Humanities & Social Sciences
Students struggle to hear in open-plan classrooms
Recently some schools have begun converting classrooms to open plan learning spaces, with as many as 200 children in one area. While the classroom settings make group work easier and improve children’s social skills, noise can be a big problem for both students and teachers. According to Kiri Mealings, a PhD candidate researching speech perception in open plan classrooms, noise is a real ...
New UNESCO physical education guidelines aimed at longer, more productive lives
The time children and adults all over the world spend engaging in physical activity is decreasing, with dire consequences for their health, life expectancy, and ability to perform in the classroom, in society and at work. It’s a trend that the World Health Organization (WHO) has described as a pandemic that contributes to the death of 3.2 million people every year, more than twice as many...
Multilit on track for big things
Macquarie’s hugely successful children’s literacy program, MultiLit, is celebrating 20 years of helping children read in 2015. MultiLit began in 1995 under the leadership of Macquarie University’s Emeritus Professor Kevin Wheldall AM, with a remit to improve children’s literacy with an approach based upon scientific, evidence-based best practice. It has supported various communit...
Edward and the Great Discovery
Macquarie alumna Rebecca McRitchie fulfilled a lifelong ambition when her children’s picture book, Edward and the Great Discovery not only hit the shelves earlier this year, but sold out of its first print run in two months. Rebecca, who says she wishes she could tell her young readers that she was raised by wolves in a snowy forest until she saved a village from the fiery peril of a disg...
New clinic helps people read all about it
The Cognition Clinic for Reading is now open to the public, at the Australian Hearing Hub. “Our clinic’s aim is to help people with a range of reading and spelling difficulties, and their supporters,” said Genevieve McArthur. “We help people directly by providing comprehensive assessments and evidence-based advice about treatments. At the same time, we know we can’t help everybody ...
Take your studies further
As we reported previously, one of the standout findings in the 2014 Alumni Survey was the level of interest many of you have in further study. At Macquarie, we have a range of postgraduate degrees and short courses that will help you build on your existing skills and develop the knowledge you seek, in the comfort of a familiar, welcoming environment. So if you’d like to reconnect with old fr...