EdPod
EdPod presents a mix of education stories from early childhood to the end of secondary school. It's a jargon-free look at the experience of educators, researchers, parents and students. EdPod examines new education ideas, and asks whether things could or should be done differently. From the classroom to the staff room and on to the home, EdPod brings you the latest ideas about learning.
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6 Episodes of this Podcast:
EdPod 2009-10-29
Published: 2009-10-28 10:00:00School music in Boneo Radio National´s Bush Telegraph recently broadcast from the Boneo primary school on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. They visited because the school is one of many around the nation who were preparing to join in a wonderful event called Count Us In. It´s a campaign that celebrates music education in schools. Bush Tele´s Michael McKenzie spoke to Boneo primary music teacher Sally Walsh and asked her how many times she had been involved in Count Us In. Australian school teacher qualifications Recently the AM program reported that, according to a survey by the Australian Education Union, students across the country are increasingly being taught by teachers who are not working in their area of expertise. The union found that in 60% of secondary schools, teachers were working in fields they weren´t fully qualified in. The shortage was most acute in mathematics and technology. Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority Professor Barry McGaw is chair of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. He spoke recently at a seminar hosted by Learning Difficulties Australia. The reporting website Professor McGaw spoke about seems to be on track, it´s expected that school profiles will be published online before the start of the next school year. Of course many people opposed to 'league tables' will have something to say about that in the meantime. School disability funding Macquarie University's Dr Linda Graham says that schools in New South Wales are pressuring parents to get their children diagnosed with behavioural disorders to secure additional disability services funding.
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EdPod 2009-10-15
Published: 2009-10-14 10:00:00Free schools of Sweden With a general election now less than seven months away, most pundits and pollsters say the Tories will form the next government. Central to their plans will be so-called free schools, modelled on the hugely successful Swedish education system. Sweden lets anyone, not just religious groups, set up a school and receive 100 per cent government funding to support it. Europe correspondent Emma Alberici has been to Sweden to see how the system works. Language teaching in Australian schools Almost 90 per cent of senior high school students learn no second language at all. Professor Joseph Lo Bianco wants language teaching to be re-prioritised, based not on the old arguments of improving economic ties with nations, but on the personal benefits of learning a language. Dealing with exam stress It's the time of year parents and students alike dread: end of school exams are approaching. We all feel a certain amount of stress when we´re put to the test, be it exams, job interviews, performance reviews, or any number of things in our lives. When the anxiety overwhelms us, we don´t perform at our best and that's when it's time to get on top of exam stress. Teaching ethics in schools How can ethics and values best be taught in our schools? Dr Neil Hawkes believes that values need to be drawn from the community and are best taught through modelling by teachers, principals and parents.
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EdPod 2009-10-01
Published: 2009-09-30 10:00:00ADHD latest research A leading ADHD researcher has called for the latest brain science to be included in teacher training, not just for new teachers. Professor Rosemary Tannock says if classroom teachers better understood what we now know about how the brains of ADHD children work differently, then children with ADHD and other learning difficulties might have more success at school. She says modifications can be made to teaching styles which would benefit many children, not just those with ADHD. Professor Tannock says ADHD needs to be seen as a learning problem, not a behavioural problem or the result of poor parenting. Education the UK way Australia will soon have a national curriculum; we now have more national testing and pretty soon more reporting on school results will be available. What can we learn from a country that has already implemented all of these reforms? Sir Jim Rose is one of Britain´s leading education figures. For many years he headed the UK´s school inspection service and he has led several reviews into British education, including one of the primary curriculum, one on how to teach children to read most effectively and just recently one into the teaching of kids with dyslexia and learning difficulties.
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EdPod 2009-09-17
Published: 2009-09-16 10:00:00Teaching our children to be happy What role do our schools have in teaching children to be happy? What life skills do children learn from their teachers? And how can educators nurture moral autonomy and self-confidence in children? Those were some of the questions tackled at a panel discussion at the 'Happiness and Its Causes' conference earlier this year.
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EdPod 2009-09-03
Published: 2009-09-02 10:00:00Let's Pretend I'm Dead You´ve probably watched kids playing hundreds of times and remember the games you played when you were young. Play is worth doing for its own sake, for the sheer fun of it, but these days it's thought to have added value as well, play based learning is an important idea in early childhood education. But what if the play is unacceptable to adults? Brent Mawson is an education researcher; recently he began observing three- and four-year-olds to better understand the way they play together. But he got something of a surprise. Scientists in schools How might a potato researcher contribute to improving Australian education? How could an engineer of artificial hearts help engage students? And how would you go about making an entire school go fungi mad? Just put a scientist in a school, apparently, and see what happens. This national program partners scientists with a teacher and their school to improve science learning in a whole raft of ways. Steiner schools and the national curriculum The new national school curriculum aims to define what should be taught and what children should be learning at each year level in all schools across the country. What's in it, though, is still a bit of a mystery, but all Australian schools have had to agree to use the curriculum as a condition of receiving federal funding. For schools with their own unique educational philosophy and teaching methods, the standardisation could present problems. Steiner schools are one such case, and there are sixty of them around the country. Annie Hastwell visited one of the oldest, the Waldorf school at Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills.
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EdPod 2009-08-20
Published: 2009-08-19 10:00:00School transparency and accountability: the UK way? Recently, experienced educator Dr Ken Boston visited Australia to add his thoughts to the debate over national testing, league tables and school transparency. He says that there is a way to have the transparency Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard wants, while addressing concerns about the impact of school ranking. The solution, he says, is independently audited 'rich reporting' of schools, not simple league tables. He also says that in the UK underperforming schools are not tolerated in the best interests of students. Science education and science careers Did you like science at school? Maybe you enjoyed it but couldn't see a future for yourself as a scientist in a lab. It seems that lots of senior students struggle to connect what they learn in science at school with potential careers. In South Australia a campaign is underway to help young people imagine all the options for working in science related jobs.
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