Teacher Magazine (ACER)

In this series, we follow Principal Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr as they navigate the exciting and challenging journey of building a new school community from the ground up. Each month, we touch base for updates and reflections on their progress as their new school, Dayton Primary School, is built in the newly developing suburb of Dayton, located in the eastern metropolitan city of Swan in Perth, Western Australia. Last month, we spoke to Ray and Rachael about setting short- and long-term goals. In this episode, we speak with Ray and Rachael about all things ‘planning’, including how they plan to budgets, how they use visual planning techniques, as well as questions of collaboration and delegation. Host: Zoe Kaskamanidis Guests: Ray Boyd and Rachael Lehr

If you work in a co-educational school, think about current student enrolments for STEM subjects and participation in STEM-related clubs and extracurricular activities. How do the post-school journeys of male and female students differ? Would you say there is a lower number of female students engaged in STEM in your school? We know that, overall, female participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects is lower than that of males, and that schools can play an important part in encouraging girls to pursue education and careers in this area. In this episode, we're joined by Jessica Huynh, Ashanie Perera and Philip Callil. Jessica is the Managing Director of Go Girl, Go for IT, a free one-day technology conference for girls across Australia in Years 5 to 12. The conference aims to expose young girls to the world of IT and the many career options in the field. Ashanie and Phil are teachers at Yarra Valley Grammar, a co-educational school in Melbourne. As Head of Mathematics and Director of IT and Digital Learning, respectively, the conference certainly piqued their interest. This year, they were able to send over 150 girls to the conference, and will share in this episode the impact this has had on their students. Host: Dominique Russell Guests: Jessica Huynh, Ashanie Perera and Philip Callil

How would you describe the culture at your school? There might be many words that come to mind and you might be thinking about your school’s shared goals, beliefs, values and priorities. Recently at Teacher, we’ve shared some stories that look at various elements of school culture – from building a culture of reading from pleasure, to ensuring an environment where staff can ask for help if they need it. In this episode we're going to get you up to speed on these stories, and also some more of my highlights from content we’ve recently published in case you might have missed it. And, like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions throughout the podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues, and discuss together how these stories might be relevant to your school context. Host: Dominique Russell

Welcome to this special episode of The Research Files – which is becoming a bit of an annual tradition for us as our regular listeners will know – where we take a look back on last month’s Research Conference and share some of our highlights with you. The theme for the 2022 ACER Research Conference was ‘Reimagining assessment’ and, like last year, the sessions and masterclasses were fully online, which meant that outside the renowned experts in the field here in Australia, we were able to hear from leading researchers from the UK, the US and Indonesia. Teacher magazine's Zoe Kaskamanidis and Dominique Russell were there to take it all in across the 4 days of the conference, and we’ve selected some clips to share with you, which I’m sure will prompt some further thinking among yourselves and your colleagues. Hosts: Dominique Russell and Zoe Kaskamanidis Podcast supporter: Bank First (bankfirst.com.au)

In this new series, we follow Principal Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr as they navigate the exciting and challenging journey of building a new school community from the ground up. Each month, we touch base for updates and reflections on their progress as their new school, Dayton Primary School, is built in the newly developing suburb of Dayton, located in the eastern metropolitan city of Swan in Perth, Western Australia. Last month, we spoke to Ray about the first 6 months of his journey, and he gave us a great recap of the school’s progress so far. In this episode, we speak with both Rachael and Ray about setting short- and long-term goals, including how they’ve prioritised their goals, responded to unexpected hurdles and managed workload alongside ambition. Host: Zoe Kaskamanidis Guests: Ray Boyd and Rachael Lehr

In this episode, we're joined by Trent Cowley, Principal at Kingston State School, a primary school in the Logan Region of Queensland, about 30 kilometres south of Brisbane. Trent is in his third year as Principal and has recently been named a 2022 Commonwealth Bank Teaching Fellow; being recognised for his contribution to his school community. In this episode, we learn more about what it means to Trent to be a visible leader, how he is working to build staff capacity, and the impact that his collaboration with other principals in the area has had on student outcomes, and the broader community. Host: Dominique Russell Guest: Trent Cowley

Student welfare has come sharply into focus over the past few years as the pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for students and teachers alike. There’s a lot to explore around student welfare in the Teacher archives, and in the lead up to R U OK?Day this month, we’re bringing you some recent examples. In today’s episode we get you up to speed on these stories, and also some of our highlights from this month. And, like all episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions throughout the podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues and discuss together how these stories might be relevant to your school context. Host: Zoe Kaskamanidis Podcast supporter: Academy for Enterprising Girls (enterprisinggirls.com.au)

As a teacher, if you’ve ever been interested in pursuing research alongside your teaching practice but haven’t known where to start, this episode’s for you. Today, we’re joined by Sarah Durack, a secondary Science and Mathematics teacher based in Sydney. Sarah has just finished her Honours thesis on the topic of school to university transition, which she completed part-time while working a full-time teaching job. As a teacher by day and researcher by night, Sarah tells us that while it wasn’t easy, it was certainly rewarding. In this episode, she shares what it was like to juggle this workload, takes us through some of her research findings, and offers some tips for educators who may be interested in pursuing research themselves. Host: Zoe Kaskamanidis Guest: Sarah Durack Podcast supporter: Bank First (www.bankfirst.com.au)

Schools are special spaces; where the affordances of physical design come together with values, purpose and culture, and where school staff work hard to set students up to lead fulfilling lives. But what do schools look like before the hustle and bustle of students and teachers on the grounds? And what is involved with building up a school community from scratch? In this brand new podcast series, we’ll follow Principal Ray Boyd and Associate Principal Rachael Lehr as they navigate the exciting and challenging journey of building a new school community from the ground up. We’ll be touching base each month for updates and reflections on their progress as their new school, under the planning name of West Swan (Dayton) Primary School, is built in the newly developing suburb of Dayton, located in the eastern metropolitan city of Swan in Perth, Western Australia. In this episode, we catch Ray on the road while he drives around sunny Dayton, getting us up to scratch on what’s happened over the past 7 months, since the journey began. Host: Zoe Kaskamanidis Guest: Ray Boyd

At Teacher, we’ve shared content on the impact of playful learning and game-based learning on student outcomes, and what this might look like in the classroom. But how can we extend these same principles to assessment, and why is important to think about assessment in this way? In this episode, I’m joined by two international guests from the United States: Louisa Rosenheck, Director of Pedagogy at the game-based learning platform, Kahoot!, and YJ Kim, Assistant Professor of Design, Creative, and Informal Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Louisa and YJ are presenting at ACER’s Research Conference this year. The online conference kicks off on the 22nd of August, and at the time of publishing this episode, you still have time to register, so I’ll leave a link to the conference on our website, teachermagazine.com, in case you’re interested in finding out more. In our conversation, you’ll get a taste of their conference presentation, and we’ll also discuss what playful assessment looks like, how educators can embed it in the classroom, and the impact of this type of assessment on student outcomes. Guests: Louisa Rosenheck and YJ Kim Host: Dominique Russell