They’re coming to take the chairs at 3:00pm today. You haven’t heard? Last week, the Herald Sun ran a poll asking, “should teachers be forced to stand?” I guess it was a slow news day, but nonetheless, I’m forever humbled by the expertise of the general public when it comes to best practice in teaching. […]
Through a culture of high stakes testing (e.g.: NAPLAN) and the rise of ‘audit culture’ in education, we have created a school climate of standardized, neat conformity. As a result, kids are understandably tempted to produce neat, standardized answers. To achieve this, they are increasingly outsourcing their thinking to AI. Is anyone surprised by this? […]
By Melanie Ralph. Last year I had an amazing opportunity to take part in the University of Adelaide’s filming for their Classroom Confidence Micro-credentials course. These continuing education courses are free and self-paced, focusing on classroom management, explicit teaching, and phonics. It was a pleasure to meet the team, which was led by Joanna Anderson, […]
While taking a tour around Ross Parker’s blog recently, I came across his lovely graphic of “The Learning Zone” – another term to describe what Vygotsky essentially outlines with his “Zone of Proximal Development” concept. I won’t lie: I haven’t thought about Vygotsky since my uni days – so this mini refresher was really useful! […]
Melanie Ralph 