Education futures : transforming teacher education in the middle years

The young people who populate our classrooms live in a changed and rapidly changing society: a society where information is the most valued commodity and where traditional ‘truth’s such as nation and family are increasingly destabilized and fragmented. Educators at primary, secondary and tertiary level must, with some urgency, address issues relating the emergence of new citizenships and identities, the impact of new technologies and new economies. Our pedagogy and curriculums must be relevant to the need of students now and in the future. The School of Education, The University of Queensland is addressing issues of change, new technologies, new work places, critical citizenry and the need for pedagogical and curriculum innovation through the development of a new Middle Years of Schooling Dual Degree program. This program is designed to equip pre-service teachers to approach pedagogy and curriculum in innovative ways and to challenge them to embrace diversity and change. This paper outlines the key features of the Middle Years of Schooling Dual Degree, identifying a number of innovative approaches to pre-service teacher education.

Engaging with the promises of education : African refugee students in Australian secondary schools

The research reported in this paper investigated the engagement of students who arrived in Australian secondary schools as refugees from Africa. Enrolment of large cohorts of refugees from Africa is a relatively new phenomenon in the English-speaking West. The literature provides evidence that emotional engagement with the promises of schooling is strong for many of the young African refugees. Students envision successful professional careers as doctors, engineers, lawyers, and IT experts; they envision returning to their country as professionals able to help the people. The question investigated in this paper is: How does schooling in Australia impact on young African refugees’ education and career aspirations? Engagement is understood in Bourdieuian terms as dispositions to be and to become an educated person. This is a disposition which entails fundamental belief in the value of the stakes of schooling. The data analysed in the paper were produced in a study undertaken in the state of Queensland where 5000 of the 39 000 African refugees who have arrived in Australia since 2000 have settled. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and their parents and teachers after arrival in an intensive language school, and then after transition to a regular secondary school. The findings show both the durability and malleability of educational dispositions in conditions of dramatic social change occasioned by refugee experience. Engagement in the stakes of schooling is both built and eroded as students flee their homelands for countries of refuge. Previously unimaginable educational dreams are possible for some; but for others, long-held dreams become unattainable. The paper concludes with recommendations for better supporting young people through this re-shaping of self.

Assessment and curriculum reform in China : the college English test and tertiary English as a foreign language education.

Educational assessment was a worldwide commonplace practice in the last century. With the theoretical underpinnings of education shifting from behaviourism and social efficiency to constructivism and cognitive theories in the past two decades, the assessment theories and practices show a widespread changing movement. The emergent assessment paradigm, with a futurist perspective, indicates a deviation away from the prevailing large scale high-stakes standardised testing and an inclination towards classroom-based formative assessment. Innovations and reforms initiated in attempts to achieve better education outcomes for a sustainable future via more developed learning and assessment theories have included the 2007 College English Reform Program (CERP) in Chinese higher education context. This paper focuses on the College English Test (CET) - the national English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing system for non-English majors at tertiary level in China. It seeks to explore the roles that the CET played in the past two College English curriculum reforms, and the new role that testing and assessment assumed in the newly launched reform. The paper holds that the CET was operationalised to uplift the standards. However, the extended use of this standardised testing system brings constraints as well as negative washback effects on the tertiary EFL education. Therefore in the newly launched reform -CERP, a new assessment model which combines summative and formative assessment approaches is proposed. The testing and assessment, assumed a new role - to engender desirable education outcomes. The question asked is: will the mixed approach to formative and summative assessment provide the intended cure to the agony that tertiary EFL education in China has long been suffering - spending much time, yet achieving little effects? The paper reports the progresses and challenges as informed by the available research literature, yet asserts a lot needs to be explored on the potential of the assessment mix in this examination tradition deep-rooted and examination-obsessed society.

Quality assurance in higher education : for whom and of what?

Over the past two decades the quality assurance of higher education institutions has captured a growing interest as evidenced by the increasing number of national and transnational bodies engaged in this area. Yet as the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, higher education systems and thus the regimes designed to ensure their quality are faced with significant complexity. Issues of accountability, authority and responsibility are paramount when responding to industry bodies, to globalisation and the transnational provision of higher education and to the use of market mechanisms. In this paper we raise some of the challenges for quality assurance for higher education presented by this growing complexity through the question, quality assurance in higher education, for whom and of what, highlighting our concern for a need to expand the centrality of accountability to include authority and responsibility as part of the quality assurance regimes for higher education

Aligning school reform and teacher education reform in the middle years : an Australian case study

This paper discusses the development of a new Bachelor of Education (Middle Years of Schooling) at The University of Queensland, Australia. The middle years of schooling have increasingly been the focus of education reform initiatives in Australia, but this has not been accompanied by significant increases in the number of teacher education institutions offering specialised middle schooling-level teacher preparation programmes. Considering the rapidly changing social and economic context and the emergent state of middle schooling in Australia, the programme represented a conceptual and practical opportunity and challenge for The University of Queensland team. Working collaboratively, the team sought to design a teacher education preservice programme that was both responsive and generative: that is, responsive to local school contexts and to current education research and reform at national and international levels; and generative of cutting-edge theories and practices associated with middle schooling, teachers' work, and teacher education. This paper focuses on one component of the Middle Years of Schooling Teacher Education programme at The University of Queensland; namely, the practicum. We first present the underlying principles of the practicum programme and then examine "dilemmas" that emerged early in the practicum. These issues and tensions were associated with the ideals of "middle years" philosophy and the pragmatics of school reform associated with that approach. Within this context, we explore what it means to be both responsive and generative, and describe how we as teacher educators negotiated the extremes these terms implied.

In Pursuit of Excellence : A Policy Driven Systemic Initiative to Embed Gifted Education

Embedding gifted education practices requires major professional development strategies supported by transparent, credible and enforceable policy. This paper describes an analysis of a state-wide initiative involving the establishment of a series of schools tasked to develop and disseminate gifted education principles. The authors have been involved with this initiative at a number of levels over a ten-year period. Their involvement culminated in a commissioned review of the program. Extensive qualitative data were purposively collected from all stakeholders and the effectiveness of the initiative is examined from a theoretical framework of policy development and excellence. The findings summarised in this proposal, indicate the achievement of excellence at a systemic level was constrained by lack of vision, leadership and commitment to long term achievements of excellence. At a local level evidence exists that excellence can be manifested when there is synchronicity of vision, purpose, decisions, and actions.

High quality/high equity systems of education: Curriculum, teachers and reform in the search for equitable outcomes for all students

The issue of what an effective high quality / high equity education system might look like remains contested. Indeed there is more educational commentary on those systems that do not achieve this goal (see for example Luke & Woods, 2009 for a detailed review of the No Child Left Behind policy initiatives put forward in the United States under the Bush Administration) than there is detailed consideration of what such a system might enact and represent. A long held critique of socio cultural and critical perspectives in education has been their focus on deconstruction to the supposed detriment of reconstructive work. This critique is less warranted in recent times based on work in the field, especially the plethora of qualitative research focusing on case studies of ‘best practice’. However it certainly remains the case that there is more work to be done in investigating the characteristics of a socially just system. This issue of Point and Counterpoint aims to progress such a discussion. Several of the authors call for a reconfiguration of the use of large scale comparative assessment measures and all suggest new ways of thinking about quality and equity for school systems. Each of the papers tackles different aspects of the problematic of how to achieve high equity without compromising quality within a large education system. They each take a reconstructive focus, highlighting ways forward for education systems in Australia and beyond. While each paper investigates different aspects of the issue, the clearly stated objective of seeking to delineate and articulate characteristics of socially just education is consistent throughout the issue.

Social inequalities and parent involvement in children’s education in the early years of school

Strengthening cooperation between schools and parents is critical to improving learning outcomes for children. The chapter focuses on parental engagement in their children’s education in the early years of school. It considers issues of social and cultural capital as important to whether, or not, parents are involved in their children’s schooling. Analyses of data from a national representative sample of children and their families who participate in Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children are presented. Results indicated that higher family socio-economic position was associated with higher levels of parental involvement and higher expectations about children’s future level of education.

Literacy education in the context of globalisation

This review chapter provides an overview of English language literacy education in the contexts of cultural and economic globalisation. Drawing case study examples of India and China, the authors outline three complementary models: the development paradigm, the hegemony paradigm and the new literacies paradigm. The analysis focuses on effects of the spread of English on vernacular languages and the non-synchronous issues raised by digital production cultures. Noting the difficulties of education systems in contending with new literacies - it argues for the reframing of transnational relations, global material conditions and new communications technologies as the objects of critical literacy education.

Repositioning an ethic of sustainability in early childhood education, with Reconciliation as central

In this chapter I raise questions about the current scope and purpose of early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) and the ways ECEfS is enacted in practice. This is to highlight why social, political and economic areas of concern should be central in ECEfS alongside an environmental focus. Specifically, this chapter establishes the place of Reconciliation in ECEfS because it is one of the most pressing ethical, social, political and economic issues on the Australian landscape. To reposition an ethic of sustainability is to broaden the scope and purpose of sustainability work so that particular regard is given to the place of Reconciliation in ECEfS. An ethic of sustainability is also concerned with the responsibility of non-Indigenous educators to take ownership of Reconciliation work in education curricula and contexts.

Theory-of-Mind Continuum Model: Why Mind Matters in Philosophy, Psychology and Education

Theory-of-Mind has been defined as the ability to explain and predict human behaviour by imputing mental states, such as attention, intention, desire, emotion, perception and belief, to the self and others (Astington & Barriault, 2001). Theory-of-Mind study began with Piaget and continued through a tradition of meta-cognitive research projects (Flavell, 2004). A study by Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (1985) of Theory-of-Mind abilities in atypically developing children reported major difficulties experienced by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in imputing mental states to others. Since then, a wide range of follow-up research has been conducted to confirm these results. Traditional Theory-of-Mind research on ASD has been based on an either-or assumption that Theory-of-Mind is something one either possesses or does not. However, this approach fails to take account of how the ASD population themselves experience Theory-of-Mind. This paper suggests an alternative approach, Theory-of-Mind continuum model, to understand the Theory-of-Mind experience of people with ASD. The Theory-of-Mind continuum model will be developed through a comparison of subjective and objective aspects of mind, and phenomenal and psychological concepts of mind. This paper will demonstrate the importance of balancing qualitative and quantitative research methods in investigating the minds of people with ASD. It will enrich our theoretical understanding of Theory-of-Mind, as well as contain methodological implications for further studies in Theory-of-Mind

Personal epistemology in pre-service teachers : belief changes throughout a teacher education course

Classrooms of the 21st century are complex systems. They support diverse learners from varied contexts and function in a “messy” bricolage of policy contexts. This complexity is also evident in the nature of teaching and learning deployed in these classrooms. There is also, in current contexts, a general expectation that teachers will support students to construct, rather than simply receive knowledge. This process of constructing knowledge requires a focus on critical thinking in complex social and real world contexts (see also Elen & Clarebout, 2001; Yang, Chang & Hsu 2008). Critical thinking, which involves the identification and evaluation of multiple perspectives when making decisions, is a process of knowing – a tool of wisdom (Kuhn & Udell, 2001). Schommer-Aikens, Bird and Bakken (2010) refer to classrooms that encourage critical thinking as “epistemologically based” in which “the teacher encourages his/her students to look for connections among concepts within the text, with their prior knowledge, and with concepts found in the world beyond themselves” (p. 48).