Education Commons^™

Clio And The Curriculum: History And The True Professional, Thomas A. O'Donoghue

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

For many years the history of education had a prominent place as a subject in courses for the education and training of teachers. At least three major aspects are discernible in the history programmes in question: the ideas of the ideologues of the subject, the history of institutions nourishing them, and a narrative study of education systems with the focus on Acts and "Great Men". One of the foci in each case was the curriculum. By the late 1960s the subject was so firmly entrenched in courses that Simon (1969: 91) could argue as follows: "There is no need to …

Book Reviews, John R. Godfrey, Barry Down, Edmund Z. Mazibuko, Russell Waugh, John Woods

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Musgrave, P.W. (1992). From Humanity to Utility: Melbourne University and Public Examinations 1856-1964. Hawthorn: ACER. 340 pages.

Batten, M, Marland, P. & Khamis, M. (1993). Knowing How to Teach Well: Teachers Reflect on Their Classroom Practice. Hawthorn: ACER Research Monograph, 84 pages.

Griffin, P. (1991). Monitoring School Achievements. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. 76 pages.

Izard, J. (1991). Assessment of Learning in the Classroom. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. 62 pages.

Ormell, C. (1991). Behavioural Objectives in the Classroom. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. 73 pages.

Owens, A. (1991). Assessment in Specific Circumstances. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. 46 pages. …

Contents Page, And, Introduction By Rod Chadbourne, Guest Editor, Rod Chadbourne

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In 1992, the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) released a policy document titled: "Teacher Education: A discussion paper." Among other thought provoking points, it presented Australian teacher educators as relatively old and lacking current teaching experience in schools. According to the discussion paper, 81 % of teacher educators are over 38 years old, 37% are over 48, only 20% taught in schools during the 1980's, and more than 50% were school teachers before 1973 (pp 11- 12). Further, consistent with their "obsolescent teaching experience" (p.12), teacher educators "simply pass on the theory of teaching" (p.17) and many …

Back To The Future: The De-Professionalisation Of Initial Teacher Education In England And Wales, Peter Gilroy

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In many ways this paper reads like a report from an educational battlefield. From the 1980s those involved with initial teacher education in England and Wales can be seen as dealing with sporadic sniping at their work, followed by more substantial skirmishes, culminating in the 1990s with fUll-blooded assaults. This paper begins by describing the position being attacked, identifies the first intimations of aggression, then focuses upon the battering inflicted, in the 1990s upon initial teacher education. The analysis which follows indicates that, savage though it has been, the attack on initial teacher education is in some ways only a …

School-Based Teacher Education In The United States : An Uneven Evolution, Mary K. Ducharme, Edward R. Ducharme

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

What does school-based teacher education mean in the United States? Certainly, it does not mean that funding, decision-making and management of programs are the province of individual school districts; in the United States, teacher education is firmly ensconced in higher education. The overwhelming majority of teachers are prepared in colleges and universities, licensed by individual states, and employed by local school districts. Law, tradition, and funding suggest that this general pattern will not change soon. While teacher education is located primarily in higher education institutions, school-based teacher education exists. It exists in many forms, ranging from student teaching and other …

Partners In Teacher Education : A Programme In Alberta, Glenda Campbell-Evans

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

A persistent quest for improvement and change seems to be characteristic of Western education. New ways of thinking, doing and knowing occupy the time and energy of educators at all levels. Educators concerned with the pre service education of teachers plan and deliver programmes which vary from institution to institution. In Canada, some teacher education courses are school-based, some are traditional, some are developed from a school-university partnership model and some follow a discipline based degree. This article presents a descriptive account of the Teaching Partnership programme; a school based teacher education initiative implemented in September 1993 in Alberta, Canada. …

School Experience : A Collaborative Partnership, William Young

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper describes a number of special features of the school based internship program which has been developed at the University of New England (Northern Rivers). Arrangements are described for interns' time spent in classrooms, collaborative teaching strategies which underpin these placements, the security which supports interns' practice, and approaches to integrate their practice with university studies. Processes of appraisal of interns' development are explained, and the potential of mentoring for their teachers' professional development is examined.

End-On Innovation : A School-Based Approach To Secondary Teacher Education, Kym L. Adey, Graeme Speedy

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

One year "end-on" teacher education programs following a degree have long been a common approach to initial preparation of teachers, particularly secondary teachers. These programs have also been the subject of consistent criticism. They have been variously described as too brief, too theoretical, overcrowded with too many topics, superficial, short on school practice. Major reviews such as the Report of the National Inquiry into Teacher Education (Department of Education 1980) and the Discipline Review of Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science (DEET 1989) have recommended increasing both the length of the programs and their emphasis on preparation for classroom practice. …

A School-Based Initiative : An Opportunity To Better Understand The Practicum, Jeff Northfield

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Each year since 1987 a group of 16-20 Dip. Ed. students at Monash University has been placed in three or four schools for an extended ten week experience. As a member of the staff at Monash, I have spent half-time in the schools during this practicum supervising student teachers, arranging school experience activities and conducting seminars for student teachers and school staff. In 1993 I had a half-time teaching allotment in one of the schools so that my classroom also became a source of common experiences for follow-up discussion. This paper outlines the restructuring of the traditional preservice program that …

Preservice Intern Teaching : A P-12 Approach In The University Of Melbourne Bachelor Of Teaching Degree For Graduates, Jocelyn Grant

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The report of the consultancy on future directions of the Institute of Education at the University of Melbourne (September 1992) recommended the replacement of concurrent undergraduate courses with a two year course in education for graduates in which the student spends an extensive period in schools. However, forms of school based teacher education had been practised for twenty years. This commitment to the role of schools in teacher education in the Diploma in Education, Bachelor of Education (Secondary) and Bachelor of Education (Primary) courses was a major factor in the development of the Bachelor of Teaching degree which will be …

Learning To Teach, Teaching To Learn, William Louden

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Clandinin, D., Davies, A, Hogan, P and Kennard, B. (1993)( Eds). Learning to teach, teaching to leam. New York: Teachers College Press. 238 pages.

Dow, G. (1979). Leaming to teach: Teaching to learn. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 262 pages.

Teacher Training In Transition, A Commentary On Postgraduate Science Teacher Training In England, Arthur Jennings

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The radical reforms of recent years have affected all parts of the educational system in England. This paper discusses science teacher education and focuses on changes in teacher training programmes designed to equip teachers for the national curriculum and for work in the climate of greater accountability that now exists. Though the pressure for these changes is domestic it is suggested that the issues are of general significance.

Technology, Science And The English Tradition Of Liberal Education, Michael Barnett

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The challenges posed to the Australian Education System by economic and industrial change have been discussed in a recent paper by John Mathews and colleagues (1988). An interesting feature of this paper is that it is premised on the proposition that 'flexible skill formation and the development of technological literacy' are' the preconditions of any citizen to be active in the democratic system'. This assertion supplies a very new answer to a very old question, namely that of identifying the basic elements of the education of a free citizen. Questions about the nature of a 'liberal education' were formulated and …

Reading "Academic Writing", Mary Scott

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Helping studetns learn how to learn is now a concern for most U.K. institutions of higher education. The study skill given most emphasis is "academic writing", no doubt because it is on the quality of their written assignments that students' success or failure larely turns.

Teacher Education For Values Education : Is There A Way Forward Under Current Constraints?, Graham Haydon

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

How can teacher education best prepare teachers to contribute to values education in schools? If this was ever a question that could be asked and answered in the abstract, or with reference to some postulated ideal situation, it is not so now. I am raising and suggesting an answer to the question in the context of recent developments in education in Britain; but since those recent developments are by no means unique to Britain, the discussion may well be of broader relevance too. The context, then, in which I am raising the question is one of increasing political control, at …

Evans, G. (Ed.) Learning And Teaching Cognitive Skills; And, Biggs. J. (Ed.) Teaching For Learning: The View From Cognitive Psychology., Denise Kirkpatrick

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Evans, G. (Ed.) Learning and teaching cognitive skills. ACER, Melbourne, 1991. Biggs, J. (Ed.) Teaching for leaming: the view from cognitive psychology. ACER, Melbourne, 1991.

Introduction, Bruce Haynes

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The Minister for Employment, Education and Training, the Hon. Kim Beazley (1993, p. 11) announced the provision of $20 million over the following three years to support the development of key competencies and the "development of a prototype training and development package for teachers/trainers." This announcement highlights the significance currently accorded to competency based standards for teaching and teacher education. The identification of teacher competencies and the specification of competency based standards for entry (and promotion?) in the profession has the potential to restructure the workplace in schools by specifying what is done and who controls it. Together with the …

Competency-Based Standards In Teaching : Two Problems - One Solution, William Lauden

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Movement towards competency standards in teaching promises to bring together two parallel programs of reform: school improvement and skills formation. The first of these, school improvement has a history as long as the history of schooling. In recent decades, proposals for school improvement have led to changes in curriculum content, materials and structure; assessment; architecture; and governance of schools.

Selected Professions Observed : Competency-Based Standards And Their Implications For The Teachmg Profession, Leo Bartlett

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The emphasis on competency-based standards approaches to reform in teaching is the single most significant trend current in Australian education and in the professions generally today. Pressure for reform has come from industry, and government, and to a significantly lesser extent from the professions and parents. While there have been some reservations expressed about CBS among some sections of the Commonwealth bureaucracy in recent months, the idea of competency-based standards remains the overarching schema for micro-economic reform. The dominant press for reform can be attributed to federal (and state) interests and the policy-makers who for largely economic or rationalist reasons. …

Critical Thinking In Teacher Education: A Process-Oriented Research Agenda, Paul Hager, Michael Kaye

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In recent years, critical thinking has become a central focus of education, especially in North America. Within this focus, there has been a major debate regarding the generalisability of specificity of critical thinking. The main issue in this connection appears to have been whether critical thinking needs to be closely linked with traditional disciplines. If critical thinking is really as vital as its proponents maintain, then it will also be important in applied fields such as teacher education. It is our intention in this paper to explore the implications, for teacher education, of taking critical thinking seriously.

Never Mind The Edu, What About The Cate? The Background To Current Developments In English Teacher Education, Tony Becher

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

If anyone were misguided enough to offer a prize for the sector of English education most subject to government intervention, the institutions concerned with initial teacher training would win it hands down. The intervention (a less polite word would be interference) has, over time, taken three main forms: alterations to the structure and organisation of provision; attempts to match student numbers to subsequent demand; and control over curricular content. This paper is an attempt to take a relatively longterm view of relevant developments, setting the present situation in its historical context. It will thus necessarily adopt a broad-brush rather than …

Contextualizing The Competency-Based Schooling, Victor V. Soucek

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

To a classroom teacher the current debate about work-related competencies might appear far removed from his/her classroom and have no significance for teacher education. Yet the proposed policy changes are likely to affect the work and the professional status of teachers in a very direct way. As Whitty and Willmott (1991: 312) point out, one of the fundamental problems of competency-based teaching/training (CBT) approach consists in the difficulty to define just how narrow or broad the competencies might be. A too narrow definition based on observable work-related skills might indicate a radical departure from the traditional role teachers played in …

In Defence Of Australian Academic Unionism, Grahame Mcculloch

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper does not aspire to be an objective account of academic unionism. It is written from my perspective as a committed union activist, and comes at a time when there is a real prospect of a substantial erosion of the role and authority of Australia's academic unions. I refer, of course, to the well publicised plans to developed a model of academic industrial relations in which working conditions would be radically deregulated, and in which unions would be given only a limited role. Unionism is seen as responsible for the debasement of collegial life in our universities, and the …

Seven Contemporary Ideological Perspectives On Teacher Education In Britain Today, Dave Hill

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper examines and critiques seven contemporary ideological perspectives on teacher education in Britain, it examines the Radical Right, the 'Soft Centre', the 'Hard Centre', and the 'Left in the Centre'. In doing so it refers to three interrelated levels of discourse: the popular Press, the academic Press and the work of ideologues, and the Party political. The paper critiques not only the Radical Right but also Centrist positions such as the erstwhile Left, the 'Left in the Centre', criticising their virtual evacuation of the cultural and ideological field of teacher education.

Preferred Models Of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Collette Tayler

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Early childhood teacher education in Australia continues to be a topic of contention. The erosion of specialized early childhood courses during the early 1980's was indicated by Briggs (1984) in the face of then new shared structures with primary teacher education. Restructuring of courses at that time was brought about by amalgamations of many higher education institutions which provided courses for teachers. At that time, the tertiary education sector began what has become the most significant post-war re-arrangement of higher education Australia has witnessed. Course developments in 1984 were illustrative of the kinds of amalgamations which were taking place and …

Who Is Teaching Our Children To Spell? The Literacy Crisis In Teacher Education., Owen F. Watts

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Anyone engaged in marking student essays at tertiary level today cannot fail but to be aware of the increasing inability of students to express themselves in grammatically correct and cogent argument. The problem is even more serious when is prevalent among those students who are studying to become teachers. Lists of "school-boy howlers" derived from the students' essays are no longer funny, rather they are symptomatic of a crisis in literacy that is facing the educational systems of the nation. Testing of students within the Faculty of Education at Curtin University has shown that passes in Year 12 English examinations …

Taking "Affective Education" Seriously : Some Thoughts On The Training Of Primary School Teachers For Thir Role In Providing Conscious Pastoral Care And Personal And Social Education, Peter Lang

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper it is argued that many countries see education as partly concerned with the "Affective" dimension. It is then suggested that the way this is interpreted and responded to varies considerably and usually involves some ambivalence. Having identified different kinds of responses what can be described as the generalist approach is focused on, where all teachers are seen as sharing the responsibility for the pupils' pastoral care and personal and social education. This is then considered in relation to the situation in primary schools and the training of primary teachers. Having suggested why specific training needs have tended …

Book Reviews

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Hughes, Philip (ed.) (1991) Teachers' professional development. Melbourne : ACER. Reviewer, Glenda Campbell Evans. Chapman, J., Angus, L. Burke, G and Wilkinson, V (eds.) (1989). Improving the quality of Australian schools. Australian Education Review no. 33, Melbiurne, ACER. Reviewer, Rod Chadbourne.

Should Teaching Come Before Education?, Anne Winning

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The present system of teacher education for primary school teachers in Queensland has an interesting emphasis if the names of the degree programmes reflect an underlying policy or suggest a value stance. The system of teacher preparation suggests that one first concentrates on learning to "teach" and then follows a time when one considers how to "educate." Is this a case of unfortunate nomenclature?

Experiences In Gifted Education : Implications For Teaching Strategies For A Clever Country., Lesley Newhouse-Maiden, Malcolm Washbourne

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In preparation for a workshop at Monash University, where a group of Australian educators were to be involved in writing a book based on their collective wisdom and interest in the fostering of excellence in young people and children in the 1990's, the present writers engaged in a reflective exercise in ascertaining how best to educate our most talented science students. However, in the eventual chapter written by Newhouse et al. (in Goodall and Culhane 1991:70), the theme was related to the concept of empowering a whole school community, 'globally' a far cry from the notion of empowering talented students …