Media Releases

Business and community leaders build partnerships with schools

The Principal for a Day collaboration between Victorian Government schools and their communities will celebrate its 10th anniversary on 24 August when more than 100 business and community leaders take the reins of schools across the state. The 2010 Principals for a Day include The Hon John Brumby, Premier of Victoria; The Hon Bronwyn Pike, Minister for Education; The Hon Ted Baillieu, Leader of the Opposition; Susie Babani, Group Managing Director HR, ANZ Bank; Jodi Cryan, Head of Schools First at National Australia Bank; Patrick Coleman, Director Policy, Business Council of Australia; Steven Staikos, Mayor of the City of Kingston; Scott Rossetti, Mayor, Wellington Shire Council; Gabriel Gaté, International Chef and Author; Ian Allen, Trustee, the Pratt Foundation; and Jeannette Powell, State Member for Shepparton.
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Success in maths adds up to personal power
Research Conference

Students’ attitudes to mathematics can determine their success or failure, and ultimately their social status as adults, according to emeritus professor of the philosophy of mathematics education at Exeter University in the United Kingdom Paul Ernest. Professor Ernest will speak about the social outcomes of learning maths at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conference in Melbourne today.
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Counting is not the only way to add up
Research Conference

Counting is not the only way that children can solve arithmetic problems a mathematics conference in Melbourne will hear today. In a presentation to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference Robert Reeve, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne, will describe how Indigenous children from remote areas of the Northern Territory were able to add successfully by reproducing a pattern from memory.
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Fundamental maths competencies often overlooked
Research Conference

Six competencies that are fundamental to the development of ‘mathematical literacy’, or a person’s ability to apply their mathematical knowledge to practical situations, was presented at the ACER Research Conference in Melbourne earlier today. The competencies are communication, mathematising, representation, reasoning, devising strategies, and using symbolic, formal and technical language and operations.
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Culture and language must be considered in mathematics learning
Research Conference

Planning for quality learning in maths must take culture, language, attendance and core mathematical understanding into consideration to help Indigenous learners succeed, according to a paper presented earlier today at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference in Melbourne. Griffith University Professor of Education, Robyn Jorgensen, told conference delegates that Indigenous students may have gaps in their mathematical understanding, lower attendance rates, culture and languages that are significantly different from that of mainstream schools.
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Mathematics teaching and learning to reach beyond the basics
Research Conference

Mathematics teachers and textbooks should provide more instruction on reasoning to encourage learning that goes beyond the basics, University of Melbourne Foundation Professor of Mathematics Education Kaye Stacey will tell the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conference on Tuesday. In the opening keynote address on day two of the annual research conference, Professor Stacey will draw on her research into mathematical reasoning and suggest why and how it should be given a more prominent place in Australian mathematics classrooms.
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Technology must partner not serve mathematics learning
Research Conference

Digital technology should be a partner to learning mathematics rather than a servant by becoming a substitute for work done with a pencil and paper according to a University of Queensland academic. In her address to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference in Melbourne on Monday, Professor Merrilyn Goos will discuss the ways in which research, classroom practice and curriculum policy in the use of digital technologies line up with each other and inform each other.
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Mathematics curriculum must address ‘spectacular’ student diversity
Research Conference

A leading American expert in mathematics education will tell delegates to a Melbourne conference on Monday that curriculum standards set for students are written as an ‘immaculate progression’ but in reality students arrive each day with a spectacular variety of mathematical biographies. More consideration must be given to the diversity among students. Philip Daro, one of three leading the writing of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Mathematics in the United States is visiting Australia to deliver a keynote address to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference. Each state in the U.S. has had its own standards until now. The CCSS have been adopted by over 30 states.
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English restricts the language of mathematics
Research Conference

The international mathematics education community’s capacity to study, understand and enact classroom practice is constrained by the dominance of the English language, Professor David Clarke will tell the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference in Melbourne today. In the opening keynote address Professor Clarke, the Director of the International Centre for Classroom Research at the University of Melbourne, will tell delegates that the emergence of English as the ‘lingua franca’ has restricted international access to some of the subtle and sophisticated concepts used by mathematics teachers and teacher educators in non-English speaking countries.
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Low expectations lead to under-performance in mathematics education
Research Conference

Low expectations are contributing to the under-performance of Australian students in school mathematics according to the chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Professor Geoff Masters. In his opening address to this year’s ACER Research Conference, ‘Teaching Mathematics? Make it Count’, in Melbourne on Monday, Professor Masters will tell almost 800 delegates that school mathematics is widely perceived as difficult, obscure and of limited relevance to many students. “There appears to be a belief that only a small percentage of students can excel in mathematics,” Professor Masters said speaking ahead of the conference.
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Making mathematics teaching count
Research Conference

Teachers, policy makers and researchers will gather in Melbourne next week to review state-of-the-art research in mathematics education and debate how lessons learned from this research can be put into practice. The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference opens on Monday. The conference is a sell out and, with around 800 delegates, one of ACER’s largest ever conferences. ACER’s chief executive Professor Geoff Masters says the theme of this year’s conference was chosen to highlight that mathematics education is an area of high priority in Australia.
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ACER to lead global higher learning study

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is set to lead the first global assessment of higher education students’ knowledge and skills. ACER will head a group of international organisations to conduct a feasibility study into the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO), run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
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Survey to quiz 300,000 on engagement with learning
AUSSE

In August around 300,000 students and over 10,000 teaching staff will be invited to report on their engagement with learning and many of the broader, more enriching aspects of higher education by taking part in the 2010 Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE). The survey will involve students and staff from 54 higher education institutions – 32 Australian universities, seven New Zealand universities, and 15 other higher education providers.
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Turning up and tuning in key to Indigenous education
PISA

Indigenous students are performing well below the Australian average in international tests and student attitudes, behaviours and backgrounds could provide some of the keys to understanding this, according to a report launched today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). The report is based on findings from all three completed cycles of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is managed nationally by ACER.
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Uni students lacking staff contact
AUSSE

The largest ever survey of current higher education students in Australia and New Zealand has revealed worrying findings about interactions between students and their teachers. The 2009 Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) involved over 30,000 students from 35 higher education institutions. A public report on the results was released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
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Students improve computer skills but gaps in achievement remain
ICT

The latest findings of the National Assessment Program- ICT Literacy, conducted for the Australian government by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) reveal mixed results in Australian students’ proficiency with computers. A nationally representative sample of approximately 11 000 students from around 600 schools across Australia completed computer-based assessments in October and November 2008. This was the second administration of the national assessment, which was first carried out in 2005. Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard released a detailed report on the 2008 national assessment on 22 April.
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Kids who walk are on track to better health

Children who walk to school are more physically active in their day-to-day activities around their neighbourhood than those children who are driven to school, a new study finds. The study, undertaken for VicHealth by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), also suggests that children who walk to school are significantly more connected with their local community.
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Improving learning for 80 years

80 years ago, on 1 April 1930, two staff members, Ken Cunningham, the inaugural chief executive and secretary Mary Campbell, established ACER's first office in two rooms of the T&G building on the corner of Collins and Russell Streets in central Melbourne. By the end of the 1930s ACER's total staff had expanded to five. From that humble beginning ACER has grown into one of the world's leading educational research bodies with an expanding national and international presence. Eight decades after the organisation was founded, ACER has more than 300 staff working in offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Dubai and Delhi. This article briefly outlines the ACER journey.
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Social networking provides new opportunities for learning
AER

Information Communication technologies (ICT) including social networking and games provide new opportunities for education a review of research released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) argues. But, according to Australian Education Review 56, the ‘off the shelf’ mentality which currently underpins the provision of computers in Australian schools may be stifling rather than enhancing innovation.
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