, Oral language
https://speldnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1.1-oral-language.pdf

Deslea Konza, Phonics https://www.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/663699/SA-DECS-Phonics.pdf

Deslea Konza, understanding the reading process https://www.ecu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/663696/SA-DECS_-Understanding-the-Reading-Process.pdf

Isabel Beck, Making sense of phonics
https://www.booktopia.com.au/making-sense-of-phonics-second-edition-isabel-l-beck/prod9781462511990.html

Literacy and numeracy NSWDoE
https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/literacy-and-numeracy

A speech

A speech pathologist's view on oral language, phonological awareness and phonics. PART 1

A conversation with Professor Anne Castles about the systematic and explicit instruction of phonics. We discuss how phonics can support early reading acquisition, as a foundation skill that helps us to move to the ultimate goal of making meaning.
Further resources:
Ending the Reading Wars, Reading Acquisition from novice to expert, A.Castles, K. Rastle and K. Nation, 2018 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100618772271

Ending the Reading Wars: a talk by Kathy Rastle -https://youtu.be/nisZ4og8xPk

Moats, L.C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers. https://www.booktopia.com.au/speech-to-print-workbook-louisa-cook-moats/prod9781598571622.html?source=pla&gclid=CjwKCAiA5qTfBRAoEiwAwQy-6cDalSkz-c7I6r8G_IQuex1bHEneM8RWJkqZEM3hHBEViR5ATbQ0UhoCaA0QAvD_BwE

Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.
https://www.booktopia.com.au/beginning-to-read-marilyn-jager-adams/prod9780262510769.html

Beck, I, Making sense of phonics.
https://www.booktopia.com.au/making-sense-of-phonics-second-edition-isabel-l-beck/prod9781462511990.html

Literacy and numeracy NSWDoE
https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/literacy-and-numeracy

NSW DoE Literacy & Numeracy

In conversation with Anne Castles

In conversation with Anne Castles: systematic and explicit phonics instruction

My guest today is Dr Jeff Thomas, a lecturer in the Master of Teaching and Graduate Certificate of Education at the University of Tasmania. Jeff’s research and teaching interests include the relationship between engagement and classroom behaviour, and reengagement approaches for disengaged students.

With the start of the school year fast approaching here in Australia, many teachers will be busy preparing for those first, initial weeks in the classroom. And according to Jeff, the beginning of the year is an amazing opportunity to engage students, to build relationships and to establish explicit expectations around student behaviour. But, he says, it’s important to plan for positive behaviour. 

Our discussion today covers many different areas including how to plan for that positive behaviour in your classroom, which routines are critical to establish in the initial weeks of the year, and practical things to keep in mind when responding to particularly challenging behaviours as they arise in class.

Behaviour Management Episode 5: Planning for positive behaviour

In this conversation Dr Tessa Daffern explains why an instructional approach for spelling should include phonological, orthographical and morphological word forms. Effective spelling instruction should be explicit and occur frequently from the early years of school. 
Dr Tessa Daffern has contributed to education in many capacities for over 20 years: as a classroom teacher in schools, teaching and learning specialist, literacy coordinator, academic, and education consultant. Tessa is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong and has previously held positions at the University of Canberra and Charles Sturt University. Tessa's research is driven by her passion for English language education and for empowering teachers and undergraduate teacher education students to develop contemporary understandings that can inform their teaching of language and literacy. Tessa’s PhD examined the teaching and learning of spelling and writing in Australian school contexts.
Further reading and resources:
Spelling in the primary years
https://youtu.be/MWEgQ6WxaxI

The Unique Role of Early Spelling in the Prediction of Later Literacy Performance
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888438.2019.1573242

Progress in Reading Instruction Requires a Better Understanding of the English Spelling System
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721418773749?journalCode=cdpa

Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11145-014-9517-0

What Happens When a Teacher Uses Metalanguage to Teach Spelling?
https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/trtr.1528

Literacy and numeracy website (NSWDoE intranet)
https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/literacy-and-numeracy

In conversation with Dr Tessa Daffern: teaching spelling

If you were to visit any preschool or kindergarten classroom, you’d surely find that shared book reading is a common activity used to facilitate discussions and support a young child’s language and literacy development. A new study, published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, examined the extent to which preschool teachers use different types of questions during classroom-based shared book reading. Researchers from the Children’s Learning Institute at the University of Texas, Ohio State University, the American Institute for Research and Michigan State University all collaborated on this study. They found that only 24 per cent of what teachers said during the shared book reading were questions, and the kids answered the questions accurately 85 per cent of the time. In today’s episode, I’m joined by one of the study’s authors, Dr Tricia Zucker, who is an Associate Professor with the Children’s Learning Institute at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston. We chat about what the main findings were to come from the research, whether the questions teachers were asking were too simple for students, and how teachers could improve their questioning practices to ensure children are given the appropriate level of challenge. 
Guest: Dr Tricia Zucker
Interviewer: Rebecca Vukovic
Podcast supporter: Seven Steps to Writing Success

The Research Files Episode 54: Questions during shared book reading in the early years

Childhood and adolescent anxiety is something many classroom teachers will come face-to-face with, so it’s important to understand what a teacher’s role could be in identifying and managing anxiety. Are there behaviours a teacher could be observing in the classroom that might be typical of anxiety? How can a classroom educator help to reinforce the work of a student’s psychologist or therapist? And, what can teachers do to make their classroom more comfortable and accommodating for students experiencing anxiety?

To discuss all of this, I’m joined in today’s episode by Dr Rowena Conroy, a clinical psychologist who works with children, adolescents and families at the Children’s Private Medical Group in Victoria. We sat down together at the National Education Summit in Melbourne after her presentation on student anxiety. 

Presenter: Dominique Russell
Interviewee: Dr Rowena Conroy

Podcast Special: Identifying and managing student anxiety

How can we teach and assess general capabilities including critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, and problem solving skills? This is a challenge that teachers are faced with in 21st Century classrooms. A project, funded by the Centre for Assessment Reform and Innovation (CARI) at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), is working to develop an assessment framework for measuring and monitoring these skills in the classroom. Through a combination of curriculum-oriented assessment tools, learning progressions, and professional development, the project aims to equip teachers with the skills to integrate teaching and assessing of general capabilities into their classrooms. 

Here to discuss this today is Dr Claire Scoular, a Research Fellow at ACER and the person charged with leading the project. In today’s episode, she shares more about the assessment tool that’s been developed, and we discuss some practical ways teachers can measure these skills, as well as some the challenges involved in doing so. Claire also shares some of her early analyses of data to come from the trials completed in schools across Australia.

Interviewer: Rebecca Vukovic
Guest: Dr Claire Scoular

The Research Files Episode 55: Assessing the General Capabilities

The team at Teacher have spoken to a lot of interesting educators this month, and some great practical pointers for the classroom have come out of these conversations. In this episode, we’ll be looking at some budget-friendly science experiments for both primary and secondary students; some engaging mathematics activities perfect to finish off the term; and some implications for classroom educators of some new research that’s been published.  
Host: Dominique Russell

Teacher Staffroom Episode 10: Sharing education resources

The topic for this episode is something we’ve had a lot of requests for – trauma informed education practices. Studies show that exposure to trauma in childhood is widespread. Our guest today is Dr Emily Berger, an educational and developmental psychologist at Monash University here in Melbourne. We’ll be talking about some of the terminology, the benefits of trauma informed practice in schools (for all students), and different approaches to creating trauma informed classrooms. 

Guest: Dr Emily Berger
Host: Jo Earp
Sponsor: YSoft be3D eDee

The Research Files Episode 57: Trauma informed practice in schools

Our guest today is Pasi Sahlberg, a Professor of Education Policy at the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW Sydney. He joins Teacher to discuss the ongoing research project he’s been working on that explores how the widespread use of media and digital technologies is impacting the wellbeing, health and learning of Australian children. 

The findings have been published in the Growing Up Digital Australia: Phase 1 Technical Report, co-written with Dr Amy Graham, a Research Fellow at the Gonski Institute. To give you a bit of a snapshot, the first phase of the study asked teachers and school principals to compare what they are observing in their schools and classrooms regarding students’ use of media and digital technologies, to what was happening three to five years ago.

A total of 1876 respondents completed the survey, three-quarters of them were female and, for the most part, respondents were experienced educators, with 48 per cent of the sample having more than 20 years’ teaching experience. Half of the respondents were classroom teachers, 30 per cent were principals and the remainder were involved in early childhood settings, school administration and temporary teaching positions.

In our interview, we delve deep into the findings to come from the study and Pasi shares his insights into how digital technologies impact a child’s readiness to learn in the classroom. 

Host: Rebecca Vukovic
Guest: Pasi Sahlberg
Sponsor; EnhanceTV

The Research Files Episode 58: Pasi Sahlberg on Growing Up Digital

A new series of research papers relating to science learning in the early years has been published by ACER (the Australian Council for Educational Research). The series aims to help educators of children in preschool to Year 2 to incorporate the latest research into science learning into their teaching. 

The authors discuss the significance of the particular subject, the relevant research, how it links to outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework (or EYLF) as well as some aspects of the Australian Curriculum.

They also describe a handful of activities that can be completed with children to help develop their science inquiry skills, like observing plants, and exploring light and shadows. These activities can also assist educators in monitoring the science learning of the children they’re teaching. They’re suitable for parents whose children are learning at home, as well.

In this episode, we're joined by a co-author of the series, Gayl O’Connor, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. You’ll pick up on the big emphasis on why integrating science learning in the early years is so beneficial for children and their teachers, and we also discuss identifying and managing common misconceptions children might have about science concepts; and managing a lack of confidence in science as an educator. 

Host: Dominique Russell
Guest; Gayl O'Connor

The Research Files Episode 59: Meaningful science learning in the early years

In today’s world, young people must be financially literate to perform common, day-to-day tasks, like using a debit card or choosing a mobile phone plan. But, how financially literate are teenagers in Australia? And, how do they compare to their international peers? 

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (or PISA, as it’s commonly referred to) includes an optional assessment that examines 15-year-old students’ understanding of money matters and financial literacy. This week, the Australian Council for Educational Research released a report that analyses Australian students’ performance in the latest PISA Financial Literacy survey. It’s titled PISA 2018: Financial literacy in Australia.

A total of 117 000 students from 20 countries and economies participated in the financial literacy survey, including over 9400 Australian students from 740 schools.

In today’s episode, we're joined by one of the report’s co-authors, Lisa DeBortoli, a Senior Research Fellow at ACER. We discuss some of the key findings to come from the report and what students were required to do for this assessment. You’ll also hear Lisa share more about the proficiency levels, what they mean, and the kind of knowledge and skills that students are typically capable of displaying at each level, as well as some practical examples. 

Guest: Lisa DeBortoli
Host: Rebecca Vukovic
Sponsor: University of Newcastle

The Research Files Episode 60: Australian teenagers and financial literacy

Which is more creative, the Arts or the sciences? My guest, Professor David Cropley from the University of South Australia, joins us today to discuss this question and to delve into his research into whether any specific differences exist between creativity in the Arts and creativity in STEM. David is an internationally recognised expert on creativity and innovation. He’s appeared on several television programs on the ABC, including Redesign My Brain and Life at 9. The study we’re focusing on today was co-authored by Kim van Broekhoven and Phillip Seegers from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The study surveyed over 2000 German undergraduate students enrolled in STEM courses and in Arts courses, to explore how creativity differed across the disciplines. In this episode, David takes us through how they conducted the study, some of the key findings, and the practical implications of this research for educators working in the K-12 space. 
Guest: David Cropley
Host: Rebecca Vukovic

The Research Files Episode 54: Questions during shared book reading in the early years

Teacher Magazine (ACER)