As a Kindergarten Teacher, every year I get asked by parents and colleagues on my thoughts and take on managing weapon and superhero play with my kindergarteners when children show a level of aggression through pretend guns, making pretend weapons and assigning roles such as ‘baddies’ and ‘good guys’.
   Do you allow it or not? What do you do? Isn’t it bad to allow ‘guns’ in their play? Read more

Despite its increasing presence in Australian schools, there needs to be more investigation into whether young people find mindfulness teaching to be of benefit.
  Mindfulness teaching is popular and it is believed that it fosters a number of social and academic benefits but experts on the area question the evidence base on which mindfulness training sits and recent research surveying 28,000 young people found most did not engage with it. Read more

Unfortunately, until now, most STEAM teaching in primary and secondary schools has emphasised theory more than application and hands-on learning. However, it seems that more and more teachers are seeing the potential benefits of adopting educational technology to enhance STEAM learning outcomes. Let's examine further how Edtech and Edutainment can improve STEAM students' education at the K-12 level. Read more

Most school systems have been creative about solving the teacher shortage issue with solutions like lowering experience and degree requirements, combining classrooms, shortening weeks, raising salaries, slowing down retirements, and offering retention and recruitment bonuses, to name a few.
  I propose we start from one pillar that can pave the way for a system's upgrade: to develop students' learning autonomy. Read more

While robotics and artificial intelligence will change the future of work, the consequences of disadvantage will persist.
   Some young Australians from low SES backgrounds who lack informal computer skills and have limited ITS access may be destined to work in 'dead-end' industries.
   Young Australians who grow up in tune with the latest technologies will be less likely to suffer from job losses due to technological advances. Read more

Two large extinct kangaroo species, including one that bounded on four legs rather than hopping on two legs, may have persisted in PNG 40,000 years after they disappeared in Australia.
   "...It may have been because people only visited the Nombe area infrequently and in low numbers until after 20,000 years ago," says ANU Professor of Archaeological Science Tim Denham.
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