Empowering Teachers and Democratising Schooling

Dr Keith Heggart is a former high school teacher and educational leader who worked for more than fifteen years in public, Catholic, and independent schools in Australia and in the United Kingdom. He is a Google-Certified Innovator, an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Keith has a long involvement with the trade union movement in education. He has designed learning materials for the Independent Education Union New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory (NSW/ACT), as well as working in digital organizing. Keith completed his PhD on the topic of exploring justice-oriented citizenship education amongst Australian school students. He works as an academic at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, in the initial teacher education program.

Mr Steven Kolber is a public government school teacher who has been teaching English, History and English Language for over a decade. He has recently been named a top 50 finalists in the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize. He is passionate about teacher collaboration, which he supports through organising Teach Meets, running #edureading (an online academic reading group) and taking groups of teachers to Cambodia to run teacher development workshops with Teachers Across Borders Australia. He leverages technology to share teaching ideas and develop teachers through the ‘Teachers Educational Review’ podcast and his own YouTube channel ‘Mr Kolber’s Teaching’. He is especially interested in the future of education and the role for democracy within emerging technological futures. He researches and publishes around empowering teachers, professional learning via social media, and teachers engaging research.