6 myths about cerebral palsy
Around 34,000 Australians live with cerebral palsy – and 1 in every 500 babies is diagnosed with it. But cerebral palsy (or CP) is often misunderstood and stigmatised. Not all people with CP use a wheelchair, have an intellectual disability or are…
What Role Does Empathy Play In Learning?
So much talk about empathy in education recently. Why? What’s the big idea? The role of empathy in learning has to do with the flow of both information and creativity. A dialogic interaction with the world around us requires us…
Show your support for families living with childhood cancer
It was on a typical Sunday night a couple of years ago that mother-of-three, Simone, noticed that something wasn’t right with her 5-year-old son. As hard as he tried, Hayden couldn’t use his left arm to undress for the bath….
Crafting Fair Assessments for Flexible Assignments
Teachers are called to create deeper, more flexible learning opportunities for students to learn at high levels. This often raises questions about how to assess student work, given that student products may range from podcasts to digital storybooks, virtual reality…
Perfume stinks: how fragrances can affect your health
If you avoid the perfume counter in department stores or wear a mask while cleaning your home, you’re not alone. They may smell sweet, but fragrances can make a person feel sick. About 1 in 3 people report having health…
Take medicines seriously
An estimated 9 million Australians take prescription medicine every day, and many more pop over-the-counter medications such as paracetamol and vitamins. Almost one-quarter of a million people are hospitalised each year due to problems caused by their medication. Medicines play…
Using Discussion as a Summative Assessment
Throughout my two decades in education, I have experimented with a variety of approaches to assessment, including projects, models, debates, and traditional assessments. In the past two years I’ve been teaching high school online, and I’ve abandoned traditional tests in…
5 reasons to look after your eyes
You only get one pair of eyes. And while people often develop serious eye conditions as they age, or because of illness and injury, there are plenty of things you can do to protect your peepers from unnecessary damage. Here are 5…
Testing times for HIV
New notifications of HIV (the Human Immunodeficiency Virus) have — overall — stabilised in recent years. But HIV diagnoses have also increased in some population groups. Australia has made great progress in HIV prevention within the gay community. For example, HIV diagnoses in gay…
18 Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning
II. It’s an extraordinary amount of work to design precise and personalized assessments that illuminate pathways forward for individual students–likely too much for one teacher to do so consistently for every student. This requires rethinking of learning models, or encourages…