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The bushfire crisis that is currently impacting Australia is beyond devastating. The scale of these fires defies the imagination. For so long now we have lived with skies laden with smoke as a constant and inescapable reminder that this is not an ordinary summer. This is weather and drought at its most extreme. Our only salvation will be rain but this is not the season for that and the long term forecasts are not promising. Our young people, in particular, will be affected and will need special care in the weeks and months to come. What might this mean for schools and for student agency?

It is soon the start of a new school year for students in Australia. In other parts of the world, the year continues after a short break for Christmas while New Year festivities are just around the corner for those observing the lunar new year. The start of the year is considered an excellent time to reflect on key ideas that matter to our learning and potential for success. But does this equate with goal-setting?

As schools and organisations move to remote education, there are potential gaps in our professional learning of which we should be aware. While many of us are discovering fresh opportunities for online and remote professional learning through podcasts, webinars and online courses, one of the most significant aspects of our professional learning has been curtailed thanks to social distancing.

This page makes it easy to find information and resources that are relevant to particular concepts, approaches and strategies. Each Collection is curated to serve a particular need and shares a set of resources pooled from The Learner's Way. In time this set of Collection will grow. In addition to articles from The Learner's Way you will be able to find resources designed to help you get started with the key concepts presented. The aim is to produce a set of resources which are readily accessible and of immediate benefit to classroom teachers and school leaders.

This much-maligned question seems so appropriate for education's recent history. All that was normal, everything that was routine, all of our structures, have been turned upside down and hurled into the wind of COVID19. From having spoken of a future dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), we have found ourselves living in it. Innovation and creativity became the new normal as we "Apollo 13" schooling into a model that met the demands of emergency remote learning. The pressure, the workload, the demands on our time and the cognitive load have all been immense, and so it seems fitting to ask "Are we there yet?".

These two powerful questions framed a recent webinar presented by Professor David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Answering these questions and helping teachers find meaningful and contextually relevant answers to these questions has been a focus of Perkins' work, especially in recent times. His book "Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World" introduced us to the notion of lifeworthy learning or that which is "likely to matter in the lives our learners are likely to live". This is a powerful notion and one that has the potential to change not only what we teach but also how we go about teaching what we do.

One of the key ways by which we make sense of our world is by analysing the stories that we and others use to describe it. These stories are a construct of our experiences, our beliefs, our cultural perspectives and the interactions between these things. Even when the context in which the story is set is the same, the details and nature of the story that particular individuals or collective share can differ vastly. Only by listening to each story with empathy and genuine desire to understand each individual's telling of this story do we develop true insights. Making sense of the stories of education should be a key process for all educators.

There is an understandable interest in deep-learning, after all, who wants their students to have a superficial understanding of the content. Read the marketing of almost any school and you are likely to find some statement about the deep-learning that is achieved as a result of their excellent teaching and learning platform. Likewise, ask any teach about their philosophy of teaching and you will hear how they engage their students with learning that promotes a deep-understanding.

When we are young, we are naturally curious. We ask many, many questions. As we encounter the world, our consciousness is bombarded by a plethora of opportunities for curiosity. And at this early stage of exploring and discovering the world we inhabit, there is no filter between our sense of curiosity and our expression of our it. If we are curious, we will be asking questions and heaven help anyone close enough to be a potential source of answers. - At school, our relationship to both curiosity and inquiry changes.

Explore the website of any school, and you will undoubtedly find a page dedicated to their Mission and Vision. Here you will find carefully crafted statements of purpose couched in the vocabulary of educational excellence and reflecting the pinnacle of human possibility. A blend of educational philosophy and marketing speak designed to promote student achievement and enrolments. The question is, to what degree does the lived experience of the typical student align with the stated purposes? Does the product do what it says on the tin?

A great post!

"PeP allows students to enter log and journal entries about their clinical experiences that are tied to specific competencies as required by the CRNBC (College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia) and CNA (Canadian Nurses Association) provincial and national nursing organizations. … It also allows students to export their portfolio information outside of the system to use throughout their professional careers."