Rate My Professor Gemma Scarparolo

Dr. Gemma Scarparolo is the Deputy Head of School (Education/Teaching and Learning) and Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy awarded in 2015, a Master of Education in 2006, and a Bachelor of Education (Primary) in 2000. A registered teacher with the Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia since 2000, she currently coordinates the Bachelor of Education (Primary) (Honours) course, having previously served as Course Coordinator for the Master of Teaching (Primary) from 2020 to 2023. Scarparolo's career includes leadership roles such as Chair of the Graduate School of Education Committee and Board of Examiners since 2023, member of the UWA University Learning and Teaching Committee since 2023, and Executive member of the Australian Teacher Education Association from 2022 to 2027. Her research specializations include inclusive education, differentiation, gifted education, teacher education, family-school partnerships, and parents' experiences of communication and interaction with teachers and school leaders.

Key publications by Scarparolo encompass "Examining the Australian educational landscape of differentiation through document analysis" (2025, co-authored with Tom Porta), "Gifted students’ learning experiences in mixed-ability (inclusive) classes in Australian primary schools" (2025), "‘I never considered how difficult it can be for parents’: pre-service teachers learning from listening to parents of children with disability" (2025), "Development and validation of the Pre-service Teacher Perceived Sources of Self-Efficacy for Differentiated Instruction Scale (PST-SSE-DI)" (2026, co-authored with Pearl Subban), and "An efficacious pedagogical space for all students: The power of differentiating through explicit teaching" (2026, co-authored with Tom Porta and Jenny Anderson). She has received the AAUT Australian Award for University Teaching: Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (2023), UWA Excellence in Teaching Award (2022), Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education Excellence in Teaching Award (2020 and 2018), Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (2021), and Australian Teacher Education Association Early Career Research Grant Award (2021). Additional contributions include serving on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs since 2023, scientific committee for the London International Conference on Inclusive Education (2026), and school boards such as Hollywood Primary School (2025-2026).