Term one, 2009
Each term we will bring you information about current professional issues, learning and research.
This term, our focus is on some of the wider issues that impact on teaching and learning; on factors that operate well beyond the classroom.
Feel free to contact us with your comments, references and ideas:
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Improving low SES students’ access to higher education
People from backgrounds of low socio-economic status (SES) are significantly under-represented in Australian higher education. In urban areas, people from low SES comprise 12.8% of the population but occupy only 9% of higher education places (Universities Australia 2008, 5). However, once enrolled at university, low-SES students in urban areas have similar patterns of retention, success and completion as those from other backgrounds.
Poverty dramatically affects kids’ brains
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.
Happy children learn!
Twenty-four children have delivered "emotion reports" in a classroom study destined for an international audience. In the study conducted by Canterbury University, video cameras were installed in the ceiling of classrooms and trained on individual students, tracking their every move.
Trades face 'class' divide
Middle-class teenagers will continue to shun trades and other industry-based courses unless Australia radically alters how it provides such education, according to one of Australia's leading job-training educators.
The complexity of community and family Influences on children's achievement in New Zealand: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES)
This BES, by the Bidulphs, is a big read, but a really useful consideration of how families and communities influence students’ social and academic achievement. The picture is complex, but one that is hugely important – particularly if we want schools to be seen as part of the answer to improving outcomes for kids, but not the only answer!
