Minnis Journals

For Education Leaders

Are Students Becoming Attracted to Distraction?

There are 200 billion tweets sent per year worldwide. There are 74 trillion emails sent per year worldwide. Holding our attention and not getting sidetracked by someone or something else has never been more challenging. Online we are bombarded by ads that distract or attract us from the task at hand. We are primed to move from what we find as unpleasurable to something more pleasurable. This does, however, set us up to be attracted to our distractions. Read more

Let Us Teach

While the teaching profession is complex, across the country, teachers are pretty unified about what they want more of: time.
The fact is schools have become increasingly complex environments and that complexity has led to a greater ask on teachers and leaders. But the issues are not intractable and putting teachers’ needs front and centre is a good first step to creating a happier, more stable workforce.
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Student Teachers in Classrooms from Week 1

A radical new learning approach will see student teachers begin working in a classroom from the first week of their teaching degree. The Reimagining Teacher Education (RiTE) project, from Southern Cross University launched in collaboration with the Diocese of Lismore Catholic Schools, is designed to transform how teachers are prepared for the classroom in both primary and secondary schools.
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Five Priorities to Prepare Students for a Changing World

We have seen the convulsions that AI has unleashed and there are sure to be more.
So how does a student navigate this landscape?
There are five abilities which should be instilled in the face of change and uncertainty, we should foster including greater self-management skills to help students navigate uncertainty and reframing subject knowledge to increase its value in age of AI.
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New Regional Scholarships Represent a Rethink

A new suite of regional scholarships by La Trobe University will target non-school leavers and other underrepresented student cohorts to support regional and rural Australians who may face barriers to university study.
While traditional scholarships mainly focus on high-achieving school leavers, the Regional Achievement, Regional Access and Regional Indigenous scholarships deliberately expand the reach.
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Young People Care Little for Politicians Disengage from Politics

Young Australians cast informal votes due to immaturity or laziness, that’s the prevailing wisdom, and also indicative of the problem, and also untrue.
Politics is not engaging with the young and so the young are caring less about politics, politicians and a system that has ignored them.
Political alienation, rather than immaturity, is the primary cause of young Australians voting informally. Read more