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The United Nations has called upon Governments that are signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to adopt practical but progressive systems to transfer resources from segregated settings/special schools into mainstream schools. What will this mean for Australia’s special schools, particularly given their significant rise in enrolments over the past decade? What will it mean for the education of Australian students with disability? In this paper, we examine recent Government reviews/inquiries into the education of Australian students with disability to determine whether future planned actions align with Australia’s international obligations to move away from segregated schooling. We conclude by examining both the barriers and the potential for providing a high-quality education system that realises the UN’s commitment towards inclusive schools and societies.

How do we prepare gifted students to be leaders who can tackle the complex social, environmental, medical, political, technological, economic and ethical challenges in our globalised society? International rhetoric about the importance of developing creativity in twenty-first century education in our current global climate often stands in stark contrast to educational systems that still emphasise performativity, standardised curricula and testing. Creativity has been conceptualised as a continuum with four forms of creativity: Big-C (eminent) creativity, Pro-c (professional) creativity, little-c (everyday) creativity and mini-c (intrapersonal) creativity. Educational creativity (ed-c) as an additional form of creativity, useful for discussions on creativity in education, is proposed in this chapter. Creativity’s relationship to intelligence and giftedness is also discussed in relation to two major schools of thought, namely, creativity as an essential component of intelligence/giftedness and creativity as a domain of intelligence/giftedness. The development of creativity has been largely the purview of stand-alone creativity training programs, which have been popular in gifted education and talent development programs. However, it is argued that teaching for creativity needs to be infused throughout the curriculum using empirical research of how education can develop students’ creative capacity. Findings from the literature about how creativity can be fostered in schools, as well as original research on environmental influences on students’ creativity, as reported by young people themselves in research conducted with students in selective secondary schools in Australia will be presented in this chapter. Understanding how highly creative students are creative to varying degrees, depending on how environments support or inhibit creativity, has practical implications for students, teachers, school administrators, teacher education and educational policy regarding how w

The use of a pedagogical practice known as ‘differentiation’ has become more common over time as educators have sought to respond to increases in the diversity of students enrolling in their local school. However, there are now so many misperceptions and definitional inconsistencies that it is difficult to know what is being enacted in the name of differentiation or indeed what is being researched internationally. The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics of and conceptualisations within peer-reviewed empirical research on differentiation published between1999 and 2019, as well as to map the ways in which this body of research was produced. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used to inform a systematic screening process and resulted in a final sample of 34 articles focusing on differentiation in regular schools. Half were conducted in the United States and most in the elementary school phase. Survey and case study designs were dominant, as was research of and influences on teacher practice. Only a small group of studies focused on differentiation’s impact on student outcomes and these typically only examined specific elements of differentiation or its use in specific academic domains. The diversity of focus and methodological approaches across the 34 studies prevents comparison of findings and weakens the evidential basis to make claims of either differentiation’s effectiveness or indeed its ineffectiveness. The review concludes with recommendations for future research and practice in this important area of practice.

In this blog post, Dr Carly Lassig and Dr Sofia Mavropoulou discuss strategies for applying inclusive teaching practices to learning at home, drawing on approaches such as Universal Design for Learning and differentiation, as well as adjustments for students with disability.

In this post, Dr Sofia Mavropoulou and Dr Carly Lassig discuss planning ideas and resources that teachers can use to engage their students in connected learning at home.

Arts subjects such as drama provide an effective context for developing 21st century skills, yet drama teaching in Sri Lanka is still mainly delivery through traditional, lecture-based methods. This article presents evaluation results of a drama-based intervention program that was designed specifically to develop junior secondary school students' creative thinking capacity and adaptability skills in the Sri Lankan context. The participants were 128 students aged 11-12 years in Year 7 drama classes. The program was implemented over twelve consecutive weeks in weekly two-hour sessions by regular drama teachers who had been trained in a process drama teaching approach. Results evidenced a positive effect emerging from the intervention: creativity and adaptability test scores of the students in the intervention group increased significantly compared to those of the students in the control and active control groups. This paper identifies implications of these findings for Sri Lankan drama teaching and learning and beyond.

This chapter considers to what degree the careers of women with young families, both in and out of paid employment, are lived as contingent, intersubjective projects pursued across time and space, in the social condition of growing biographical possibilities and uneven social/ideological change. Their resolutions of competing priorities by engaging in various permutations of home-work and paid work are termed ‘workable solutions’, with an intentional play on the double sense of ‘work’ – firstly as labour, thus being able to perform work, whether paid or not; secondly as in being able to make things work or function in the family unit’s best interests, however defined.

Despite growing recognition of creativity's importance for young people, the creativity of adolescents remains a neglected field of study. Hence, grounded theory research was conducted with 20 adolescents from two Australian schools regarding their self-reported experiences of creativity in diverse domains. Four approaches to the creative process – adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis – emerged from the research. These approaches used by students across a range of domains contribute to the literature in two key ways: (a) explaining how adolescents engage in the creative process, theorised from adolescent creators’ self-reports of their experiences and (b) confirms hybrid theories that recognise that creativity has elements of both domain-generality and domain-specificity. The findings have educational implications for both students and teachers. For students, enhancing metacognitive awareness of their preferred approaches to creativity was reported as a valuable experience in itself, and might also enable adolescents to expand their creativity through experimenting with other ways of engaging in the creative process. For teachers, using these understandings to underpin their pedagogies can promote metacognitive awareness and experimentation, and also provide teachers with a framework for assessing students’ creative processes.

This article explores the role a writing group played in influencing the scholarly identities of a group of doctoral students by fostering their writing expertise. While the interest in writing groups usually centres on their potential to support doctoral students to publish, few studies have been conducted and written by the students themselves. Using a situated learning perspective on identity, we explore the connection that emerged between our perceptions of ourselves as developing expertise as scholarly writers and the function of the writing group as a dynamic space for transforming our identities. Findings show that our writing group served as a flexible and interactive Community of Practice (CoP) that shaped critical and durable shifts in identity amongst members.

Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our personal, social, educational, and community lives. For adolescents, creativity can enable self-expression, be a means of pushing boundaries, and assist learning, achievement, and completion of everyday tasks. Moreover, adolescents who demonstrate creativity can potentially enhance their capacity to face unknown future challenges, address mounting social and ecological issues in our global society, and improve their career opportunities and contribution to the economy. For these reasons, creativity is an essential capacity for young people in their present and future, and is highlighted as a priority in current educational policy nationally and internationally. Despite growing recognition of creativity’s importance and attention to creativity in research, the creative experience from the perspectives of the creators themselves and the creativity of adolescents are neglected fields of study. Hence, this research investigated adolescents’ self-reported experiences of creativity to improve understandings of their creative processes and manifestations, and how these can be supported or inhibited. Although some aspects of creativity have been extensively researched, there were no comprehensive, multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks of adolescent creativity to provide a foundation for this study. Therefore, a grounded theory methodology was adopted for the purpose of constructing a new theory to describe and explain adolescents’ creativity in a range of domains. The study’s constructivist-interpretivist perspective viewed the data and findings as interpretations of adolescents’ creative experiences, co-constructed by the participants and the researcher. The research was conducted in two academically selective high schools in Australia: one arts school, and one science, mathematics, and technology school. Twenty adolescent participants (10 from each school) were selected using theoretical sampling. Data were collect

The high level of scholarly writing required for a doctoral thesis is a challenge for many research students. However, formal academic writing training is not a core component of many doctoral programs. Informal writing groups for doctoral students may be one method of contributing to the improvement of scholarly writing. In this paper, we report on a writing group that was initiated by an experienced writer and higher degree research supervisor to support and improve her doctoral students’ writing capabilities. Over time, this group developed a workable model to suit their varying needs and circumstances. The model comprised group sessions, an email group, and individual writing. Here, we use a narrative approach to explore the effectiveness and value of our research writing group model in improving scholarly writing. The data consisted of doctoral students’ reflections to stimulus questions about their writing progress and experiences. The stimulus questions sought to probe individual concerns about their own writing, what they had learned in the research writing group, the benefits of the group, and the disadvantages and challenges to participation. These reflections were analysed using thematic analysis. Following this analysis, the supervisor provided her perspective on the key themes that emerged. Results revealed that, through the writing group, members learned technical elements (e.g., paragraph structure), non-technical elements (e.g., working within limited timeframes), conceptual elements (e.g., constructing a cohesive arguments), collaborative writing processes, and how to edit and respond to feedback. In addition to improved writing quality, other benefits were opportunities for shared writing experiences, peer support, and increased confidence and motivation. The writing group provides a unique social learning environment with opportunities for: professional dialogue about writing, peer learning and review, and developing a supportive peer network. Thu

Creativity is no longer synonymous with genius or giftedness. It is now a skill required by everyday people, to varying degrees, for successful participation in current and future societies. An ensuing priority for schools, therefore, is to effectively nurture students' creative potential and abilities in a range of domains. The purpose of this research is to describe, analyse and theorise about: how creativity is conceptualised by adolescents; their creative products and processes; and significant personal, social and environmental factors that influence adolescents' creative development and production. The study employs mixed methods research and uses a case study design.

In the 21st century, our global community is changing to increasingly value creativity and innovation as driving forces in our lives. This paper will investigate how educators need to move beyond the rhetoric to effective practices for teaching and fostering creativity. First, it will describe the nature of creativity at different levels, with a focus on personal and everyday creativity. It will then provide a brief snapshot of creativity in education through the lens of new policies and initiatives in Queensland, Australia. Next it will review two significant areas related to enriching and enhancing students’ creative engagement and production: 1) influential social and environmental factors; and 2) creative self-efficacy. Finally, this paper will propose that to effectively promote student creativity in schools, we need to not only emphasise policy, but also focus on establishing a shared discourse about the nature of creativity, and researching and implementing effective practices for supporting and fostering creativity. This paper has implications for educational policy, practice and teacher training that are applicable internationally.

Do classroom teachers have one of the most significant influences on the learning, achievement and development of gifted students (Clark, 2002)? If so, submissions to the Australian Senate Committee's 2001 report, "The Education of Gifted Children", are a cause for concern, with reports of widespread negative attitudes towards giftedness and an observation by Watters and Diezmann that "a degree of apathy and opposition to gifted education exists within the [teaching] profession". This session will present details of a study that explored the attitudes of Brisbane primary school teachers, in mainstream and gifted education focus schools, towards intellectually gifted children and their education. The presentation will include a description of the aim, methodology and results of the research project. Additionally, implications for teacher training and good practice for education of gifted children will be proposed.

Do classroom teachers have one of the most significant influences on the learning, achievement and development of gifted students (Clark, 2002)? If so, submissions to the Australian Senate Committee’s 2001 report, “The Education of Gifted Children”, are a cause for concern, with reports of widespread negative attitudes towards giftedness, and an observation by Watters and Diezmann that “a degree of apathy and opposition to gifted education exists within the [teaching] profession” (as cited in Collins, 2001, p. 29). This presentation reports findings from a study of gifted education focus schools, as well as schools without formal gifted education programs. Attitudes of teachers towards gifted children and their education were explored as discriminators along with factors in teachers’ demographic profiles and pedagogy. Possible implications for changes in teacher training and for improved practice in gifted education are also outlined.

In Australia, the implementation of policies and provisions for gifted education vary among the states and territories. A commonality across the country is the reports of negative attitudes towards giftedness and gifted education, as outlined in The Australian Senate Committee’s report, The Education of Gifted Children (Collins, 2001). This study was an inquiry into the attitudes of teachers in South-East Queensland state primary schools. In particular, it explored attitudes towards intellectually gifted children and their education, and factors that may be associated with these attitudes. Research was undertaken in eight schools with varied levels of involvement in gifted education. The study consisted of two research phases. In the first phase of research, teachers’ (N = 126) attitudes were surveyed using Gagné and Nadeau’s opinionnaire, Opinions about the gifted and their education (Gagné, 1991). This opinionnaire used a 5-point Likert scale to measure teachers’ attitudes towards six issues in gifted education: perceived needs of gifted students and support for special gifted education provisions; common objections to gifted education based on teachers’ ideologies and priorities; the social value of gifted people in society; the rejection and isolation faced by gifted people; ability grouping; and acceleration. Additionally, a teacher profile form yielded information about teachers’ demographic characteristics and backgrounds. This quantitative data was used to test associations between attitudes and demographic variables. In the second phase of research, case studies of two teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices were conducted. This qualitative research included semi-structured interviews and review of school documents. From the survey research, themes emerged of positive attitudes towards gifted education and gifted people in society. However, there was a lack of support for the provision of ability grouping and acceleration, and minimal awareness of the i