Minnis Journals

For Education Leaders

Contextual Intelligence: The Secret Ingredient of Winning Leadership

When examining schools’ performances it is possible to track school leaders who have the ability to turn around failing and mediocre schools. In this article the authors contend that the X-factor of brilliant school leadership may well be what Professor Joseph Nye has called Contextual Intelligence. While this leadership quality is not well known in the school leadership literature, the authors propose that this concept is worth examining in all leadership development activities. Read more

How a Precocious Programmer Would Teach STEM

To say Jason Xu, a former student of Burgmann Anglican School, is good with computers is a slight understatement.
In his first year at the ANU currently, his ability with IT and programming has let him create and release a widely used open-source debugging tool and bypass most of the early computer science course and launch straight into third year subjects. He has some ideas about tech teaching.
Read more

See What You Can Be in STEM

According to Australia’s 2021 Youth in STEM survey 42% of boys aspire to a career in STEM, while only 21% of girls share the same ambition.
It is an odd situation given Australia punches well above its weight in science and inventiveness, the CSIRO is an absolutely world class scientific body and they have taken it upon themselves to promote STEM, especially to girls and less well-off students, through their outreach programs. Read more

Refusers Back in School with Flexible Program

Rates of school refusal are jumping, for a number of reasons, a large cohort of students and their education simply aren’t clicking.
The danger is that as the rest of their peers progress, these students fall further and further behind, compounding their situation.
And the worst-case scenario is that they fall completely by the wayside and set themselves on a very difficult pathway. Interventions are needed.
Read more

AI Teacher Assistant Launches

MyTeacherAide, an AI-powered tool purpose-built to help with the workload teachers endure is going into pilot mode in two months.
MyTeacherAide boasts features such as automated lesson planning and curriculum alignment, and it’s built from the perspective of Australia’s education professionals.
It is the brainchild of two Tasmanian high school teachers, Paul Matthews and Jacob Skierka. Read more

Teacher Education Panel Report Misses

The recent Teacher Education Expert Panel report does not address the workplace issues that make the greatest difference in the retention and further development of teachers and their teaching.
The report acknowledges that there are great teacher education programs nationwide, the knock is too many beginning teachers have reported that they felt they needed to be better equipped for the challenges they faced in the classroom. Read more