Understanding VET teachers' dilemmas in providing quality education to international students in Brisbane

In the past fifteen years, increasing attention has been given to the role of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in attracting large numbers of international students and its contribution to the economic development of Australia. This trend has given rise to many challenges in vocational education, especially with regard to providing quality education that ensures international students' stay in Australia is a satisfactory experience. Teaching and learning is continuously scrutinized, teaching quality and student assessment are subject to regular audit (Takerei, 2010). VET teachers are key stakeholders in international education and share responsibility for ensuring international students gain quality learning experiences and positive outcomes, however, their experiences are generally not well understood. Therefore, this thesis, investigates particular challenges and associated dilemmas that VET teachers experience when teaching international students. The research participants were 15 teachers from several public and private VET institutions in Brisbane, Australia. The method involved responsive interviewing and inductive data analysis to identify and categorize teachers' challenges and dilemmas. The research reveals qualitatively different ways in which the 15 VET educators experienced challenges and associated dilemmas in their culturally diverse teaching context. The research shows that VET teachers experience numerous challenges and various inter-related professional, educational and personal dilemmas. These dilemmas result from ethical tensions teachers experience in their interactions with international students, teaching colleagues and their employment institutions. The dilemmas are often influenced by current economic and political conditions of international education. The dilemmas raised in the study by 15 VET teachers might be familiar to other teachers in VET and universities but to date they have received limited attention by researchers. This study's findings indicate significant implications for VET teachers, students, VET institutions and the government at a time of rapid economic, political, cultural and educational change. The findings are of potential interest to VET policy makers, managers and teachers. By giving voice to VET teachers, who are key stakeholders in the sustainability and future growth of VET, they contribute evidence for ongoing review and development of quality learning and teaching in the culturally diverse VET sector.

Understanding VET teachers’challenges in providing quality education to international students

In the past fifteen years, increasing attention has been given to the role of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in attracting large numbers of international students and its contribution to the economic development of Australia. This trend has given rise to many challenges in vocational education, especially with regard to providing quality education that ensures international students stay in Australia is a satisfactory experience. Teaching and learning are continuously scrutinised, and teaching quality and student assessment are subject to regular audit (Takerei, 2010). VET teachers are key stakeholders in international education and share responsibility for ensuring international students gain quality learning experiences and positive outcomes; however, their experiences are generally not well understood. Therefore, this paper reports on a study which responded to this research gap and investigated particular challenges that VET teachers experience when teaching international students. The research participants were 15 teachers from several public and private VET institutions in Brisbane, Australia. The method involved responsive interviewing and inductive data analysis to identify and categorize teachers’ challenges and dilemmas. After briefly outlining the background of the research approach, this paper presents findings about challenges that VET teachers’ experienced while teaching international students. The aim of the paper is to explore VET teachers’ perspectives in order to contribute essential understandings that contribute to a holistic approach to vocational education of international students. It reveals that the teachers experienced challenges of three main types: professional, personal and educational.

Design education online : learning delivery and evaluation

Online learning has been recognised as an effective pedagogical method and tool, and is broadly integrated into various types of teaching and learning strategies in higher education. In practice, the use of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in higher education has become an integral strategy for quality education. The field of design education however has not been researched extensively in regard to online learning, delivery and evaluation. This paper discusses design education from an online learning perspective. It proposes an integrated framework with three key components for online learning via VLE including an interactive delivery structure, communication channels, and learning evaluation. Additionally, the paper describes and evaluates how VLE sites for two design units were built based on an integrated framework and student learning experiences. The results indicate that online design education should be integrated with various educational values and functional features in a systematic manner, and requires designing learning evaluation protocols as part of learning activities and communicative forms within online-based learning sites.

VET and VET educators : understanding teacher dilemmas in providing quality educational experience to international students in Brisbane

In the past fifteen years, increasing attention has been given to the role of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in attracting large numbers of international students and its contribution to the economic development of Australia. This trend has given rise to many challenges in vocational education, especially with regard to providing quality education that ensures international students’ stay in Australia is a satisfactory experience. Teachers are key stakeholders in international education and share responsibility for ensuring international students gain quality learning experiences and positive outcomes. However, the challenges and needs of these teachers are generally not well understood. Therefore, this paper draws on the dilemmas faced by teachers of international students associated with professional, personal, ethical and educational aspects. This paper reports on a Masters Research project that is designed to investigate the dilemmas that teachers of international students face in VET in Australia, particularly in Brisbane. This study uses a qualitative approach within the interpretive constructivist paradigm to gain real-life insights through responsive interviewing and inductive data analysis. While the data collection has been done, the analysis of data is in progress. Responsive interviews with teachers of VET with different academic and national backgrounds, ages, industry experience have identified particular understandings, ideologies and representations of what it means to be a teacher in today's multicultural VET environment; provoking both resistances and new pedagogical understanding of teacher dilemmas and their work environment through the eyes of teachers of international students. The paper considers the challenges for the VET practitioners within the VET system while reflecting on the theme for the 2011 AVETRA conference, “Research in VET: Janus- Reflecting Back, Projecting Forward” by focusing particularly on “Rethinking pedagogies and pathways in VET work through the voice of VET workers”.

Addressing quality teaching in hard to staff settings : the Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools Project

This Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools (ETDS) project sets out to design a new model of Australian teacher education responding to recent demands for quality education in low SES and disadvantaged schools. The project moves teacher education from the ‘missionary’ (Larabee, 2010) or deficit (Comber and Kamler 2004; Flessa, 2007) approaches, towards a focus on notions of quality and academic excellence. Rice (2008, p.1) argues for a need to place more of the “very best teachers into the most challenging schools”, yet the problem is not merely one of training more teachers, for disadvantaged schools already receive disproportionate numbers of beginning teachers (Connell, 1994; Vickers & Ferfolja, 2006). Rather, Grossman and Loeb (2010, p. 245) argue the problem centers on the common practice of “[p]lacing the least experienced teachers with the most needy students”. This paper reports on the first year trial of the project. The ETDS project is at present, the only mainstream Australian teacher education model that targets cohorts of academically high achieving pre-service teachers with the overt aim of preparing graduates of the program to teach in disadvantaged schools. At the end of its first year, the ETDS program graduated 20 new teachers, each of whom had over the previous 18 months engaged with a specialized curriculum and carefully monitored/scaffolded practicum placements in disadvantaged schools around Brisbane, Australia.

Elementary teacher education in papua new guinea: towards a culturally connected perspective of teaching

Global and national agendas for quality education have led to reforms in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) elementary education, but criticism of the learner-centred, Western pedagogies has emerged. One key influence on quality teacher education relates to perspectives of teaching. Existing research shows teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of teaching influence their practice, however to date little research has investigated perspectives of teaching for elementary education in PNG. This single exploratory case study investigated the perspectives of teaching for eighteen elementary teacher trainers as they studied for a Bachelor of Early Childhood (Teacher Education). The study, drawing on an interpretivist paradigm, analysed journals and course planning documents using a thematic approach. The findings revealed that while the trainers’ perspectives of teaching children tended to reflect a learning-centred perspective (focused on what the teacher does), their perspectives of teaching adults were both learning-centred and learner-centred (what the learner does). Based on these findings, a culturally connected perspective of teaching is advocated for PNG elementary teacher education. This perspective enables the co-existence of both the learning-centred and learner-centred perspectives of teaching in the PNG cultural context and has implications for teacher education and the communities involved in elementary education in general.

A socially just rationale for an Australian curriculum? : a critical thematic policy analysis of political speeches in education (2007-2010)

In late 2007, newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd placed education reform on centre stage as a key policy in the Labor Party's agenda for social reform in Australia. A major policy strategy within this 'Education Revolution' was the development of a national curriculum, the Australian Curriculum Within this political context, this study is an investigation into how social justice and equity have been used in political speeches to justify the need for, and the nature of, Australia's first official national curriculum. The aim is to provide understandings into what is said or not said; who is included or excluded, represented or misrepresented; for what purpose; and for whose benefit. The study investigates political speeches made by Education Ministers between 2008 and 201 0; that is, from the inception of the Australian Curriculum to the release of the Phase 1 F - 10 draft curriculum documents in English, mathematics, science and history. Curriculum development is defined here as an ongoing process of complex conversations. To contextualise the process of curriculum development within Australia, the thesis commences with an initial review of curriculum development in this nation over the past three decades. It then frames this review within contemporary curriculum theory; in particular it calls upon the work of William Pinar and the key notions of currere and reconceptualised curriculum. This contextualisation work is then used as a foundation to examine how social justice and equity have been represented in political speeches delivered by the respective Education Ministers Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett at key junctures of Australian Curriculum document releases. A critical thematic policy analysis is the approach used to examine selected official speech transcripts released by the ministerial media centre through the DEEWR website. This approach provides a way to enable insights and understandings of representations of social justice and equity issues in the policy agenda. Broader social implications are also discussed. The project develops an analytic framework that enables an investigation into the framing of social justice and equity issues such as inclusion, equality, quality education, sharing of resources and access to learning opportunities in political speeches aligned with the development of the Australian Curriculum Through this analysis, the study adopts a focus on constructions of educationally disadvantaged students and how the solutions of 'fixing' teachers and providing the 'right' curriculum are presented as resolutions to the perceived problem. In this way, it aims to work towards offering insights into political justifications for a national curriculum in Australia from a social justice perspective.

Designing Assessment for Quality Learning

- Considers broad-scale assessment approaches and how they impact on educational opportunity and outcomes. - Brings together internationally recognised scholars providing new insights into assessment for learning improvement and accountability. - Presents different theoretical and methodological perspectives influential in the field of assessment, learning and social change. - Contributes to the theorising of assessment in contexts characterised by heightened accountability requirements and constant change. This book brings together internationally recognised scholars with an interest in how to use the power of assessment to improve student learning and to engage with accountability priorities at both national and global levels. It includes distinguished writers who have worked together for some two decades to shift the assessment paradigm from a dominant focus on assessment as measurement towards assessment as central to efforts to improve learning. These writers have worked with the teaching profession and, in so doing, have researched and generated key insights into different ways of understanding assessment and its relationship to learning. The volume contributes to the theorising of assessment in contexts characterised by heightened accountability requirements and constant change. The book’s structure and content reflect already significant and growing international interest in assessment as contextualised practice, as well as theories of learning and teaching that underpin and drive particular assessment approaches. Learning theories and practices, assessment literacies, teachers’ responsibilities in assessment, the role of leadership, and assessment futures are the organisers within the book’s structure and content. The contributors to this book have in common the view that quality assessment, and quality learning and teaching are integrally related. Another shared view is that the alignment of assessment with curriculum, teaching and learning is linchpin to efforts to improve both learning opportunities and outcomes for all. Essentially, the book presents new perspectives on the enabling power of assessment. In so doing, the writers recognise that validity and reliability - the traditional canons of assessment – remain foundational and therefore necessary. However, they are not of themselves sufficient for quality education. The book argues that assessment needs to be radically reconsidered in the context of unprecedented societal change. Increasingly, communities are segregating more by wealth, with clear signs of social, political, economic and environmental instability. These changes raise important issues relating to ethics and equity, taken to be core dimensions in enabling the power of assessment to contribute to quality learning for all. This book offers readers new knowledge about how assessment can be used to re/engage learners across all phases of education.

Education policy-making and time

This paper examines the global policy convergence toward high-stakes testing in schools and the use of test results to ‘steer at a distance’, particularly as it applies to policy-makers’ promise to improve teacher quality. Using Deleuze’s three syntheses of time in the context of the Australian policy blueprint Quality Education, this paper argues that using test scores to discipline teaching repeats the past habit of policy-making as continuing the problem of the unaccountable teacher. This results in local policy-making enfolding test scores in a pure past where the teacher-as-problem is resolved through the use of data from testing to deliver accountability and transparency. This use of the database returns a digitised form of inspection that is a repetition of the habit of teacher-as-problem. While dystopian possibilities are available through the database, in what Deleuze refers to as a control society, for us the challenge is to consider policy-making as a step into an unknown future, to engage with producing policy that is not grounded on the unconscious interiority of solving the teacher problem, but of imagining new ways of conceiving the relationship between policy-making and teaching.

Schools and Diversity, 2nd ed.

Schools and diversity aims to address the need for schools and teachers to provide quality education for all students in rapidly changing social contexts. Community and student voices are telling schools that traditional education is too authoritarian and restrictive. Students do not feel valued and respected in their school community. Schools are obliged to respond to this critique with more democratic and relevant policies and processes that connect all students with their learning futures. This text is about developing a more inclusive approach to education which aims to identify and dismantle actual and potential sources of exclusion that limit opportunities and outcomes for all students.

Perspectives of teaching in Papua New Guinea : a case study of elementary teacher trainers and their mentors

Global and national agenda for quality education led to reform in Papua New Guinea (PNG) based on the provision of quality basic education. “Education for All” (EFA) is a worldwide emphasis on the review and restructure of existing curriculum and teacher training programs to provide quality education and quality life. The provision of quality education is seen as an investment in developing countries including PNG. Quality education is facilitated through structural and curriculum reform, and teacher education programs. One such influence on quality education in teacher education relates to perspectives of teaching. Existing research shows teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of teaching influence their practice (Kember & Kwan, 2000; Prosser & Trigwell, 2004). However, there is no research focusing on perspectives of teaching for elementary education in PNG. This single exploratory case study (Yin, 2009) investigated the perspectives of teaching of eighteen elementary teacher trainers and their five mentors in the context of an Australian university Bachelor of Early Childhood (in teacher education) degree programme. The study drew on an interpretivist paradigm to analyse journals, semi-structured interviews and course planning documents using a thematic approach to data analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006). The findings revealed that participants held perspectives of teaching related to teaching children and teaching adults. The perspective of teaching children described by the trainers and mentors was learning-centred (the focus is on what the teacher does); while the perspective of teaching adults was both learning-centred and learner-centred (the focus is on what the learner does). The learning-centred perspective is at odds with the learner-centred perspective espoused in the PNG reform. The perspectives of teaching adults reflected a culturally nuanced view; providing insights about how teaching and learning are understood in different sociocultural contexts. Based on these findings, the study proposes a perspective of teaching for elementary education in PNG known as culturally connected teaching. This perspective enables the co-existence of both the learning-centred and learner-centred perspectives of teaching in the PNG cultural context. This perspective has implications for teacher training and the communities involved in elementary education.

Assurance of learning – are academics and senior management singing from the same hymn sheet?

Assurance of learning (AoL) is an important process in quality education, designed to measure the accomplishment of educational aims at the core of an institution’s programs, whilst encouraging faculty to continuously develop and improve the programs and courses. This paper reports on a study of Australian business schools to investigate current AoL practices through semi structured interviews with senior faculty leaders followed by focus group interviews with groups of senior program leaders and groups of academic teaching staff. Initial findings indicate there are significant challenges in encouraging academic staff to commit to the process and recognise the benefits of assuring learning. The differences in understanding between the various leaders and the academics were highlighted through the different focus groups. Leaders’ stressed strategic issues such as staff engagement and change, while academics focussed on process issues such as teaching graduate attributes and external accreditation. Understanding the differences in the perspectives of leaders and faculty is important, as without a shared understanding between the two groups, there is likely to be limited engagement, which creates difficulties in developing effective assurance of learning processes. Findings indicate that successful strategies developed to foster shared values on assurance of learning include: strong senior leaders’ commitment; developing champions among program and unit level staff; providing professional development opportunities; promoting and celebrating success and effectiveness; and ensuring an inclusive process with academics of all levels collaborating in the development and implementation of the process.

Front page schools, back page schools : a case study of factors perceived to affect academic performance in five Papua New Guinea secondary schools

Papua New Guinea has reformed its colonial established education system and made huge investments with the help of donors to achieve equal access and quality education for all its citizens. Despite this national aspiration and these policy reforms and investments, secondary schools that enrol grade 9 students who are relatively equal in education ability show huge disparities in their grade 10 academic performances. This study examined perceptions of students, teachers and principals regarding factors affecting the disparity in academic performance in the context of a developing country. The central question for the study is: What are the perceptions of students and teachers of the factors that affect disparities in secondary schools' academic performance? This qualitative case study involved two high and three low academic performing secondary schools in Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Primary data were collected through focus groups and semi-structured interviews involving 112 participants. Students and teachers are key participants in this study, as it intends to find out the realities of schools, yet they are an under-researched group. A postcolonial and sense of community conceptual framework was developed for the analysis of the participants. perceptions. In addition, scholarship on school effectiveness and equity in education informed the interpretation of the findings. Three themes were evident in participants. views. First, participants expressed their view that differences in academic performance were related to the adequacy and equitability of resources. The inequities in resource inputs led some of them to coin the metaphor of .back page and front page. schools. Second, many expressed the view that deficiencies in implementing bilingual education, given the difficulty of catering for 800 vernacular languages, contribute to poor English proficiency and subsequent poor academic performance. Finally, participants believed that, in order to have a positive school culture, it is necessary for educators to recognise and respect contemporary students. identities, communal/tribal membership and needs. This study has implications for national education policy on resource allocation to address equality and equity, bilingual education and teacher education. Moreover, as the study found that high academic performance in this context is also influenced by intra-school social relationships, these relationships need to be nurtured. When appropriately nurtured, they become an important factor in sustaining quality education for all secondary school students. This thesis has laid the foundations for further research and invites further investigations into policy and implementation of school reforms aimed at improving academic achievement.

Academic stress among adolescents in China

Pressure from study has long been identified as a significant contributor to many mental health problems in school children and adolescents. Students are often stressed by heavy workload, high academic expectation and dissatisfaction with their grades. Excessive amount of this special type of stress (academic stress or educational stress) may then lead to severe psychological symptoms, such as depressed mood, anxious feelings and even suicide thoughts and acts when coping recourses are exhausted. Chinese students are believed to have high academic burden and pressure due to high expectations of their parents and fierce competitions with their peers. Knowledge of the nature and health effects of academic stress may be useful to inform quality education and mental health promotions. This review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of reported literature regarding educational stress and its relationships with mental health problems worldwide and the current research progress in Chinese adolescents, and to provide directions for future research into this topic in Chinese adolescent populations.

Introducing ICT to a primary school in a developing country : a Fijian experience

One aspect of quality education in the 21st century is the availability of digital resources in schools. Many developing countries need to build this capability – not just in terms of technology but teacher capability as well. One of the ways to achieve such capacity is through knowledge sharing between teachers and educators in developed and developing countries. Over time such collaboration can have a lasting impact on all participants on both sides of the digital divide. This paper reports on how such collaboration can occur. It focuses on the initial stages of a long-term initiative where our primary objective is to develop models, which demonstrate how we (in developed countries) can engage productively and meaningfully with schools in developing countries to build their ICT capacity. As part of this initiative, we introduced laptops and LEGO robotics tool kits to a rural primary school in Fiji. We developed ICT activities that aligned with the curriculum in a number of subjects. In addition, we worked with the teachers over two weeks to build their expertise.