Natasha Ziebell
Dr Natasha Ziebell is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She has worked extensively in designing and implementing initial teacher education programs and professional learning programs for teachers. Her teaching and research focuses on how curriculum and assessment are designed and implemented to cater for all students. This includes the influence of theory, policy reform and initiatives on curriculum, teaching and learning in classroom contexts. She has worked on various projects that support collaboration to optimise curriculum design and implementation.
Keynote Address
Responsive Curriculum Design for Diverse Learners: Rethinking Differentiation and Equity
Educational equity is recognised as a central principle of education policy, yet it remains one of the most persistent practical challenges. In classrooms, determining the next steps for students is complex when working within curriculum expectations, pacing, assessment processes, and what we know about how students learn. Equity involves creating conditions that enable every learner to make progress and reach their full potential. International evidence from the Programme for International Student Assessment highlights the variability in mathematics outcomes within and across schools, which suggests that what is intended in the curriculum is not always what is experienced or assessed in practice.
Drawing on our research into targeted interventions, differentiation and technology-supported contexts, this keynote presents a progression-informed approach to learner-centred responsive curriculum design to support diverse learners. While the examples of responsive differentiation in action are drawn from mathematics, the underlying principles and strategies to support learners with diverse starting points are transferable beyond mathematics.