Staff Directory
Dr Rhonda Farkota
DipTeach, BEd Melb, MEdSt, EdD Monash
Use the Contact Form to send a message to this person.Dr Rhonda Farkota is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research where she has worked on projects at International, National, State and System levels. Prior to this she worked for 28 years as a teacher and curriculum adviser, and sat on the Education Department and Catholic Education Office Curriculum Committees for three and four years respectively. In 2008 she was specially seconded as Assistant Director of Australia’s National Assessment Program (NAPLANTM). Returning to ACER in 2009, Rhonda has continued her role as a Senior Fellow speaking, writing and consulting on Effective Teaching Practices. In addition she holds the position of Manager, ACER Legal and Commercial.
Dr Farkota has authored books and articles addressing various educational disciplines including mathematics, computers in education, and physical education. She has long been recognised as one of Australia’s foremost experts in Direct Instruction (DI), and is largely responsible for the uptake of DI in schools throughout the country. Her Farkota DI Model, the Math Mastery Series, was developed during her days as a classroom teacher to address the diverse, and generally inadequate, student academic standards she would be confronted with at the beginning of each school year. Specifically designed to introduce DI into the contemporary classroom, the Math Mastery Series is a daily diagnostic program that maps student progress, identifies precisely where and when students experience difficulty, and instils automaticity and fluency. Embracing the underlying principles of the research-based DI model emanating from the University of Oregon, the Math Mastery Series has gone on to become part of the regular curriculum in many Australian schools.
For more than two decades now Dr Farkota has conducted professional development in the areas of Learning Difficulties, and Effective Teaching Practices, at universities, schools and organisations throughout Australia. In 2003 she was nominated for the Learning Difficulties Australia Award in recognition for her work in that area. In 2004 her Elementary Math Mastery program formed the base of the professional development program (Working Out What Works, WOWW) funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training to support teachers in improving literacy and numeracy outcomes for students with learning difficulties. In response to the WOWW Literature Review finding that DI produced the most robust learning gains, she also delivered all DI professional development components of the WOWW Program. In 2005 Rhonda acted in a consultancy capacity to the Chilean Ministry of Education, Santiago, advising inter alia on evidence-based resources and interventions for struggling students.
Dr Farkota joined ACER in 1998 working with the numeracy team on the Queensland Statewide Assessment Program, Aspects of Numeracy, whilst at the same time carrying out research on an Educational Measurement Analysis of the Curriculum Standards Framework II draft. Her recommendations for refinement were highly commended and she was commissioned further to assist in the revision of the entire mathematics framework. In 2001 she was responsible for refining the tasks in the Victorian Mathematics Annotated Student Work Samples, as well as developing the annotations for the tasks incorporated therein. She carried out an evaluation of the New Zealand Assessment Resource Banks in Numeracy and was involved in test development for the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study (LLANS). In 2001, 2002 and 2003 Rhonda developed numeracy instruments at Years 3, 5 and 7 for the Literacy and Numeracy National Assessment (LANNA) program, and for three years was the Director of that project. In 2002 and 2004, she developed Working Mathematically instruments at Years 3, 7 and 10 for the Department of Education, Western Australia, and she developed mathematics assessment items for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 for the International School Assessment (ISA) project. In 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, Rhonda was Project Director for the Western Australian Education Department’s Monitoring Standards in Education program (WALNA) for whole cohort testing of students in Years 3, 5 and 7. She also managed the numeracy test development for that project, and in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, was Project Director for the Western Australian Education Department’s Monitoring Standards in Education program (MSE9) for whole cohort testing of students in Year 9.
Her doctoral research into DI, mathematics and self-efficacy was described by the examiner, Professor DH Schunk, Dean of Education, University of North Carolina, as an outstanding thesis on a topic of great theoretical and applied significance.
Farkota Direct Instruction (DI) Model – USA 2012 Brochure
Math Mastery Series Australian 2012 Brochure
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