Evidence-based learning is a teaching approach grounded in proven research and real-world data about how students learn best. It focuses on using strategies that are backed by scientific evidence to deliver effective and measurable outcomes. At its core, this approach emphasises explicit instruction, where teachers guide students step-by-step through a clear, structured process of learning.

It also prioritises a knowledge-rich curriculum, ensuring students build a solid foundation of understanding across subjects. This method helps prevent cognitive overload, keeps students engaged, and equips them with the skills they need to succeed. Importantly, evidence-based learning replaces outdated, ineffective practices with ones that are rigorously tested and shown to work, ensuring every student, no matter their background or postcode, has access to high-quality education.

In contrast, evidence-based teaching focuses on structured, step-by-step instruction to ensure all students grasp the essential building blocks of learning, regardless of their personal interests or natural ability.

A Revolution in Australian Classrooms: Evidence-Based Teaching Delivers Results

The latest NAPLAN results, as highlighted by Elena Douglas in The Australian, underscore a seismic shift in education. Schools that embrace evidence-based teaching methods are achieving transformative results, regardless of their postcode or socio-economic context.

Douglas, chief executive of Knowledge Society, explains that high-performing schools are “nearly exclusively those that privilege evidence-based teaching and learning, including explicit instruction and a knowledge-rich curriculum.” The data backs her up.

Take the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn’s Catalyst program, featured in Douglas’s article. Launched in 2019, it introduced explicit instruction and evidence-based reading practices across 56 schools in NSW and the ACT. The program has delivered astonishing results: 13 of the ACT’s top 20 performing schools are Catholic schools, despite making up just 20% of the territory’s schools. This achievement is a testament to the power of rigorous, evidence-based approaches to teaching.

In contrast, ACT government schools, which didn’t adopt similar reforms, continue to fall behind. The difference lies in a willingness to discard outdated methods and commit to strategies rooted in cognitive science.

Douglas’s views remind us that explicit instruction isn’t a passing trend. It’s a proven method that aligns with decades of research into how students learn best. By focusing on active engagement, building foundational knowledge, and preventing cognitive overload, this approach equips students with the skills they need to thrive.

Evidence-based learning can be simply explained as a teaching approach grounded in proven research and real-world data about how students learn best. It focuses on using strategies that are backed by scientific evidence to deliver effective and measurable outcomes. At its core, this approach emphasises explicit instruction, where teachers guide students step-by-step through a clear, structured process of learning. It also prioritises a knowledge-rich curriculum, ensuring students build a solid foundation of understanding across subjects. This method helps prevent cognitive overload, keeps students engaged, and equips them with the skills they need to succeed. Importantly, evidence-based learning replaces outdated, ineffective practices with ones that are rigorously tested and shown to work, ensuring every student, no matter their background or postcode, has access to high-quality education.

The benefits extend to teachers as well. Explicit instruction provides clarity and confidence, empowering educators to create effective learning environments. But as Douglas notes, asking teachers to unlearn practices taught during their university training is no small task. It demands comprehensive professional development and empathy for the challenges teachers face in adapting to these changes.

Douglas’s article in The Australian highlights the key factors that made the Catalyst program a success:

1. Comprehensive, System-Wide Implementation
   Change needs to be driven from the top, with a well-designed, consistent program. Piecemeal efforts won’t suffice.
2. Removing Ineffective Practices
   Schools must abandon outdated methods that don’t work. As Douglas points out, NSW was the first to de-implement the ineffective Reading Recovery program. Other states must follow this lead.
3. Measuring Impact
   Every initiative must be judged by its effect on student learning outcomes. Programs without an evidence base have no place in our classrooms.

As Douglas notes, around 300 schools in Australia have adopted evidence-based teaching, out of roughly 9,500 nationwide. That’s progress, but there’s a long way to go.

The good news is that any school, in any postcode, can succeed with the right support. With realistic timelines, effective management, and robust professional development, all schools can achieve dramatic improvements in student outcomes.

Douglas concludes her piece by emphasising what’s at stake: not just the productivity of our education system, but the wellbeing and future life outcomes of Australian students. The success of programs like Catalyst shows that dramatic improvements are possible when evidence-based teaching is embraced at scale.

An example of a teaching method often criticised as left-wing or woke and opposite to evidence-based teaching is child-led learning or constructivist teaching. In this approach, students are encouraged to direct their own learning by exploring topics that interest them, often with minimal teacher guidance. The idea is that students "construct" their own understanding through discovery and experience.

While this might sound engaging, it can sometimes lack the structure and explicit instruction needed for foundational skills, like reading or mathematics. For example, instead of a teacher explicitly teaching phonics (how letters and sounds work together), a child-led approach might encourage students to "guess" words based on pictures or context. This can lead to gaps in learning, especially for students who struggle without clear guidance.

Let’s build on this momentum. The revolution in Australian classrooms is underway, and every child deserves to benefit from it.