Research Conference Program

Join Associate Professor Alonzo to look at the practical use of learning progressions in the classroom, and their effective integration with student assessment.

Dr White will describe the practical use of learning progressions and teaching resources in a classroom setting with students with disability.

ACER's Dr Richardson and Dr Krstic will describe their work with the International Baccalaureate Organisation to design a conceptual framework for assessing creativity and curiosity – valuable transversal attributes.
 

Join leading academics from the University of Queensland, Aboriginal educator and researcher Dr Shay, Dr Miller and Dr Abdul Hameed, for this session on conceptualisations of excellence in Indigenous education.

Leading general capabilities researcher and Program Chair of Research Conference 2021, Dr Scoular, discusses the challenges of defining and describing complex '21st century skills' like collaboration, and how ACER's work in the area is advancing our understanding of how to assess them.

In reimagining the traditional conference poster presentation, we asked education researchers, early career teachers and postgraduate candidates to send us a short video pitch of their work. These presentations were selected from the submissions we received. 

Vanderbilt University Professor Rich Lehrer will share his work – undertaken with fellow keynote speaker Professor Mark Wilson (19 August, 10am) – to create a new assessment system that blends the best features of summative and formative assessments to provide reliable, actionable information for improving classroom instruction.
 

Join ACER's Dr Krstic and Dr  Richardson to explore the practical ways in which Scottish teachers combined data from the SNSA with their professional judgement to make decisions about targeting teaching interventions.

In this session Dr Zoanetti will use ACER's flagship PAT assessments as the context for exploring common pitfalls when quantifying and interpreting the gains made by individual students between successive assessments.

Join Catholic Diocese of Parramatta Executive Director Mr Whitby in exploring the challenges of effecting systemwide change.

ACER's Dr Ramalingam will use the example of early reading to consider how a focus on a learning area's essential concepts and skills might assist all students to make excellent progress.

Graduates from ACER's Graduate Certificate in Education: Assessment of Student Learning are usually celebrated in a dedicated session at our in-person conferences. This year, our graduation ceremony on 10 August went virtual.

In this session, Professor Wilson frames and exemplifies a model of assessment in which classroom-dependent and classroom-independent tasks together provide actionable information for improving instruction.

Dr Furtak will share her work with teachers and school leaders to co-design science learning progressions and use them within a design cycle for formative assessment.

In this session, Dr Zarmati will share her research on efforts to map and describe progress in the learning area of History.

Dr Kamei will describe how the SWANs/ABLES resources and assessments help teachers target teaching to meet individual student needs based on strengths not starting points.

ACER's Dr Hilary Hollingsworth and Jonathan Heard’s Communicating Student Learning Progress research (2019) has prompted some schools to more effectively communicate learning progress through reporting, making it more meaningful for students and parents. Two leaders from Victorian schools – Anthony Hockey of St Mary's Primary School, Williamstown, and Tegan Knuckey of Balwyn High School – will join them to share more about their work in this regard.

Thank you for watching. We hope you enjoyed our Research Conference 2021 program of presentations from world-leading thinkers in educational research and practice. We look forward to seeing you in 2022!