Australian Psychology Learning and Teaching
About Us
We are a passionate group of educators from across Australia, determined to raise the profile of teaching and learning psychology in schools. AusTOP is part of AusPLAT. AusPLAT aims to provide support and resources across all settings (primary, secondary, tertiary +) to improve Australian Psychology educators’ learning and teaching outcomes.
Members of our network come from diverse education settings across Australia and beyond.
We welcome psychology educators. It’s free to join, as part of our endeavour to be an open-facing, research-inspired, and not-for-profit psychology teacher network.
Psychology teachers are uniting across Australia in an effort to raise the profile of psychology in Australian schools. They are also aiming to address some of the hurdles within the profession.
At the AusPLAT Conference 2021 designed for psychology educators across various (school and tertiary) settings, a larger representation of secondary school teachers participated than ever before.
As a result, a new group, the Australian Teachers of Psychology (AusTOP) Network, was formed with the members driven to make positive change for teachers and teaching of psychology in Australia.
Our founding steering group worked on forming the network in 2022, and in 2023 we look forward to opening the network up to teachers across Australia.
Why Australian teachers of psychology are determined to build a network.
1. Raise the profile of psychology education
2. Overcome isolation and make connections between psychology educators
3. Embed psychology in the curriculum
5. Forge co-beneficial and sustainable relationships with a range of professional teacher/ subject associations
Symposium abstract:
This international symposium focuses on the status of psychology in schools and current opportunities for engagement between psychology teachers and professional psychology associations and related conferences. In doing so, it considers the ways this engagement supports the work of teachers of psychology across curriculum jurisdictions (states/ territories/ countries) while emphasising teacher choice, context and professionalism, as a secondary school teacher and a teacher of psychology.
While there are key differences across the world, many challenges are similar. Following the presentation, we open up the discussion regarding what opportunities are possible in the future. Where could we go from here?