Education Commons^™

Changes to Queensland teacher accreditation (Queensland Government, 2009) have increased teacher educators' responsibility for graduate literacy. This paper offers a perspective on the implementation of a general literacy initiative into a specialist subject. Specifically, it details the engagement process undertaken with a broad academic literacy agenda, the First Year Literacy Initiative (FYLI), to refresh Foundations of Educational Technology, a first year education subject at James Cook University. An action research approach was used to identify and respond to key resourcing, pedagogical, assessment, and knowledge-based challenges and strategies. As subject lecturer I provide a preliminary evaluation of four strategies including (i) …

Concerns about teacher standards and teacher quality particularly in literacy, numeracy and science and their impact on student achievement are prevalent in current Australian federal and state reports and responses. The Masters Review (ACER, 2009) into improving literacy, numeracy and science learning in Queensland schools identifies the clear need for preservice teachers to demonstrate high levels of proficiency in these areas (p.viii). The Queensland government response to the report has been to introduce mandatory preregistration testing in literacy, numeracy and science. These tests are being trialled in 2010 with a view to full implementation in 2011.

In 2010, a team …

In 2006, an intensive one-year Graduate Diploma of Education course leading to registration as a teacher was introduced in universities in Queensland. In the first few years of the course there was concern from professional associations and schools that a one-year course (when compared with a four-year undergraduate course of two-year Graduate Diploma course) allowed insufficient time to 'become a teacher'. At James Cook University, the Cairns Professional Advisory Group (a board of representatives from professional experience schools, comprising teachers, principals and union and employer groups) expressed deep concern at the observed inability of some Graduate Diploma pre-service teachers to …

In 2007, a wholly-online Bachelor of Early Childhood Education degree was introduced into James Cook University School of Education's suite of pre-service teacher preparation programs. The online degree provides access and opportunity for (predominantly) women in the childcare or associated fields to gain qualifications as a teacher. The majority of students in the first and subsequent years of the program are mature-aged women with significant family and work commitments and have had little prior opportunity to engage in online technologies or in further education opportunities. The university has had a very successful face-to-face Peer Mentoring Program (PMP) for almost 20 …