This article is basically an advertisement for a new book called 'What Makes a Good School' by Jane Caro and Chris Bonner. I thought that members might be interested in the book or find the article to be of some interest. Feel free to share your comments.
Finding a formula for good schools July 23, 2012 Chris Bonnor MOST people spend about 2500 days of their life in school, time enough to develop an opinion about what was good and bad about their experience. We all know someone who is more than happy to share their stories and subsequent expertise in all things educational; teachers often complain that, almost alone among professionals, they are sitting targets for unsolicited advice on how to do their job.
This link connects to an ABC National radio program which was broadcast on Thursday, 7th June. The program summary is as follows:
One teacher in front of a large class of students, all about the same age and all working on the same task. This is the model of schooling that we’ve inherited from the nineteenth century but with new technology do schools need to be organized this way? Are virtual classrooms and individual learning programs the school of the future.
I found it quite interesting. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Millions slashed from education department July 19, 2012 - 5:48PM Daniel Hurst - brisbanetimes.com.au state political reporter UPDATED Almost $23 million in cuts are to be made to spending by the Department of Education, Training and Employment, and the state government has warned there is more to come.
Minister John-Paul Langbroek said today he had submitted $22.8 million in savings from his portfolio by reducing expenditure on Parent Awareness Strategies, cutting advertising and reducing research and policy programs.
He also confirmed Fanfare, a biennial music festival for Queensland state school bands and orchestras, would be axed after this year.
But Mr Langbroek said the $88,000 Fanfare program was ending “as part of the Newman government's plan to get Queensland's budget back on track and keep the LNP's promise to protect frontline services”.
Focus education reform on teacher quality: Pyne Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 16/07/2012 Reporter: Steve Cannane
Opposition Education spokesman Christopher Pyne says teacher training and quality is more important than reduced class sizes or increasing teacher salaries.
Time to scrap the OP score in favour of national rating system, say Queensland educators by Robyn Ironside July 09, 2012 EDUCATORS say the move to a national curriculum means now is a good time to scrap what they describe as an outdated way to rank Queensland's high school students - the Overall Position score or OP.
Introduced in 1992 in place of the Tertiary Entrance (TE) score, the OP shows how well a student has performed in their senior secondary studies on a scale of one to 25, compared with all other OP-eligible students.
But its relevance is now being questioned, with the proportion of OP-eligible students plunging to 55.8 per cent last year, down from 81.7 per cent when it was first introduced.
This link from Edudemic provides an interesting infographic on some of the key advancements in the 21st century classroom. Some of the key facts include:
91% of teachers have computers in the classroom
Just 20% think they have the right level of technology in the classroom
29% of teachers use social networks...80% of college professors do.
What are your thoughts on the graphic? Are there any other facts that you want to point out?
PARENTAL occupation and education levels have less influence on whether students finish year 12 than factors such as being suspended, repeating a grade or risky behaviour, a new study has found.
While previous research has identified a strong link between students completing year 12 and measures of their parents' education or occupational status, a report from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, released today, found that the main predictors of year 12 completion were factors such as poor school experiences, low aspirations, smoking and consumption of alcohol.
This presentation is by Steve Wheeler, who gave the keynote at the e-learning 2.0 conference at Brunel University in West London. It contains a number of facts and raises a number of issues which may be useful in ICT discussions in schools.
Students struggle to evaluate credibility on the net A study of students’ ability to evaluate digital texts has revealed that teenagers find it particularly difficult to determine the credibility and trustworthiness of material on the internet. ACER Senior Research Fellow Tom Lumley and ACER Research Director Juliette Mendelovits report on research investigating how well young people deal with information online.
The study found that 15-year olds were more capable at identifying contradictory information during online reading, than when critically evaluating digital texts for credibility and trustworthiness which was relatively challenging for students. So-called ‘digital natives’ need to be taught how to make evaluations and be given criteria for helping them do so.
There has been some discussion in UK papers throughout the past week about the value of reading for pleasure in a child's education. The discussion came about as a result of a survey of 400 teachers conducted by Pearson.
Children with short attention spans 'failing to read books' By Graeme Paton, Education Editor 20 Jun 2012
Growing numbers of children are being turned off books by the end of primary school because of the influence of the internet and lack of reading in the home, according to research.
More than four-in-10 teachers said children failed to read for pleasure at the age of 11, it emerged.
The study – by the publisher Pearson – found that many schools fear children have short attention spans and prefer to spend time online rather than reading a novel.
