Educational Investigations

The members within our group are Jack. A, Hannah. L, and Gaby. S and we are all in the final semester of our primary education degrees. Throughout our time at university we have become passionate about providing learning that is engaging, authentic and student centred. Due to this our focus for our educational poster is based on creating a learning environment that supports educational risk takers (both students and teachers). Stepping away from outcome driven classrooms and providing learning experiences that encourage students to take risks can transform the way both students and teachers respond to and view challenges.

Our research demonstrates what a calculated risk taker looks like in the classroom, various barriers that may be faced when being calculated risk takers, leading into a number of solutions and strategies to help overcome said barriers. Relevant supplementary digital content can be found on our poster (‘characteristic of a risk taker’, solutions and strategies), this addition will provide further explanations of the concepts.

Hi All!

Our names are Emily Robson, Billy Duncan and Isaac Brereton. We are a group of pre-service primary school teachers who are deeply passionate about exploring the underlying impact that media representation has on educators. In particular, the impact on new educators like ourselves that are soon to enter the profession. We are enthusiastic about changing some of these perceptions and perspectives made about education and teaching by and through the media. As such this poster explores this topic by interrogating the “narrative “ that often appears in media reports about teaching. The narrative of negativity and the fact that most media reports about teaching and education are often taken out of context and reported by individuals who are not teachers and who often possess limited knowledge of the complexities of the teaching profession.

We hope this poster provides some thought-provoking points and begins the conversation about the need to change this narrative to a more positive one.

Our team is made up of three very passionate primary school teachers each with a specialty in creative arts. Each of us come from different walks of life and are entering the education sector at different ages and life stages. Though we have these differences, we share a common philosophy for our future in education. We are dedicated to creating classrooms that are safe, positive, and inspiring environments that foster strong self-identity, wellbeing, and resilience. It is that goal that drives our needs to provide an environment where covert behaviours are identified, managed and ideally, eradicated from the classroom. We believe there is power in knowledge, and equipping teachers with the knowledge and tools to effectively identify covert behaviours, and to understand the underlying causes and ongoing implications. Building this knowledge base in teachers can help them in implementing effective strategies to combat these behaviours in the classroom setting.

Welcome to our poster on managing complex behaviours. Our names are Maddy, Natassja and Jessica. We are three beginning educators who share a passion for assisting teachers to better understand and manage challenging behaviours in their classrooms.

We each have observed and experienced challenging behaviours of students during our practicums. This can be seen to not only be an issue for beginning teachers, although for experienced teachers too.

We spoke of our concerns regarding these complex behavioural issues, and wanted to understand what was behind the behaviour that we did not already know. This lead our research to a preventative approach. Research suggests that implementing preventative strategies result in well managed classrooms, including positive behaviours exhibited in every individual student.

We have developed a three-phase solution to assist educators in managing complex behaviours through taking on a preventative, proactive approach.

We thank you for taking the time to view our poster and hope our research will positively assist you with your own behaviour management journey.

Our poster is focused on the workload of teachers and how it is causing them to drop out of the profession. Our group members consist of Tahlia and Paris and we are in our final year of our primary teaching degrees. Throughout our degree and during placements, we both felt this problem of heavy workload was evident as it was lingering in the back of our minds. We have focussed on the factors of workload that are causing burnout in teachers. Our poster defines the problem, shows related statistics, and offers solutions and strategies to avoid burnout and heavy workload.

We are Zac, Sammi and Tash, a chaotic groups of passionate 4^th year education students. We all had the same worries; through our degree we have been taught about diversity and inclusion. We have learnt specific strategies to support the inclusion of all students but feel this has had a heavy academic focus only. Through placements we have experienced schools that use Learning Support Units and those who do not. We have questioned their effectiveness from academic, social, and economic perspectives, and have determined that at their core they are Un-inclusive and may reinforce negative stigmas surrounding those with a disability. Our poster highlights the issue of social stigma surrounding those with a disability and explores a range of solutions to change these stigmas, to improve inclusive education. We hope through the implementation of our solutions, stigmas will be eradicated in society moving towards an inclusive society in the broader context.

Our names are Claire, Bahar and Emma and we are all in our final year of study, focusing on Primary Education. Our poster focuses on the negative effects that students/children experience due to traumatic events e.g., abuse, neglect etc. and what teachers, schools and communities can do to ensure those students feel safe and secure in the learning environment. As future teachers, we will one day experience students from trauma backgrounds in our own class and need to be well informed and equipped with the right knowledge and tools. Our poster outlines a number of strategies and frameworks that teachers and school communities can implement to expand their understanding of each student’s unique situation as well as equipping them with the skills and knowledge to become self-aware and informed. We hope you find our poster and accompanied audio, both informative and engaging.

The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration, endorsed by education ministers nationally, sets a clear vision for a world-class education system in Australia. It highlights a system that provides “all young Australians with access to high-quality education that is inclusive and free from any form of discrimination”. However, our research showed that LGBTQIA+ young people continue to face systemic school-based exclusion and discrimination, strongly linked to poorer mental health and educational outcomes. Our group (Sheryn, Tayla, Sophie and Ash) values diversity and we believe that schools should be safe and inclusive environments for all students, to enable each young person to reach their learning potential. We are concerned about the harmful effects of ongoing public discourse on gender and sexuality diverse young people, and how we as new educators can ensure they are adequately supported at school despite the often contentious surrounding environment. Our poster outlines the sociopolitical context, research and a set of evidence-based solutions for teachers, schools and the wider community to ensure LGBTQIA+ students can access safe and inclusive education.