Articles

General capabilities frameworks

19 June 2020

ACER has developed both definitions and frameworks that synthesise and harmonise existing theory and research on the general capabilities - or 21st century skills - of critical thinking, creative thinking, and collaboration.

Time to rethink and re-imagine school reports

19 November 2019

The findings of ACER’s research on Communicating Student Learning Progress predict an uncertain future place for the traditional semester report. Despite the effort, time and cost of reporting, there is scope to improve the clarity of information communicated about student learning achievement and progress.

Read the Findings in Brief.

Read the full report.

Does the old school report have a future?

School reports are an important but imperfect means of communicating progress. In part one of a series on ACER’s Communicating Student Learning Progress project, Hilary Hollingsworth and Jonathan Heard examine the recent history of reporting in Australian schools and highlight some of the competing forces that have influenced current practices.

Learning progressions in ACER’s work

Learning progressions have garnered a lot of attention in recent times, both within Australia and internationally. Importantly, learning progressions are fundamental to ACER’s approach to assessment.

Continuous student reporting - the next step?

In part two of a series on ACER’s Communicating Student Learning Progress project, Hilary Hollingsworth and Jonathan Heard examine recent trends and current reporting practices in schools including the growing use of electronic systems and tools.

Scrap age-based classes to boost school achievement

How appropriate are age-based curricula in the 21st century? ACER's Chief Executive Officer Geoff Masters encourages the current Gonski review to reconsider the industrial model of schooling in his recent article.

Webinar on equipping students for the 21st century

In the first in a recent series revisiting the 'big five' challenges in education identified in an influential 2015 article by ACER Chief Executive Professor Geoff Masters, experts from education research discussed the progress Australia has made towards effective teaching and learning of general capabilities. Catch up free and on demand.

Using data and technology to enhance classroom teaching

In the second of a four-part series on the assessment of 21st century skills ACER Senior Research Fellow, Dara Ramalingam, discusses how data and technology can be harnessed to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

Rethinking how we assess learning in schools

There is a major flaw in the way we currently assess school students, as Geoff Masters explains.

Changing National Assessments in Bangladesh

On 9 June 2016, the Dhaka Tribune Editorial noted that: "It is of no surprise that one of the top research priorities for the Australian Council for Educational Research is assessment".

Is there another way to think about schooling?

There is a well-established way of thinking about schooling - one that focuses on teaching age-based curriculum and assessing students on that curriculum. But, there is an alternative.

Building Innovation: Learning with technologies

Kathryn Moyle explores national and international policy priorities for building students' innovation capabilities through information and communication technologies (ICT) in Australian schools.

Achievement matters but what about tracking learning progress?

Peter Goss and Jordana Hunter from the Grattan Institute discuss the importance of tracking academic progress to reveal how much students have actually learnt.

Assessment: Getting to the essence

Educational assessments are collected, interpreted and used in different ways, but all serve the same fundamental purpose, as Geoff Masters explains.

Why A to E grades paint the wrong picture

Geoff Masters makes the case for a new approach to assessment so that teachers can better monitor the progress their students make and the effectiveness of their own teaching.

Measuring learning: Why we need to work together

One of the keys to increasing the quality and comparability of learning measures is cooperation within the international community, argues Jeaniene Spink.

Digital assessments of early learning

Dannielle Anzai reports on an innovative computer-based early-years literacy and numeracy assessment that puts young learners at the controls.

Towards a growth mindset in assessment

Geoff Masters describes three general approaches to evaluating and providing feedback on the outcomes of learning; what it means to learn successfully; the implications for how students view themselves as learners; and how they understand the relationship between effort and success.