Creativity

The 2023 winners of the annual Australian STEM Video Game Challenge have just been announced. This year, students in years 4-12 created their own video games inspired by the theme ‘construction and destruction’. In this article, we share the winning entries.

A new research paper, Creative self-beliefs among children and adolescents, published in the Australian Journal of Education, seeks to understand more about young people’s confidence in their creative abilities, as well as their beliefs about whether these abilities are fixed or malleable.

‘Schools everywhere face ongoing challenges in better preparing young people for their future and ensuring that every student learns successfully and meets high expectations.’ Professor Geoff Masters AO argues addressing these challenges will require fundamental reform of the framework within which schools operate.

Year 5 and 6 students from MidCoast Christian College in regional New South Wales were tasked with designing their own video games. We speak with educator Melissa Tindall about the process of designing the games from scratch, and how it allowed students to explore the 21st Century skills of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication.

There are 7 General Capabilities (GCs) in the Australian Curriculum – so, how are teachers implementing them in the classroom? A new research study offers some insights. We find out more from Chief Investigator Dr Don Carter.

There are many examples in the Teacher archive of schools giving students the opportunity to be critical and creative thinkers, and in this edition of Teacher Staffroom, we share some recent examples with you.

Helping students to develop their skills in the general capabilities is essential for preparing them to succeed in a modern society. At St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in Perth, Western Australia, primary school students are given these opportunities through the school’s STEAM program.

How can we support reading aloud in the early years, at school and at home? And how does reading aloud affect our lives in the long term? Today, we’ll be speaking with Professor Emerita Rosemary Johnston AM, who shares some of the research on the benefits and joys of reading aloud and how we can continue to support reading aloud at school and at home.

‘[The Sacúdete strategy] shows to others what the future of school could look like when we put learners at the centre and make the "extracurricular" the curriculum. That is the lesson that other countries can learn from.’ In his new Teacher column, Andreas Schleicher shares details of a successful program in Colombia that sees educators work as mentors and coaches.

A blob trying to break into the Underworld, a scientist jumping through size-altering portals, and a man who wakes up dazed and confused in a scrapyard – these are some of the protagonists from winning games in this year’s Australian STEM Video Game Challenge.