Australia Association for Research in Education
teaching numeracy
Five questions to ask if you think teaching problem-solving works
Every few decades there is a campaign to include general problem-solving and thinking skills in school curricula. The motivation is understandable. Everyone would like our schools to enhance students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Because it is so obviously important for students to have such skills, these campaigns are frequently successful in including thinking and …
How to do the sums for an excellent maths curriculum
As we await the release of a new Australian curriculum for mathematics, debates about its contents are developing. As is typical with educational debates, the issues are often painted in binary terms: traditional vs progressive, explicit teaching vs problem solving, content vs skills, procedural vs conceptual knowledge. In mathematics education, these debates have existed for …
COVID coaches: tutoring only works when backed by quality teaching directed at the students who really missed out
The injection by NSW and Victorian State Governments of more than half a billion dollars on tutoring programs to help students catch up after Covid-19-related disruptions to normal schooling is welcome. However, there is a need to ensure the intervention is more than an economic ‘sugar hit’ and that it leads to sustained improvement in …