This week’s blog is a follow up to my article from last year Top 10 maths ideas: When it all gets too hard that I wrote at a similar time, when we were in a similar situation – working, and learning from home. Our schools and teachers have done an amazing job in preparing our…
The range of English literature, English literacy research, and reading resources that is available to teachers in Australian schools is rich and extensive. Any work we want to prepare for our students, whether in a time of online learning, or for working on in the classroom, is improved when it is based on reliable sources.…
The lead up to the end of the financial year is a good opportunity to build your library with the specials that are available. It is also a great time to subscribe to those organisations that you have been meaning to get around to, because you know they will support you in your work. All…
With school holidays approaching in many parts of Australia, I thought it was timely to recommend some holiday reading for primary teachers of mathematics. Last year I wrote a blog titled Keeping up with the current that focused on three mathematics education research articles for teachers to explore. The current blog provides a few recent…
This is the title of an excellent paper by Judith Scott, William Nagy, and Susan Flinspach (2008). I have used this reference in a previous blog on this site, ‘The beginnings of literacy’, and as the basis of our online course, ‘Exploring literacy: Vocabulary’ (available soon). The paper puts the interactive role of vocabulary learning…
‘The theme for Reconciliation Week this year — More Than A Word: Reconciliation Takes Action — encourages the broader community to consider the steps they can take to promote healing and unity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’ Truth-telling and how cultural repatriation is fundamental to the reconciliation process by Jai McAlister We know…
This week’s blog is inspired by research that James Russo, Toby Russo, and Leicha Bragg have recently conducted (and will present at the upcoming MERGA online conference) about factors that influence the mathematical games teachers’ choose. They propose a number of factor themes related to why teachers choose specific games – I will utilise these themes to share a…
We’ve talked about NAPLAN before, and how to maximise its usefulness, as with student growth being a more useful gauge of achievement. But concerns remain. Are you concerned about NAPLAN’s relevance to classroom teaching? lack of attention to the full range of key learning areas? relevance to the full range of students in your class?…
The revision of the NSW English K-10 syllabus for Stage 1, so far, maintains ‘audience’ as a key consideration of in the writing process for students: Students need opportunities to explore how language use in texts differs according to the subject matter, purpose and audience. NESA Teaching strategies Stage 1 Audience is defined and explained…
If you’re teaching Year 5 or Year 6, then this question is one I’d ask your students this week. Last week when I was talking with a Year 5 student, we needed to solve 12 x 18 as part of a larger problem. When I asked, do you know how to work out 12 x…
