SiMERR is an Australia-wide research body, primarily located at the University of New England in Armidale,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. They are best known for their program QuickSmart.

History

SiMERR grew out of the Centre for Cognition Research in Learning and Teaching, established in 1996 at the University of New England. Branches, or ''hubs'' subsequently opening in partnership universities, such as the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

and the Deakin University in Victoria. In 2005, they held a two-day National Summit. SiMERR Australia's main goal is to improve learning outcomes for students in regional and rural areas, particularly in the areas of

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

Information and Communication Technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

(ICT). They have launched several projects, most notably QuickSmart.

QuickSmart

QuickSmart is a basic academic skills program aimed at middle years students in

, aimed at developing basic skills in

literacy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

numeracy Numeracy is the ability to understand, reason with, and apply simple numerical concepts; it is the numerical counterpart of literacy. The charity National Numeracy states: "Numeracy means understanding how mathematics is used in the real world ...

. It was created by John Pegg and Lorraine Graham and was implemented in schools in 2001. In May 2009, the NSW Department of Education and Training approved QuickSmart Numeracy as an intervention program for schools with literacy and numeracy needs in areas of low socioeconomic status. According to QuickSmart, by 2019 their programs had been implemented in over 1400 primary and

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

around Australia. According to the creators, QuickSmart lessons help develop the learners’ abilities to monitor their own

learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, non-human animals, and ...

and to set realistic goals for themselves, and results gathered have consistently demonstrated student growth of two to four years’ improvement over a 30-week period as measured by effect size statistics.Pegg, J.E., Graham, L.J. and Bellert, A. 2005,
The effect of improved automaticity of basic number skills on persistently low-achieving pupils
', Learners and Learning Environments, 29th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, vol.4, 4-49.

References

Scientific organisations based in Australia Information technology education