Reading, writing and arithmetic

The latest international survey of student reading and writing skills around the world shows a common decline, and Australia isn’t bucking the trend, with screen addiction and lack of respect for teachers offering potential explanations.

A is for app

A new Flinders University study of primary school children suggests a phonics reading app can accelerate early reading while helping teachers identify students needing extra support.

Intensive early years intervention works

One quarter of Australian kids are ‘developmentally vulnerable’ when they start school but quality childcare can help them catch up.

“Engagement” isn’t education

A new report from the American Psychological Association warns that student engagement with educational technology is not the same as learning, and generative AI tools pose particular risks by improving students’ immediate performance without building underlying knowledge or skills.

Teaching right from wrong

We make time for sport and music as well as maths at school because we think they matter for a good life, so if knowing right from wrong matters at least as much, it has earned at least a little time on the timetable.

No means no

Sexual assault in Australia’s universities is a major and still under-reported programme. Australian universities are now required to implement evidence-based sexual violence prevention programs, but are they doing any good?

Reading the world

Two thirds of Australian students are said to have strong, or at least ‘proficient’ reading skills, but how good are they at telling fact from fiction in a media world dominated by influencers and AI slop?

Civics education in Australia

The education system is producing is a population of young people who do not understand how government works and therefore feel confused by, and alienated from, its workings.

Short cuts

Figures from plagiarism detection software used by Australia’s universities show that over half of students’ assignments used some form of AI and a tenth of assignments were over 80% AI generated.

Protecting universities from antisemitism

Evidence suggests offers a range of useful clues about which approaches are most likely to help and where universities should focus their efforts to rid university campuses of rampant antisemitism.

It’s not that difficult guys

Australian universities will have to adopt their own definitions of racism next year but why is it so hard for unis to agree on a definition of ‘antisemitism’?

Teaching in the age of AI

What is the future of university education when students can pass a course by auto-generating answers and submitting them without reading them or learning anything?