Schools reflect society and societies reflect the schooling of their citizens. Amidst the COVID Pandemic, the failures of many nations to respond effectively and in an equitable manner have been on display for the world. The authors highlight the failure of neoliberal educational policies to create compassionate societies and propose a radical…

This article considers a pilot research project that examines the successes, failures, and best practice approaches for delivering online performing arts education experiences to young people around Australia. In conversation with 15 teaching artists and 18 youth-based arts organisations nationally, it evaluates the challenges and innovations in…

More diversity is now shown in students gaining admission into universities, many who are ill-equipped for first-year studies and assessment writing. This can result in a failing grade for some, which can impact their success and progression. This study contributes to the student success literature by reporting on the six-step one-on-one targeted…

Purpose: Demonstration farming has been an important part of agricultural extension since the first decades of the twentieth century. While Seaman Knapp is often credited with developing demonstration farming, his son acknowledged that the concept has much earlier origins in the nineteenth century development of model/pattern farms. However,…

Considering the political environments of Australia and the United States, the authors discuss the disconnect between policy and the practical needs of educators for creativity in the classroom.

Emerging research points to the importance of developing the capacities of teachers to help their students to be creative risk takers and to learn from productive failure. Facilitating this creative risk taking in learners has been shown to require expertise and a degree of risk taking on the part of both teachers and educational leaders. This…

Purpose: In an effort to boost participation in vocational education and training (VET), in 2009, the Australian Government launched its VET FEE-HELP income-contingent loan programme for VET students. The programme was terminated in 2016 following numerous failed attempts to arrest its escalating costs and improve its performance. In an effort to…

While in most countries today women attain higher levels of education than men, on average, they are less likely than men to be employed and they earn less. There are many reasons why these gender gaps open; some are apparent in secondary school. For example, even when they outperform boys academically, girls are less likely than their male peers…

Creativity is a key to business success, but teaching it is difficult. The authors argue that improving creativity may be a matter of removing barriers to creative thought. Using a course on creativity as a manipulation, the authors investigate measures related to divergent thinking and three such barriers: fear of failure, tolerance for…

This article explores how academic buoyancy, a concept from the educational psychology literature, can be used to understand the experiences of Indigenous secondary students' schooling. Academic buoyancy refers to students' ability to overcome everyday challenges of schooling. In this project, 11 Indigenous secondary students in a remote school…

When learning a new concept, should students engage in problem solving followed by instruction (PS-I) or instruction followed by problem solving (I-PS)? Noting that there is a passionate debate about the design of initial learning, we report evidence from a meta-analysis of 53 studies with 166 comparisons that compared PS-I with I-PS design. Our…

The question of when moral identity first develops in childhood deserves more considered investigation. In this article, we examine the claim that moral identity first emerges in middle-childhood (8-12 years). An approach is taken here whereby a tendency to attribute moral shame under conditions entailing moral identity failure is considered as…

In Australia, teacher education students must pass the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) to meet accreditation requirements. Although this has been mandated since 2016, there are currently few resources available for students to use in preparation for the test. To help students prepare for the numeracy component of…

When athletes fail to perform at an expected level during an important moment, it is implied the athletes have experienced "choking" (sudden decline in performance) under pressure.". Researchers have reported that persistent left-hemispheric activation patterns occur when an athlete experiences considerable performance…

The Australian Science Teachers Association offers an innovative international professional development program for science teachers called the Science Teachers Exchange -- Japan. The program offers Australian and Japanese teachers an opportunity to travel to the corresponding country, allowing the teachers to grow in their knowledge of the…