The importance of teaching: ensuring better schooling by building teacher capacities that maximize the quality of teaching and learning provision – implications of findings from the international and Australian evidence-based research

Given the level of consensus regarding the importance of school education as an essential element of micro- and macro economic reform, policy issues surrounding school and teacher effectiveness are of particular importance. However, much of the traditional and prevailing dogmas surrounding ‘factors’ affecting students’ experiences and outcomes of schooling throughout their primary and secondary years, especially socio-cultural and socio-economic factors, are now understood to be products of methodological and statistical artifact, and amount to little more than ‘religious’ adherence to the moribund ideologies of biological and social determinism. Above all, a good deal of this ‘discourse’ is not supported by findings from evidence-based research. In this paper, key findings are presented that highlight ‘real’ effects from the related international and Australian research on educational effectiveness. For example, whereas students’ literacy skills, general academic achievements, attitudes, behaviors and experiences of schooling are influenced by their background and intake characteristics, the magnitude of these effects pale into insignificance compared with quality teaching. That is, the quality of teaching and learning provision are by far the most salient influences on students’ cognitive, affective, social and behavioral outcomes of schooling – regardless of their gender or backgrounds and the schools in which they are enrolled. Indeed, findings from the related local and international evidence-based research indicate that ‘what matters most’ in ‘making school better’ is quality teaching: by competent teachers, beginning with initial teacher education and training supported by strategic, on-going capacity building via teacher professional development

Assessment during the early and middle years: getting the basics right

Following a contextual introduction and a brief discussion of the fundamental importance of monitoring growth, this paper draws from emerging evidence-based research findings and ‘state-of-the art’ practice in assessment and reporting of students’ developmental and learning progress. The paper argues that the monitoring of individual progress over time requires both diagnostic and developmental assessments of such progress on well-constructed empirical scales (or quantitative ‘maps’) that are qualitatively described. The use of such ‘maps’ enables early detection of potential ‘risk factors’, and the monitoring of both individuals and groups across the years of schooling. Such ‘maps’ and their reporting products constitute major aids in: (a) the integration of assessment into the teaching and learning cycle, (b) assisting children and adolescents to take ‘ownership’ of their learning and achievement progress, and (c) communicating with parents and other interested stakeholders

The Importance of Teacher Quality As A Key Determinant of Students’ Experiences and Outcomes of Schooling

Much of the traditional and prevailing dogmas surrounding factors affecting students\u27 experiences and outcomes of schooling throughout their primary and secondary years - especially socio-cultural and socio-economic factors - are now understood to be products of methodological and statistical artefact, and amount to little more than religious adherence to the moribund ideologies of biological and social determinism. In this paper, key findings are presented highlighting real effects from recent and emerging local and international research on educational effectiveness. For example, whereas students\u27 literacy skills, general academic achievements, attitudes, behaviours and experiences of schooling are influenced by the background and intake characteristics, the magnitude of these effects pale into insignificance compared with class/teacher effects. This is, the quality of teaching and learning provision are by far the most salient findings from the related local and international evidence-based research indicate that what matters most is quality teachers and teaching, supported by strategic teacher professional development

Middle Schooling: What\u27s The Evidence?

Is middle schooling more effective than the traditional primary to secondary school structure? What happens in schools is more important than how they are arranged

Graduate Skills Assessment : Stage One Validity Study

The Graduate Skills Assessment (GSA) is a new test with complex aims and is in the first stages of development and application. Principally, the test aims to assess a set of valued and widely applicable generic skills that may be developed by the university experience and which are relevant to university achievement and graduate work. This publication reports on the validity of the first stage of the Graduate Skills Assessment test (GSA Stage One Validity Study), which covers the first two tests, Exit 2000 and Entry 2001. These tests involved the participation of 3663 students drawn from nine broad fields of study across 27 Australian universities. Details of these populations are given in the GSA Summary Reports (Hambur & Glickman, 2001, Hambur & Le, 2001). The study was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs

The natural setting of Caution Bay: climate, landforms, biota, and environmental zones

In this chapter, we review the present and past environment of Caution Bay set in a broader geographical context, including both terrestrial and marine habitats. Our primary objective is to sketch the general canvas upon which the past 6,000 or so years of local human presence, as represented by the Caution Bay archaeological record, played out. A secondary objective is to document the range of contemporary landforms and explore the spatial distribution and ecological dynamics of the various plant and animal communities that still occupy the present landscape, or did so at the time when Europeans first arrived in the 1870s. Knowledge of the contemporary landscape and its resources represents the starting point for inferring continuities and changes in ways of life for the region's past inhabitants as these are tracked back from the present to the mid-Holocene, and ultimately for understanding the choices people made as they balanced various primary extractive and commercial activities to maintain cultural practices, adopt and develop new ones, survive and prosper. Relationships between people and locales at Caution Bay were, and continue to be, dynamic, with people playing a major role in shaping both the physical and biological landscape, just as the landscape and its resources have influenced the course of human history in this area

Emerging out of Lapita at Caution Bay

[Extract] The discovery in 2010 of stratified Lapita assemblages at Caution Bay near Port Moresby, south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) (David et al. 2011; McNiven et al. 2011), brought to the fore a series of important questions (Richards et al. 2016), many of which also apply to other parts of Island Melanesia where Lapita sites have been known for many decades. Unlike other parts of Melanesia, however, at Caution Bay some of the Lapita sites also have pre-Lapita horizons. A number are culturally very rich. At Caution Bay, where the oldest confirmed Lapita finds date to no earlier than c. 2900 cal BP (McNiven et al. 2012a), the major questions do not concern the earliest expressions of Lapita around 3300–3400 cal BP. Rather, here we are concerned more with identifying how assemblages associated with the Lapita cultural complex arrived and transformed along the south coast, after a presence in coastal and island regions to the northeast over the previous 400 years. These concerns contain both spatial and temporal elements: how and when, as a prelude to why, particular cultural traits continued and changed across Caution Bay. Tanamu 1 is the first of 122 archaeological sites excavated in Caution Bay upon which we will report. As a site, it represents the ideal entry point, as being a coastal site which contains pre-Lapita, Lapita and post-Lapita horizons it encapsulates many of the signatures, trends and transformations seen across the >5000 year Caution Bay sequence at large. Of special note in the wider context of Lapita archaeology, the presence of rich pre-Lapita horizons is what makes Caution Bay so important both in and of itself and for the Lapita story

Stroke mimics transported by emergency medical services to a comprehensive stroke center : the magnitude of the problem

Background: Despite the use of validated prehospital stroke screens, stroke mimics are frequent among patients transported by Emergency Medical Services to the Emergency Department. We aimed to describe the frequency and characteristics of neurological and non-neurological mimics transported to a comprehensive stroke center for acute stroke evaluation. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of a database consisting of all consecutive patients with suspected stroke transported to the Emergency Department of a comprehensive stroke center during an 18-month period. Hospital charts and neuroimaging were utilized to adjudicate the final diagnosis (acute stroke, stroke mimic, and specific underlying diagnoses). Results: 950 patients were transported with suspected stroke, among whom 405 (42.6%) were stroke mimics (age 66.9±17.1 years; 54% male). Neurological mimics were diagnosed in 223 (55.1%) patients and mimics were non-neurological in 182. The most common neurological diagnoses were seizures (19.7%), migraines (18.8%) and peripheral neuropathies (11.2%). Cardiovascular (14.6%) and psychiatric (11.9%) diagnoses were common non-neurological mimics. Patients with neurological mimic were younger (64.1±17.3 years vs. 70.5±16.1 years, p<0.001) and had less vascular risk factors than non-neurological mimics. The proportion of non-neurological mimics remained high (38%) despite the use of a prehospital identification scale. Conclusion: Stroke mimics are common among patients transported by Emergency Medical Services to a comprehensive stroke center for suspected stroke, with a considerable proportion being non-neurological in origin. Studies refining triage and transport of suspected acute stroke may be warranted to minimize the number of mimics transported by to a comprehensive stroke center for acute stroke evaluation

Tanamu 1: A 5000 year sequence from Caution Bay

[Extract] Archaeological sites across Caution Bay often contain distinctive artefactual horizons of varying ages, making it possible to investigate cultural trends at a range of spatial and temporal scales over extended periods of time. Tanamu 1 is a site of particular interest because of its three distinct major occupation horizons that start with the pre-ceramic, followed by Lapita, and end with post-Lapita. The aim of this chapter is to report details of the site, focusing on its chronostratigraphy, so that its various cultural materials (reported in detail in Chapters 3–7) can be examined in context