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As part of our commitment to strengthening our culturally responsive research and organisational practices, we’re proud to launch our new First Nations at AERO and First Nations Expert Reference Group (ERG) webpages.

This explainer outlines how the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) is partnering with First Nations people to represent and include First Nations perspectives and contexts in our work.

This paper provides an overview of the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)’s cultural responsiveness work to date and outlines the commitments and actions we have taken to strengthen our culturally responsive research and organisational practices.

This charter underpins the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)’s ambition to make a positive contribution to the success of First Nations children and young people. It establishes the foundations and mechanisms through which the organisation will pursue reconciliation efforts and confirms AERO’s commitment to First Nations peoples through the work that it performs and the operations enabling that work.

Attention and focus are essential for students to process and retain new information effectively. Attention refers to the selective focus of conscious thought on specific information, allowing students to engage meaningfully with learning tasks. Engagement encompasses how students behave, feel and think as they actively participate in learning activities.

Learning depends fundamentally on how students process and retain information. Knowledge refers to the facts, concepts and procedures that students acquire through experience and education – their theoretical and practical understanding of subjects. That knowledge is stored in long-term memory so that it can be retrieved for later use.

Mastery of learning is the accumulation and retention of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills, and knowing when and how to use them. Application of learning includes transferring information to both familiar and new contexts, which leads to deeper understanding and more sophisticated use of knowledge. Mastery is fundamental to students’ achievement in school and their lives beyond formal education.

Retention and recall are fundamental to successful learning outcomes. Knowledge needs to be retained so that it can be used. Retention is the ability to store information in memory over time, while recall is the ability to retrieve and use stored information when needed. When students effectively retain and recall information, they can easily access and apply it to build on existing knowledge and develop deeper understanding.

This video demonstrates how teachers explain learning objectives in alignment with AERO’s model of teaching and learning. Learning objectives are concise statements that outline the goals of a lesson, a series of lessons or a learning activity. They specify what students are expected to learn and are expressed in language that is accessible to students, with any unfamiliar terms clearly explained.

This video demonstrates how teachers teach explicitly in alignment with AERO’s model of teaching and learning. Introducing new information is most effective when teachers break it down and teach it explicitly using explanation, demonstration and modelling, especially when students are new to that learning area. It involves teaching content explicitly in ways that manage cognitive load to support students with building foundational knowledge before they practise independently.

This video demonstrates how teachers scaffold practice in alignment with AERO’s model of teaching and learning. Supports – known as scaffolds – consist of guidance from the teacher and tools and resources the student can use. Scaffolds can be designed during planning (planned scaffolding) or introduced during lessons to respond to learning needs as they arise (contingent scaffolding). Teachers select and use scaffolds to support each phase of the learning process as students retain, consolidate and apply their learning.