Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Five years for teachers to feel confident
To stop early career teachers from exiting the profession, support in the first five years of work is essential with a study finding Victorian teachers gained confidence by the end of that period after struggling with confidence issues initially. Read more

Wakakirri announces Victorian Secondary Story Dance Challenge winners
Victoria’s Secondary Challenge winners for the 2018 Wakakirri Story Dance Challenge were Hoppers Crossing Secondary College, Dromana College and Mount Erin Secondary College. Each school impressed the judges with their original Story Dance productions expressing students’ thoughts, ideas and aspirations.
All three are now in the running for the national Story of the Year Award. Read more

The educational and learning value of explicit teaching and worked examples
Explicit teaching can be thought of as being the specific, direct, example (here is how you do this action/subject/process) talk and presentation that takes place during classroom lessons.
This specific (how you do it) directed classroom talk and presentation, according to pedagogical research, is just the beginning of what explicit teaching and worked example teaching does and what it achieves, in terms of advancing learning, knowledge and understanding. Read more

Aussie teachers working harder than their OS colleagues
Funding cuts to Australian public schools are having a detrimental effect on teachers’ workload and the participation rates for early childhood education.
Australian teachers are teaching larger classes and working significantly more hours than their colleagues overseas, while public funding for education as a percentage of total government expenditure is falling, according to The OECD 2018 Education at a Glance report. Read more

South Australia has first Year 12 end-of-year electronic exam
In a nod to the changing technological face of education more than 2,000 students will become the first in Australia to sit a Year 12 end-of-year electronic exam when the new format is used for Stage 2 English Literary Studies (ELS) on 7 November 2018.
Throughout this week just over 900 students from 44 schools will have the chance to familiarise themselves with the new format when they sit a trial ELS examination.
Read more

NSW’s best educators awarded
The Australian College of Educators (NSW Branch) Excellence in Education Awards recognise educators and/or educational institutions for excellence in educational practice. This includes, but is not limited to, demonstrated excellence in all areas of teaching and learning – curriculum development, student wellbeing, professional development, technology, pedagogy, leadership, innovation, scholarship, indigenous education, learning support and disability education.
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A 10-year plan for women in STEM
The Australian Academy of Science is consulting to develop a 10-year plan to boost women in STEM, an initiative from the 2018–19 Budget.
The plan in is one of a suite of new measures and $4.5 million in new funding to encourage more women to pursue STEM education and careers, building on previous investments made through the National Innovation and Science Agenda of $13 million.
Read more