Complimentary collaborations: Teachers and researchers co-developing best practices in art education

Australia is currently experiencing a huge cultural shift as it moves from a State-based curriculum, to a national education system. The Australian State-based bodies that currently manage teacher registration, teacher education course accreditation, curriculum frameworks and syllabi are often complex organisations that hold conflicting ideologies about education and teaching. The development of a centralised system, complete with a single accreditation body and a national curriculum can be seen as a reaction to this complexity. At the time of writing, the Australian Curriculum is being rolled out in staggered phases across the states and territories of Australia. Phase one has been implemented, introducing English, Mathematics, History and Science. Subsequent phases (Humanities and Social Sciences, the Arts, Technologies, Health and Physical Education, Languages, and year 9-10 work studies) are intended to follow. Forcing an educational shift of this magnitude is no simple task; not least because the States and Territories have and continue to demonstrate varying levels of resistance to winding down their own curricula in favour of new content with its unfamiliar expectations and organisations. The full implementation process is currently far from over, and far from being fully resolved. The Federal Government has initiated a number of strategies to progress the implementation, such as the development of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to aid professional educators to implement the new curriculum. AITSL worked with professional and peak specialist bodies to develop Illustrations of Practice (hereafter IoP) for teachers to access and utilise. This paper tells of the building of one IoP, where a graduate teacher and a university lecturer collaborated to construct ideas and strategies to deliver visual arts lessons to early childhood students in a low Socio- Economic Status [SES] regional setting and discusses the experience in terms of its potential for professional learning in art education.

Professional learning places and spaces: The staffroom as a site of beginning teacher induction and transition

This paper argues that the staffroom is an important professional learning space where beginning teachers interact to understand who they are and the nature of their professional work. The authors highlight the theoretical importance of space and place in the construction and negotiation of beginning teacher subjectivities. To illustrate the staffroom as a particular place where important professional learning could occur the authors use two narratives based on the lived experiences of two beginning teachers, one in a primary context, the other secondary. The authors conclude by calling for greater research attention to the significance of the staffroom and its interaction with teacher subjectivities. At the level of practice we also call for the teaching profession to recognise staffrooms as important sites of professional learning and places that should support induction and mentoring of beginning teachers. Such recognition could enhance the retention, satisfaction, and effectiveness of new and experienced teachers alike.

The experiences of teacher aides who support students with disabilities and learning difficulties : a phenomenological study

Schools in Queensland, Australia, are undergoing inclusive education reform, following the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education (Students with Disabilities) in 2004. The State government’s responses to the taskforce report emphasise a commitment to social justice and equity so that all students can be included in ways that enable them to achieve their potential. Teacher aides are employed in schools as ancillary staff to support students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Their support roles in schools are emerging within an educational context in which assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties are changing. It is important to acknowledge teacher aides as support practitioners, and to understand their roles in relation to the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties as inclusive education reform continues. This study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of teacher aides as they supported students with disabilities and learning difficulties in primary schools. Four key insights into the support roles of teacher aides in primary schools in Brisbane, Queensland emerged from the study: 1) teacher aides develop empathetic relationships with students that contribute significantly to the students’ sense of belonging within school communities; 2) lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities for teacher aides has detrimental effects on inclusion of students; 3) collaborative planning and implementation of classroom learning and socialisation programs enhances inclusion; and 4) teacher aides learn about supporting students while on-the-job, and in consultation and collaboration with other members of the students’ support networks.

Teacher-child relationship quality for young children with parent reported language concerns

Previous research has demonstrated the importance of the qualities of the teacher-child relationship on children’s development. Close teacher-child relationships are especially important for children at risk. Positive relationships have been shown to have beneficial effects on children’s social and academic development (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004). Children with language difficulties are likely to face increased risks with regard to long term social and academic outcomes. The purpose of the current research was to gain greater understanding of the qualities of teacher-child relationships for young children with parent reported language concerns. The research analyses completed for this thesis involved the use of data from the public-access database of Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). LSAC is a longitudinal study involving a nationally representative sample of 10,000 Australian children. Data are being collected biennially from 2004 (Wave 1 data collection) until 2010 (Wave 4 data collection). LSAC has a cross-sequential research design involving two cohorts, an infant cohort (0-1 year at age of recruitment) and a kindergarten cohort (4-5 years at age of recruitment). Two studies are reported in this thesis using data for the LSAC Kindergarten Cohort which had 4983 child participants at recruitment. Study 1 used Wave 1 data to identify the differences between teacher-child relationship qualities for children with parent reported language concerns and their peers. Children identified by parents for whom concerns were held about their receptive and expressive language, as measured by items from the Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) (Glascoe, 2000) were the target (at risk) group in the study (n = 210). A matched case control group of peers (n = 210), matched on the child characteristics of sex, age, cultural and linguistic differences (CALD), and socio-economic positioning (SEP), were the comparison group for this analysis. Teacher-child relationship quality was measured by teacher reports on the Closeness and Conflict scales from the short version of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) (Pianta, 2001). There were statistically significant differences in the levels of closeness and conflict between the two groups. The target group had relationships with their teachers that had lower levels of closeness and higher levels of conflict than the control group. Study 2 reports analyses that examined the stability of the qualities of the teacher-child relationships at Wave 1 (4-5 years) and the qualities of the teacher-child relationships at Wave 2 (6-7 years). This time frame crosses the period of the children’s transition to school. The study examined whether early patterns in the qualities of the teacher-child relationship for children with parent reported language concerns at Wave 1 predicted the qualities of the teacher-child relationship outcomes in the early years of formal school. The sample for this study consisted of the group of children identified with PEDS language concerns at Wave 1 who also had teacher report data at Wave 2 (n = 145). Teacher-child relationship quality at Wave 1 and Wave 2 was again measured by the STRS scales of Closeness and Conflict. Results from multiple regression models indicated that teacher-child relationship quality at Wave 1 significantly contributed to the prediction of the quality of the teacher-child relationship at Wave 2, beyond other predictor variables included in the regression models. Specifically, Wave 1 STRS Closeness scores were the most significant predictor for STRS Closeness scores at Wave 2, while Wave 1 STRS Conflict scores were the only significant predictor for Wave 2 STRS Conflict outcomes. These results indicate that the qualities of the teacher-child relationship experienced prior to school by children with parent reported language concerns remained stable across transitions into formal schooling at which time the child had a different teacher. The results of these studies provide valuable insight into the nature of teacher-child relationship quality for young children with parent reported language concerns. These children experienced teacher-child relationships of a lower quality when compared with peers and, additionally, the qualities of these relationships prior to formal schooling were predictive of the qualities of the relationships in the early years of formal schooling. This raises concerns, given the increased risks of poorer social and academic outcomes already faced by children with language difficulties, that these early teacher-child relationships have an impact on future teacher-child relationships. Results of these studies are discussed with these considerations in mind and also discussed in terms of the implications for educational theory, policy and practice.

Stepping out into the real world of education : an introduction

‘Stepping out into the real world of Education’ has been written to complement ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education’ (Millwater & Beutel, 2008). Both books are aimed at strategising the transition you are experiencing, from preservice teacher to professional educator, through issues that you will face as early career teachers from any specialist teaching strand - early childhood, primary, middle or secondary. ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education’ (Millwater & Beutel, 2008) addressed the particularities and practicalities of professional standards, life-long learning, teaching for diversity, values-education, teacher/student relationships, teaching in a digital age and teacher burnout. This text aligns with these and explores other areas, in recognition that your early career phase is the pivotal point of how much you commit to being a teacher in the long term.

Teacher leadership : interns crossing to the domain of higher professional learning with mentors?

Over the last two decades, the notion of teacher leadership has emerged as a key concept in both the teaching and leadership literature. While researchers have not reached consensus regarding a definition, there has been some agreement that teacher leadership can operate at both a formal and informal level in schools and that it includes leadership of an instructional, organisational and professional development nature (York-Barr & Duke, 2004). Teacher leadership is a construct that tends not to be applied to pre-service teachers as interns, but is more often connected with the professional role of mentors who collaborate with them as they make the transition to being a beginning teacher. We argue that teacher leadership should be recognised as a professional and career goal during this formative learning phase and that interns should be expected to overtly demonstrate signs, albeit early ones, of leadership in instruction and other professional areas of development. The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which teacher education interns at one university in Queensland reported on activities that may be deemed to be ‘teacher leadership.’ The research approach used in this study was an examination of 145 reflective reports written in 2008 by final Bachelor of Education (primary) pre-service teachers. These reports recorded the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional learning with a school-based mentor in response to four outcomes of internship that were scaffolded by their mentor or initiated by them. These outcomes formed the bases of our research questions into the professional learning of the interns and included, ‘increased knowledge and capacity to teach within the total world of work as a teacher;’ ‘to work autonomously and interdependently’; to make ‘growth in critical reflectivity’, and the ‘ability to initiate professional development with the mentoring process’. Using the approaches of the constant comparative method of Strauss and Corbin (1998) key categories of experiences emerged. These categories were then identified as belonging to main meta-category labelled as ‘teacher leadership.’ Our research findings revealed that five dimensions of teacher leadership – effective practice in schools; school curriculum work; professional development of colleagues; parent and community involvement; and contributions to the profession – were evident in the written reports by interns. Not surprisingly, the mentor/intern relationship was the main vehicle for enabling the intern to learn about teaching and leadership. The paper concludes with some key implications for developers of preservice education programmes regarding the need for teacher leadership to be part of the discourse of these programmes.

Looking for Daisy : constructing teacher identities

Research on teacher identities is both important and increasing. In this forum contribution I re-interpret assertions about an African American science teacher’s identities in terms of Jonathon Turner’s (2002) constructs of role identity and sub-identity. I contest the notion of renegotiation of identities, suggesting that particular role identities can be brought to the foreground and then backgrounded depending on the situation and the need to confirm a sub-identity. Finally, I recommend the inclusion of teachers’ voices in identity research through greater use of co-authoring roles for teachers.

How current pedagogy methods in games teaching in the UK, Australia and the US have been shaped by historical, socio cultural, environmental and political constraints

Crucial to enhancing the status and quality of games teaching in schools is a developed understanding of the teaching strategies adopted by practitioners. In this paper, we will demonstrate that contemporary games‟ teaching is a product of individual, task and environmental constraints (Newell, 1986). More specifically, we will show that current pedagogy in the U.K., Australia and the United States is strongly influenced by historical, socio-cultural environmental and political constraints. In summary, we will aim to answer the question „why do teachers teach games the way they do.‟ In answering this question, we conclude that teacher educators, who are trying to influence pedagogical practice, must understand these potential constraints and provide appropriate pre-service experiences to give future physical education teachers the knowledge, confidence and ability to adopt a range of teaching styles when they become fully fledged teachers. Essential to this process is the need to enable future practitioners to base their pedagogical practice on a sound understanding of contemporary learning theories of skill acquisition.

Using microteaching to enhance teacher efficacy in pre-service teachers

This study examined pre-service teachers’ efficacy in relation to the utilisation of microteaching as an assessment tool for postgraduate education students in Australia. Three hundred and fifteen pre-service teachers completed the teacher efficacy survey and additional qualitative questions at Time 1 and 208 completed the survey and questions at Time 2. A principal components analysis conducted on the Time 1 survey data revealed teacher efficacy to be comprised of two components: ‘teacher efficacy in classroom management’ and ‘personal teacher efficacy’. Repeated measures ANOVAs conducted on the 208 participants who completed the survey at Time 1 and 2 revealed that efficacy on both components increased significantly over time, and that internet students had higher efficacy levels than internal students. The qualitative data revealed that pre-service teachers enter teaching in order to positively impact on children, yet are concerned about behaviour management in the classroom. In addition, this data highlighted the positive impact that microteaching had on their developing teacher identity.

Wellness in higher education : a transformative framework for health related disciplines

The perceived benefits of Wellness Education in University environments are substantiated by a number of studies in relation to the place, impact and purpose of Wellness curricula. Many authors recommend that Wellness curriculum design must include personal experiences, reflective practice and active self-managed learning approaches in order to legitimise the adoption of Wellness as a personal lifestyle approach. Wellness Education provides opportunities to engage in learning self-regulation skills both within and beyond the context of the Wellness construct. Learner success is optimised by creating authentic opportunities to develop and practice self regulation strategies that facilitate making meaning of life's experiences. Such opportunities include provision of options for self determined outcomes and are scaffolded according to learner needs; thus, configuring a learner-centred curriculum in Wellness Education would potentially benefit by overlaying principles from the domains of Self Determination Theory, Self Regulated Learning and Transformative Education Theory to highlight authentic, transformative learning as a lifelong approach to Wellness.

Expected values for pedometer-determined physical activity in youth

This review assembles pedometry literature focused on youth, with particular attention to expected values for habitual, school day, physical education class, recess, lunch break, out-of-school, weekend, and vacation activity. From 31 studies published since 1999, we constructed a youth habitual activity step-curve that indicates: (a) from ages 6 to 18 years, boys typically take more steps per day than girls; (b) for both sexes the youngest age groups appear to take fewer steps per day than those immediately older; and (c) from a young age, boys decline more in steps per day to become move consistent with girls at older ages. Additional studies revealed that boys take approximately 42-49% of daily steps during the school day; girls take 41-47%. Steps taken during physical education class contribute to total steps per day by 8.7-23.7% in boys and 11.4-17.2% in girls. Recess represents 8-11% and lunch break represents 15-16% of total steps per day. After-school activity contributes approximately 47-56% of total steps per day for boys and 47-59% for girls. Weekdays range from approximately 12,000 to 16,000 steps per day in boys and 10,000 to 14,000 steps per day in girls. The corresponding values for weekend days are 12,000-13,000 steps per day in boys and 10,000-12,000 steps per day in girls.

Response to "a step in the right direction : commentary on expected values for pedometer-determined physical activity in youth"

The figure Beets took exception to displays sex‐ and age‐specific median values of aggregated published expected values for pedometer determined physical activity.