Minnis Journals

For Education Leaders

Maximising impact on student learning: high effect size strategies in a science classroom
As an early career teacher, more so than experienced teachers, you are exposed to numerous teaching practices that all work to enable greater student learning. These varying practices are all supported by copious amounts of evidence and all prove to be appealing to a newly graduate teacher. It creates a problem – they can’t all be implemented at once, but how do we know which practices we should be using and which will work best? Read more

Wakakirri Story Dance on track for a spectacular 2020
Wakakirri is 28 years young and still growing strongly. Australia’s largest performing arts event for schools welcomed 38,000 students from almost 300 schools performing in 52 shows at 14 venues nationally in 2019.
   Participation levels were particularly high and seem set to rise again with hundreds of schools already registered for 2020. Most encouragingly the level of interest currently being received from secondary schools across all states is unprecedented.
   Wakakirri believes great stories can open hearts and minds and inspire change.
Read more

Legislation, online threats make data management critical
The amount of data we are gathering is huge and only getting bigger, the irony is that the more we have, the more we know, the more questions arise, as does uncertainty about legal culpability. Read more

Project Based Learning Three-Day Institute 6–8 October
Having students engage with real world problems with Project Based Learning is one of the better ways of delivering knowledge and encouraging soft skills like communication and cooperation.
The approach is suited to most parts of the curriculum and has been encouraged by leading thinkers like John Hattie. Delivering it to students can take many forms and some help in formulating a PBL initiative has to be welcome. Over a 30-year period, PBL Works has crafted an explicit model of high quality PBL that works.
Read more

Capture them young! Engaging students with technology
Creating an environment and providing opportunities for students to engage with technology from an early age ‘hooks’ them in! Integrating technology across the curriculum and offering clubs and events like ‘Coding & Robotics’, Inter-house Robotics Competition, STEMies and 'TechMate', inspires students to create with technology. Read more

Teach For Australia looking for Associates
Applications are now open to join Teach For Australia’s (TFA) newest cohort of Associates (teachers) through its Leadership Development Program.
TFA seeks to break the cycle of educational inequity, as it stands children from the lowest income households are on average three years behind in school.
The Program is an employment based pathway into teaching, where Associates study towards their Master of Teaching in partnership with ACU, while teaching in schools serving low socioeconomic communities. Read more

Educator Impact Pulse measures ongoing school and student wellbeing
Flight is easy to understand in theory: lift + thrust = weight + drag. But in practice, crossing the channel remained out-of-reach until MacCready transformed test flights from a rare, high-stakes, summative event, into a cadence that was frequent, familiar, and formative.
And the same approach can be applied to education. Read more

Play in nature essential for children
The increasingly isolated, urban lives that children live means that they’re often unable to muck about in the bush and that’s been identified as a bad thing for their physical and social development.
A world first review of the importance of nature play should support investment in city and urban parks, which will improve children’s physical, social and emotional development.
Conducted by the University of South Australia the systematic review explored the impacts of nature play on the health and development of children aged 2-12 years, finding that nature play improved children’s complex thinking skills, social skills and creativity. Read more