Summaries & explainers

This research summary presents the key findings from 2 reports on better supporting students who enter secondary school with gaps in their foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

Understanding the cognitive science behind how students learn to read and the research on effective instruction makes it easier for educators to align policy and classroom teaching with evidence.

Summary of AERO's national snapshot providing a baseline of how evidence is used by teachers and leaders across Australian schools.

This methodology and annotated reading list describe the process AERO used to synthesise available research to develop our family engagement practice guides.

This is a summary of findings from AERO’s 2022 analysis of student writing data – the most extensive investigation into this area ever conducted in Australia. 

Partnering with Learning First, we investigated issues influencing the effective use of evidence in policy development through a desktop review and interviews with senior policymakers.

This research summary explains the methodology for a data analysis of students' backgrounds and their influence on literacy and numeracy achievement.

Explicit instruction breaks down what students need to learn into smaller learning outcomes and models each step. It allows students to process new information more effectively.

In formative assessment, you gather and interpret information about student learning as it is happening in your classroom. It helps you to adapt your teaching to meet student needs. 

Mastery learning is a way of designing units of work so that each set of tasks focuses on a particular learning objective and students must master a task to move onto the next one.

Spacing and retrieval involves separating learning over multiple lessons and providing opportunities for students to recall what they have learned. This helps to commit learning to long-term memory.

Explanations of commonly used terms related to education evidence and research