Dr Stephanie Burns’ work provides insights into why so many otherwise successful adults fail to sustain action when it comes to important goals – goals related to health and fitness, education and relationships. This new information forms the basis of Stephanie’s work in both the past Goal Achievers Program and the current Leadership Labyrinth. Since 1999, Stephanie has focused her efforts on the development of teaching methods for producing quality learning using technology. She offers much of her own course material in these forms as demonstrations of the methods in practice. She is also developing a new way of thinking about “environments” suitable to support learners who engage in on-line learning events. Several of these unique environments containing “learning how to learn” content can be viewed on her website www.stephanieburns.com

Begin thinking in different ways about learning and achievement

In this session, Stephanie will focus on teacher effectiveness and the ways the individual teacher can improve their current practice as measured by student success. She will highlight teacher and student responsibilities for achievement in the classroom. She will discuss the means to embed learning to learn strategies into lessons, providing students with the ability to improve their own learning performance. This has the effect of improving student performance today and into the future. She will also discuss methods of using students “errors” as feedback for improving teaching effectiveness. There are many reasons today for teachers and students to begin thinking in different ways about learning and achievement. Teaching is great fun when it’s working. Stephanie’s work has been applied by teachers throughout Australia to improve literacy, numeracy and student engagement in the process of learning.

Professor Jenny Gore taught secondary physical education in South Australia prior to becoming an academic. Her research interests have consistently focussed on the quality of teaching and learning, teacher socialisation, alternative pedagogy, power relations in teaching, reform in teacher education and pedagogical reform. Professor Gore was a member of the research team that generated the concept of Productive Pedagogy and, with Associate Professor James Ladwig, was co-author of the NSW model of pedagogy known as Quality Teaching. Professor Gore is Associate Editor of the international journal Teaching and Teacher Education and has held positions as President of the NSW Teacher Education Council, Executive member of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, and Research Training Coordinator for the Australian Association for Research in Education. Major books include The Struggle for Pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth and Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy (edited with Carmen Luke). Professor Gore has also published numerous articles and chapters, and several works have been translated into other languages. Professor Gore has directed a number of research projects and acted in an advisory capacity for other research initiatives.

Dr Christine Edwards-Groves is a lecturer (literacy studies) in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University. Christine’s main research interest is in the field of explicit teaching, multiliteracies, professional development and classroom interaction. She has published a variety of texts, including ‘On Task: Focused Literacy Learning’ (2003), ‘Connecting Students to Learning through Explicit Teaching’ (2001), ‘Building an Inclusive Classroom through Explicit Pedagogy’ (2003). and “Enabling Voice: The perspectives of schooling from Aboriginal youth at risk of entering the juvenile justice system” (2008), in The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education. Christine is co-author of Chapter 5 ‘Developing Praxis and reflective practice in pre-service teacher education’ and author of Chapter 7 ‘The praxis-oriented self’ from Enabling Praxis: Challenges for Education, edited by S Kemmis and T Smith (2008). Christine is currently involved in researching and writing about praxis in the area of practice architectures within professional learning and as part of an international consortium of researchers involving researchers from UK (University of Sheffield), Netherlands (Utrecht University of Applied Sciences), Sweden (University of Gothenburg), Norway (University of Tromsø) and Finland (Åbo Academy). 

Peter Freebody is the Professorial Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. His research and teaching interests are literacy education, educational disadvantage, classroom interaction and quantitative and qualitative research methods. He has authored or edited nine books and published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Harvard Educational Review, and the American Educational Research Journal. Peter has also contributed numerous invited entries in international handbooks and encyclopedias on literacy, critical literacy, and research methodology, and is on the editorial boards of 11 national and international journals. He has served on numerous Australian state and national advisory groups in the area of literacy education and curriculum design. He is senior consultant on the national on-line curriculum initiative conducted by the Curriculum Corporation and advisor to the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy. Peter was lead author of the Framing Paper for the National English Curriculum.

Dr Marguerite Maher is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Charles Darwin University, Australia. She taught Languages and Health and Physical Education at secondary schools for fifteen years before becoming intensely interested in early literacy, therefore effecting a change to teaching at the junior primary level. Then, some ten years ago she moved to tertiary teaching. She was program leader of the Bachelor of Education at Auckland University of Technology before taking up her current position in Australia. Her Master’s research looked at effective mathematics teaching in the early years of formal schooling. Her PhD research investigated the policy to practice nexus of inclusive education in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her current research interests are the influence of politics on culture and the flow-on effect on teaching, inclusive education, factors th at enhance effective teaching and learning in low SES schools, and mathematics teaching and learning in the early years.

Iqbal Singh was born in India and is a proud Sikh. He migrated to Australia with his parents as a child and now lives with his wife, parents and four children in a traditional extended family. He has worked extensively with disadvantaged groups, indigenous peoples and minority groups. 
Iqbal has been a deputy principal, principal and lecturer in education. His involvement in the community includes sport, business, education and government. He has had numerous roles with United Nations projects and was invited to attend as an Australian delegate to the UNESCO 2000 International Conference on Human Values Education. He was also a presenter to the United Nations International Conference on Engaging Communities hosted by UNESCO and the Queensland Government.

In 2007 Iqbal was a finalist ‘Pride of Australia Medal’ and in 2008 he was invited to the Federal Government Australia 2020 Summit.

Mem Fox was born in Australia, grew up in Africa, studied drama in England and returned to Adelaide in 1970, where she has lived with her husband, Malcolm, and daughter Chloë, happily ever after. Mem Fox is Australia’s most highly regarded picture-book author. Her first book, Possum Magic, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over three and a half million. Mem has written over thirty picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, including the best-selling Reading Magic, aimed at parents of very young children.

For 24 years Mem Fox was an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, teaching trainee teachers until her early retirement in 1996. She has received many civic awards, honours and accolades in Australia, including two honorary doctorates. She has visited the United States over one hundred times, mostly in her role as a literacy expert although she is also a well-known author in America. She is an influential international consultant in literacy, but pretends to sit around writing full time. Her new book, released in June 2009, is Hello Baby! She hopes everyone, especially babies, will adore it.

Dr Loretta Giorcelli OAM trained as a primary/special education teacher in Queensland in the late 1960s. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Education, a Master’s degree in Education, a Master’s degree in Special Education and a PhD (Linguistics and Communication Disabilities) from the University of Illinios (USA). She was Director of Special Education and Equity Programs with the NSW Department of Education from 1984 until 1993. Loretta lectured at the University of New South Wales where in 1993-1994 she established the Certificate of Learning Disabilities and The Certificate of Integration Studies respectively. She has worked as a consultant for the United Nations a government advisor in Cyprus and for the Australian Government on overseas development projects in Papua New Guinea. Since 1996 Loretta has headed her own educational consultancy company. From 2004-2007 she was involved in one of the largest national projects investigating the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms in Australia. In 2007 Loretta was awarded an OAM for service to education as a teacher, university lecturer and consultant in the area of special education, particularly with regard to improving the learning outcomes of students with special needs in mainstream education.

Roger Holdsworth is currently a Senior Research Associate of the Australian Youth Research Centre (Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne) and editor and publisher of Connect, a newsletter supporting student participation that he has produced since late 1979. Roger’s background is as a secondary school teacher (in Physics and Mathematics), curriculum consultant, youth sector policy worker, writer and researcher. He has a passionate and abiding interest in supporting the active participation of students both in school governance and in authentic and productive curriculum action, and is currently involved with several primary and secondary schools in supporting the development of Student Action Teams about school and community issues. In his ‘spare time’ (now that he is a ‘failed retiree’), Roger also presents a weekly 2-hour ‘world music’ program on community radio in Melbourne.

Tania Major is a Kokoberra woman from the remote community of Kowanyama in Cape York Queensland.  She holds a degree in Criminology from Griffith University, and at 21 became the youngest elected regional councillor in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).  In 2006 Tania was announced as the Queensland Young Australian of the Year, and was further honoured by being named the Young Australian of the Year in January 2007. She was also voted as Young Leader of the year for the 2007 Deadly Awards, and YEN Young Woman of the Year for Community Vision. Tania has also achieved international recognition in winning the Political Legal and/or Government Affairs section of the Junior Chamber. International’s Outstanding Young Persons of the World contest held in India in 2007.

Since 2002 Tania has publicly addressed many national and international forums, speaking on Indigenous and Youth affairs as these relate to remote communities, particularly those in Cape York.  Along with her mentor, Noel Pearson, she has tried to bring the realities of life in many of these communities to the foreground of wider Australian thinking and to engage mainstream Australians in the collaborative challenge of seeking solutions to long standing problems.

After 4 years with the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, Tania is now working to establish a private consultancy and advocacy business, and to set up a youth foundation to support other young indigenous people with the potential for leadership. She has also recently completed her studies for a Masters degree in Public Policy at Sydney University.

Annemaree O’Brien has an extensive background in literacy and media education as a teacher, lecturer, consultant, writer, project manager and researcher. She is currently undertaking a PhD in multimodal literacy through the University of New England working on a research project based at the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. Previously, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) Annemaree was responsible for developing and implementing screen literacy and production programs for teachers and students. Prior to ACMI, Annemaree was the Education Projects Manager for the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. She is also involved in developing multimedia education projects, designing and scripting online learning objects for The Le@rning Federation.

Dr Christine Richmond is an experienced teacher of students with severe behaviour challenges in clinical and school settings. She also worked as a senior guidance officer, family therapist and academic. Dr Richmond is well known in Australian education circles through her work in schools and as a speaker at regional, state, national and international conferences. She was the travelling scholar for the NSW Chapter of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders during 2003, and then their national travelling scholar in 2007. Christine held academic positions at both the University of New England and Bond University before branching out into private practice. Her book Teach More, Manage Less: A Minimalist Approach to Behaviour Management is published by Scholastic Australia. The companion text, Lead More, Manage Less: Five Essential Behaviour Management Insights for School Leaders will be available later in 2009.

Dr Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education and Head of the School of Education at the University of New England. His publications include Literacy learning and teaching (Macmillan, 1993), Researching language in schools and communities (Continuum, 2000), Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum (Open University Press, 2001), [with Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and Jenny Asha] Teaching children’s literature with Information and Communication Technologies (McGraw-Hill/Open University Press 2005),  e-literature for children and classroom literacy learning (Routledge, 2006), New Literacies and the English Curriculum (Continuum, 2008) and Multimodal Semiotics (Continuum, 2008). www.une.edu.au/staff/lunswort.php. Len was the proud recipient of the 2004 Citation of Merit Award for Research. Also the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association, 2006 National Award by the Australian Government Minister for Education, Science and Training for Outstanding Contribution to Improving Literacy.

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