Education Commons^™

“Becoming A Better Teacher” Exploring The Cultural Competence Of Non-Aboriginal Teachers In A Northern Australian Boarding School, Megan Hayley Spiers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This doctoral dissertation presents an exploration of the journey to cultural competence revealed in the lived experience of teachers and boarding staff in a boarding school in northern Australia. The qualitative inquiry sought to discover the causal attribution and motivations of culturally competent teachers and to enunciate the essential skills, knowledge and understanding required to improve the development of cultural competence in teachers new to the phenomenon: namely, that of being a non- Aboriginal teacher of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, defined in the study as teaching in classrooms of cultural difference. The research was unique in being …

Learning In A Pre-Service Teacher Residency Program, Shuyi Zhen

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Teacher educators worldwide are seeking ways to develop stronger links with schools, to improve the quality of initial teacher preparation. In this study the researcher investigated a residency approach to initial teacher education (ITE) in a one-year Graduate Diploma of Education course designed to prepare primary school teachers at a university in Western Australia. A mixed methods inquiry approach was employed to examine the nature and quality of the professional learning experiences of the pre-service teacher participants.

The Teacher Residency Program (TRP) was based on a medical residency model, with residents given a semester-length placement in two schools. Each placement …

Learning To Teach: What Pre-Service Teachers Report, Dawn Naylor

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

With universities and schools of education receiving recurring criticism for being ineffective in preparing graduates for school teaching, this study sought to understand the phenomenon of learning to teach in order to investigate universal questions about who was learning to teach and what, where, when and how did they learn to teach during their initial learning to teach experiences at university. The topic was approached by listening to the voices and stories of those who ought to know the most about the phenomenon: the pre-service teachers. A multiple case study analysis was conducted with seven pre-service teachers, enrolled in their …