Education Commons^™

Using The "Questionnaire On Teacher Interaction" In The Professional Development Of Teachers., Darrell Fisher, Barry Fraser, John Cresswell

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

For some time in Australia, the Schools Council of the National Board of Employment, Education. and Training has been concerned with issues concerning the quality of teaching as evidenced through its reports on Teacher Quality: An Issues Paper (1989) and Australia's Teachers: An Agenda for the Next Decade (1990). These reports and others highlight the need for teachers to examine continually what they do in their classrooms. Most recently, teacher quality and the need for continued professional development of teachers has been the subject of a ministerial statement (Beazley, 1993). This report notes how the impact of, and responsibility for, …

Reflection, Rhetoric Or Reality : A Case Study In Preservice Teacher Education, Denis Mclaughlin, Pam Hanifin

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Over the last decade, the term 'reflection', has reemerged as a central focus surrounding the issue of providing a practical, technical oriented teacher preparation program, as opposed to a liberal, socially oriented, type education (Richardson, 1990). Whilst there has been much support for the image of the teacher as a reflective professional (Schon, 1983), there appears to be no definitive' description as to what constitutes reflective practice, or scholarly consensus as to the ways and means by which teacher educators might encourage its development. It has been described as "difficult" (Wildman & Niles, 1987), "fuzzy" (Tom, 1987), "problematic" (Ross, 1989), …

Teaching Language To Adults. Mixed Ability Teaching : Meeting Learners' Needs., E. J. Mcgilp

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Ainslie, Susan. (1994) Mixed ability teaching : meeting learners' needs. Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, London.

Teaching English Communicatively In China - Educating Teachers Is Not Enough., Bernard Hird

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The extent to which the communicative language teaching approach is a relevant and viable methodology for English language teachers to use in China is an issue that has generated considerable interest in recent years. The conclusions drawn in this article are based on experiences of teaching in an in-service course for senior middle-school teachers of English in Hangzhou, China. The paper suggests that the communicative approach does have a role in English language teaching in China but that aspects of the approach need to be applied selectively and with caution. Some of the reasons for this stem from the nature …

Technology In Teacher Education : Using Multimedia To Enhance The Design And Make Processes., Brian Ferry, Christine Brown

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper reports on the use of a multimedia journal to enhance a subject in technology education. The subject was delivered to preservice teachers studying to be primary school teachers. The multimedia journal was used to assist in the delivery of the subject and to record the progress made by students. It is argued that multimedia used in this manner complements and extends upon the teaching program and becomes an integral part of the learning process

The Practicum In Tafe Teacher Education : The Challenge Of Contextual Diversity., Ralph Blunden

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The Hawthorn Institute of Education has had a long tradition of training Technical and Further Education (henceforth, 'TAFE') teachers. The TAFE context in general (and the practicum context in TAFE colleges in particular) gives rise to many difficulties and challenges which do not beset the pre-service education of secondary teachers (at least not to the same degree). In this paper, after briefly sketching the historical context of TAFE and TAFE teacher preparation, attention is drawn to the diversity of TAFE in Victoria. Following this, some examples of· practicum supervision situations are provided to illustrate how they differ from the standard …

Public Speaking For Graduate Student Reachers In The Diploma Of Education., D. M. Murison Travers

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Graduate student teachers in the Diploma of Education took part in a 10 hour elective on speaking in groups, aimed at helping those who were communication apprehensive or shy to overcome their fears. Confident speakers also took part, to provide modelling and assistance, and to learn ways of teaching oral communication in school. McCroskey's (1977) Verbal Activity Scale (VAS) and Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) were used with a questionnaire evaluating the programme (EvaIProg) to compare the reactions of the more and less confident speakers to the activities. The less confident speakers claimed to benefit from the programme, which …

Four Book Reviews, Carlisle Sheridan, Ann Crittenden, Bruce Haynes, M. Wild, A. M. Blackmore

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Fox, Mem. (1993) Radical reflections : passionate opinions on teaching, learning, and living. Sydney, Harcourt Brace.

Ingvarson, L, and Chadbourne, R (Editors) (1994) Valuing teachers' work : new directions in teacher appraisal. Camberwell, Vic : Australian Council for Educational Research.

Shears, L. (Editor) (1995) Computers and schools. Camberwell, Vic : ACER.

Maltby, F., Gage, N. L. & Berliner, D. (1995) Educational psychology : an Australian and New Zealand perspective. Brisbane : John Wiley.

Beginning Teacher Education : Students' Conceptions Of Teaching And Approaches To Learning., Carol A. Christensen, David R. Massey, Peter J. Isaacs, John Synott

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Twenty preservice teachers were interviewed prior to commencement of their teacher education course to establish the conceptions of teaching and approaches to learning with which they entered the course. Students were categorised as surface, deep or achieving in their learning orientations (Biggs, 1987). Five conceptions of teaching were identified: the nurturing helper, authority and disciplinarian, shaper of children's lives, presenter of information and facilitator of thinking and learning. There was a consistent relationship between conceptions of learning and conceptions of teaching. Surface learners tended to see teaching as transmission of information. There were very few deep learners, however they tended …

Development Of A Constructivist Model For Teacher Inservice., Brian Hand, David F. Treagust

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper, we consider a model for teacher inservice that is informed by constructlvlsm. Initially, we consider the criteria for identifying conceptual change, briefly examine research on the roles which teachers engage in when implementing innovations, and describing different knowledge bases needed m usmg teaching approaches informed by constructivist referents. Secondly, we describe an inservice programme for science teachers in one high school, and thirdly show how a five-stage model to introduce teaching/learning approaches informed by constructivism was developed.

Introduction By Max Angus, Guest Editor, And, Contents Page, Max Angus

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This issue will focus on the National Schools Project, an ambitious action research project involving 200 schools across the country. At one level, the Project is only incidentally pertinent to teacher educators - it has been a large, costly attempt to change the way schools operate; should it succeed in the longer term in achieving its purposes, prospective teachers will require a new range of skills and understandings. There is a second more immediate reason. In some states, teacher educators have played an influential role as 'critical friends' of school staff engaged in the taxing task of changing the way …

Creating Waves : Towards An Educological Paradigm Of Teacher Education., David Tripp

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper it is argued that teacher education has already gone through two major stages (or waves) in its development, and is perhaps about to embark on a third. The first part presents a broad history of various models in terms of three major variables: where pre-service learning is located, how the study of education is constituted, and who controls accreditation. It is suggested that Australia is likely to return to an earlier model of teacher education unless teacher educators themselves produce a better way in which to meet current criticisms. A new' educological' model is proposed which involves …

What Motivates People To Become Teachers., Don Alexander, David Chant, Bernard Cox

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

There is no shortage of attempts to explain why people want to be teachers, and many of these attempts are used to frame this paper. Most of the research cited comes from the United States, some comes from Australia, and a few references are made to research from other countries. What attracts people to teaching has been a popular research theme for several decades, and it has been simultaneously quite popular in many countries. In Israet for example, 9.9% of all educational research done between 1974 and 1985 related to "teachers' education, attitudes and behaviours" (Peritz, 1989:62). Prominent among the …

"New Production Concepts" And The Reconstruction Of Teacher Education : A Post-Fordist Critique., Susan L. Robertson

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the reconstruction of teacher education in order to initiate a more systematic debate.To undertake this task, I will first locate the current proposals for the reform of teacher education in a brief historical context, before moving on to outline the proposed changes to teacher education. I will argue that these policy shifts must be understood within the wider post-Fordist debate and that the new production concepts of skilling, reprofessionalism and task integration provide a useful basis on which the current restructuring proposals. I will conclude my analysis by arguing that while …

Research And Development As An Essential Work Practice For Teachers., Sharan Burrow

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Educators who have promoted the societal value of life-long learning must take heart from the growing acceptance by business and industry leaders that career-long education and development is essential for their survivaL This dawning realisation has been prompted by the harsh realities of competitive, global economics. Increasingly business leaders recognise that managers and employees must learn and adapt or contract and shut down. Ironically, much of the tough language of business and industry in regard to essential learnings and understandings (competencies) can be found in documented debate, system reports and teacher discourse of the seventies, a discourse labelled 'soft' by …

Partnership : Beyond Consultation, Susan Groundwater-Smith, Judy Parker, Michael Arthur

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In recent years, in Australia, there has been an increasing acknowledgment that work practices need to be developed around the concept of partnership with less intrusive and coercive management regimes. All participants are recognised as agents of the productive process, albeit on different scales and at different rates. Partnership does not preclude an understanding that some will be more advanced in their skills and understandings than others, that some will be in need of greater assistance than others. What is distinctive is that involvement in development will be collaborative, rather than coercive; cooperative, rather than competitive; enabling rather than disabling, …

Creating A Collaborative Culture In A National Schools Project School., John Rooney, Alastair Drew

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The school's desire to be a part of the National Schools Project arose from its local circumstances. Situated in the northern suburbs of AdelaIde, Salisbury North Primary School caters to a highly disadvantaged community. Over 80 per cent of students are from households whose income is low enough to qualify for government assistance. This figure has been steadily rising over the last few years. The student population is also remarkably diverse. Of an enrolment of 280 children in year levels 3-7, thirty percent are of non-English speaking background, twenty five percent are part of a new arrivals program, and over …

The Regulation Of Teaching : Lessons From The National Schools Project, Max Angus

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

It is conceivable that the present generation of Australian teachers has been engaged in more workplace reform over a longer period of time than any other occupational group. Teachers can recite a near-interminable list of changes to work practices initiated during the 70s and 80s which required revisions of content to be taught, changes in methods of instruction and the introduction of modified patterns of school organisation. Yet the more things change the more they appear the same. The salient features of schools of 20 years ago are salient today - classes of thirty of so students, dominated by teacher …

Qualifications Of Entrants Into Graduate Diploma Courses Of Education, Bruce Haynes

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The qualifications of those offered places in Graduate Diplomas in Education at Edith Cowan University in 1994 were of high quality and similar to the qualifications of students in these courses In recent years. An account of the quality of those qualifications is presented here to assist those wishing to judge the quality of teachers. Impressions of the quality of teachers in schools are formed by people using various types of evidence. Teachers' salary scales, levels of industrial dispute, academic qualifications, socio-economic origins, children's examination results, level of juvenile criminal and anti-social behaviour, public utterances by teachers and their representatives, …

Employment Of Interns Completing The University Of South Australia's Diploma In Education Course In 1992-1993., Tom Gad, David Homer

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Andy and Speedo (1993) describe the University of South Australia's intern-based Diploma in Education in which the university, four participating secondary schools and the Education Department formed a partnership allowing students to spend the majority of their time in the four schools and a home base in one of the schools.

Its Time For A Total Curriculum Approach To Preservice Teacher Education Programs : A Personal Viewpoint., Ian Macpherson

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This article contests the ways in which preservice teacher education programs have been conceptualised, planned and implemented in universities. The article, therefore, is NOT about responding in technocratic ways alone to institutional, practising school, and employer constraints. Rather, it is about conceptualising preservice teacher education programs so that intending graduates work towards becoming reflective practitioners with a commitment to social justice. Such a conceptualisation is considered appropriate given the increasing diversity of learners and learning settings; the increasing complexity of communities and society; the growing possibilities for engaging in truly collaborative approaches to teacher education; and the expanding challenge of …

The Collaborating Teacher As Co-Educator In Teacher Education., Hans Hulshof, Nico Verloop

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this article a report will be given on a research project of the Teacher Education Department of Leiden University, The Netherlands. The research focuses on the role of the collaborating / cooperating teacher in the one year postgraduate teacher training course which is followed by candidates having their masters in a variety of subjects.

Leaders And Their Learning, E. J. Mcgilp, Maureen Michael

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Leaders and their learning : professional development priorities for principals / compiled by Beryl Evans. (1993) for Department of Employment, Education and Training. 47 p.

The Process Of Learning, Peter Cole

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Biggs, J. B. and Moore, P.J. (1993) The Process of Learning (3rd ed.) Sydney : Prentice Hall. 582 p.

Learning To Teach Physical Education., Andrew Taggart

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Tinning, Richard. (1993) Learning to teach physical education, by Richard Tinning, David Kirk, John Evans. Sydney : Prentice Hall, 256 p.

Field Of Dreams : Australia's National Schools Project, William Louden, John Wallace

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

"If you build it, they will come," says one of the characters in the film Field of Dreams. In the key scene of the film, the magical power of belief draws dreamers and long-dead baseball heros together in a baseball diamond cut from a mId-western farmer's corn field. Belief overcomes reality, and the film's characters and their baseball heroes play the perfect baseball games of imagination in the light of a long golden dusk. The National Schools Project is like that, we think in three ways. First, its creators have believed that it is possible for Australian schools to be …

A Meeting Of Minds : Journals, Gloria Latham

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

It is a circuitous and often lonely journey being educated and educating others. I have found journal writing to be a buffer against the isolation by recording moments along the path and lingering from time to time on a fresh idea or a memory. Reflective journals fill my bookshelves and feed my professional practice as I continue to map my journey. This is why when I first heard I would be teaching a new subject entitled, 'Reflective Learning and Teaching' with a three year journal component I felt confident, I knew I could share my own use of the professional …

Reflective Practice In Teacher Education, John Smyth

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper I want to raise four issues: Why the interest in reflective approaches, now? What is to be gained from this approach? What are some of the advantages? What are the drawbacks? The basic argument of the paper is that the notion of "reflective practice" has generally had a positive history and connotation in schools, and that it is worth persisting with, but unless we develop some touchstone principles to guide us as to what it means to act reflectively, there is a distinct danger that a constructive and useful approach will be "at risk" as good ideas …

"I Wasn't Aware, Until I Was Aware" : Teaching Gender Equity To Second Year Education Students, Lesley Newhouse-Maiden, Susan Cullen

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The study sought to ascertain the success of a preservice unit in which one module focussed on developing 'gender fair' attitudes in education students. The subjects of the study were students in their second year of a Bachelor of Education degree studying the 'Social Justice and Equity in Schools' unit. Collaborative action research methods were used to collect data over a three month period. It was found that 85% of students attempted to use gender fair approaches and material when observed on teaching practice. While the outcome of pre-service teacher education was positive, it was acknowledged that there was always …

Promoting Reflection During Practice Teaching In An Australian University : Clarifying The Rhetoric And The Reality, Ross Brooker, Thomas A. O'Donoghue

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper focuses on the promotion of reflectivity during practice teaching amongst student teachers at a university in Australia. By way of background, current criticisms of what is termed the "technocratic" approach to teacher education are outlined and the emphasis which is placed on the development of the "reflective teacher" as a counterforce to this approach is considered. It is then argued that the "technocratic" position and the "reflective teacher" position need not necessarily be viewed as being in conflict. Rather, the contention is that they are both satisfactorily accommodated within Van Manen's (1977) "theory of reflectivity". For the study …