Leung has been a teacher for 16 years. She was on track to do well in her HSC – so much so that her careers advisor questioned whether she should choose another university course. But she was adamant she wanted to be like her own school science teacher, who made her fall in love with biology, human evolution, and immunology.

‘Low floor, high ceiling’

Today, some of her TikTok videos have hundreds of thousands of views. But being a teacher is harder than it looks, and Leung has learnt plenty of other lessons in the science of teaching. One, she said, stands out among the rest: having a clear and consistent lesson structure for her students.

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Leung’s lessons start with a “retrieval practice” activity relating to content learnt months beforehand to strengthen long-term memory. New content is taught so it has a “low floor but a high ceiling”, meaning everyone can feel some sort of success, but students can also explore a topic in as much depth as they want. Each lesson concludes with a learning intention success criteria self-evaluation.

Her lessons are connected to the real world, with local scientists regularly invited to speak.

They are also fun. In chemistry, students make ice-cream sandwiches with rainbow flavours and chocolate biscuits to demonstrate complex mathematical concepts.

“It’s to make it memorable. And I think having that fun component, you make it exciting, you make it engaging, and then they want to understand it,” Leung said.

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