Robyn Gillies

Professor Robyn Gillies' major research interests are in the learning sciences, classroom discourses, small group processes, including co-regulated learning, classroom instruction, student behaviour, and students with disabilities. Professor Robyn Gillies has worked extensively in both primary and secondary schools to embed STEM education initiatives into the science curriculum. This includes helping teachers to embed inquiry skills into the science curricula so they capture students’ interests, provide opportunities for them to explore possible solutions to problems, explain phenomena, elaborate on potential outcomes, and evaluate findings. In short, through these investigations, students learn how to engage critically and constructively with others’ ideas, challenge and rebut proposals, and discuss alternative propositions. In so doing, they learn to talk and reason effectively together. These STEM education initiatives have been funded by research grants and contracts from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Education and Training (DET), the Queensland Museum Network (QMN), and the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT). Professor Gillies is a Chief Investigator on the Science of Learning Research Centre (SLRC) where she has been instrumental in implementing two recent science-based research projects in primary and secondary schools to help teachers embed inquiry-science pedagogy into their science curricula. Her recommendations on how teachers can translate research into practice have been widely profiled in the international literature and on the website of the Smithsonian Science Education Center in Washington, DC. Learning sciences, Classroom discourses, Cooperative learning, Classroom instruction, Educational psychology, Classroom behaviour, Guidance, Counselling and Careers

[2026] Teaching and Learning 21st-Century Skills: Collaboration and Communication in Formal and Informal Educational Settings [2026] Future doctors, future scholars: factors influencing China-educated international medical students’ career intentions in primary care and academic medicine [2026] Career indecision among medical students: a scoping review of contributing sources, associated factors, and support strategies [2026] Teaching and Learning 21st Century Skills—Collaboration and Communication in Formal and Informal Educational Settings: An Introduction [2026] Reflections of the 21st Century Skills of Collaborations and Cooperation: Current and Future Perspectives [2026] Collaborative and Communicative Skills for Twenty-First Century Learning [2026] University Professors’ Views and Pe