Tim McDonald is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the YMCA Western Australia and was previously the Executive Director, Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA) and Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University. Tim is also a leading authority on student learning and engagement. He wrote Classroom Management: Engaging Students in Learning to help teachers and schools change behaviour with his Positive Learning Framework (PLF). The PLF incorporates effective instructional strategies that engage students in learning and equips teachers with the skills needed to positively respond to misbehaviour and de-escalate conflict.

Tim has partnered with program designers, Knowledge Society, to scale up the impact of the PLF and its strategies, and together they have created Classroom Mastery. The program is informed by strong evidence bases in the Science of Learning, human behaviour and cognitive science, and aims to help schools and education systems reduce classroom disruption and create calm and ordered classrooms where learning takes priority.