So much more than just the music : Australian pre-service music teacher education students’ attitudes to artists-in-schools

Contemporary Australia is a country of ongoing migration and increasing cultural diversity which is reflected in its arts practices. This article considers the views held by Australian pre-service music education student teachers and their tertiary music educators about their perceptions concerning artists-in-schools programs in school music. This discussion reports on data collected for a study undertaken in Melbourne, Victoria, Intercultural Understandings of Pre-Service Music Education Students (2005–2009). Fifty-three interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings provide insight into teachers’ recognition of the need for artists-in-schools programs. In particular the ways in which teachers can link theory to practice, fill in omissions in their own knowledge, skills and understandings, and heighten student understandings of multicultural musics. The promotion and provision of multicultural music education is essential at all levels of education. This can be achieved by the inclusion of diverse culture bearers, artists-in-schools, and community engagement to work with both teachers and their students.

Building awareness of mathematical modelling at teacher education: a case study in Indonesia

A growing interest to teach mathematics closely connected to its use in daily life has taken place in Indonesia for over a decade (Sembiring, Hadi, and Dolk 2008). This chapter  reports an exploratory case study of  the building of an awareness of mathematical modelling in teacher education in Indonesia. A modelling task, re-designing a parking lot (Ang 2009), was assigned to groups of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers. All groups undertook the stages of collecting data on a parking lot, identifying limitations in the current design of the parking lot, and proposing a new design based on their observations and analyses. The nature of the mathematical models elicited by pre-service teachers during various stages of completing the modelling task will be examined. Implications of this study suggest the need to encourage pre-service teachers to state the assumptions and real-world considerations and link them to the mathematical model in order to validate their models.

Sharing ownership in multicultural music : a hands-on approach in teacher education in South Africa

South Africa prides itself in a rich and colorful array of the Arts where music plays a significant role in social regeneration, unity and reconciliation. Little research has been undertaken in teacher education courses in South Africa regarding the inclusion of African music within multicultural music practice. Using the theoretical frameworks of understanding multiculturalism, I report on the teaching and learning of multicultural music at Pretoria University. My narrative highlights what I had learned and reports on the interview data with the tertiary music educator in October 2010. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, two themes are discussed: the need for multicultural music and the inclusion of students as indigenous culture bearers. Lessons learnt at Pretoria University can be replicated elsewhere in Australia where the sharing of ownership in multicultural music as a hands-on approach is viewed positively, promoting understanding and respect in a shared space and place.

Back to the future : building future mentoring capacity in physical education teacher education students

For Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) graduates returning to rural and regional areas early in their career, opportunities to move into leadership positions often exist despite their limited experience. Considering this, the provision of learning and assessment initiatives that prepare graduates for futures beyond the boundaries of a subject teacher, in this case, a pre-service teacher mentor, are warranted in regional teacher education programs.

Using professional atandards : assessing work integrated learning in initial teacher education

All Australian teacher education programs must include practical experience--the practicum. It is a critical part of learning to become a teacher.  One of the major challenges in initial teacher education is to provide good quality assessment of the practicum.  Assessing the practicum is filled with tension for both the individual supervisor as well as the pre-service teacher. In 2011 the Australian National Professional Standards for Teachers were established.  On completion of teacher education programs, graduate teachers will have gained the knowledge and practice to meet the seven national standards.  For teacher preparation programs, the successful implementation of the standards will rely on the opportunities for preservice teachers to gather evidence of achieving the standards. This project focussed specifically on evidence of achievements of these standards through assessment practices during practicum.
The overall aim of this project was to enhance the academic and school-based teacher educators' and preservice teachers' capacities and understandings of assessing the practicum.  To achieve this aim, four outcomes were developed to provide professional leaning for improving the assessment practices of the practicum: a website resource, a collaborative partnership process, a professional learning model (PLM) and a developmental 'inventory' of evidence of achievement of the first five national standards.  The website resource provides materials and activities for staff involved in the design of professional experience in initial teacher education programs, to work with partner schools and preservice teachers to facilitate high quality supervision and assessment in practicum sites.  The collaborateive partnership process used for achieving these soutcomes -- communities of reflective practitioners--is integral to the professional learning focus of the project.  It guides the use of the resource in future teacher education sites of practice.  The professional learning model and website materials emphasise the critical role that evidence-informed judgements play at school sites in learning and assessment of future teachers.

Moving to the rhythm of Africa : a case study of a tertiary educator's understanding of multicultural dance in teacher education

Australia is proud of its rich and varied array of the Arts depicting a range of cultural diversity formed by ongoing migration. Although the complex issues of dance, culture and identity are interconnected, forming a multicultural society in Australia, dance education is a powerful platform to transmit and promote togetherness where understanding and respect is shared in dance practice. The focus of this article is on dance education as part of multicultural arts education within teacher education courses at Deakin University (Melbourne) Australia. It forms part of my ongoing wider study that started in 2010 regarding Attitudes and perceptions of Arts Education Students: Preparing culturally responsive teachers across two continents (Australia and South Africa). In 2011, I interviewed the dance educator and will report on two themes from her interview data: multicultural dance and the inclusion of African dance within multicultural dance practice. I argue that the inclusion of innovative and immersive practice of dance where authentic teaching and learning can be facilitated is a powerful platform to share multicultural dance practice in tertiary education.

The task of designing tasks for teacher education and development

Posing, adapting, and creating worthwhile tasks that support student learning are significant pedagogical practices of teachers. However in mathematics education, task design and curriculum development are not often the responsibility of practicing teachers. Textbooks can become the main source of mathematics problems and teachers often follow the text and its sequence of problems. Although mathematics teachers can benefit from access to research-based curriculum resources, limited opportunities to adapt and design tasks can make it challenging to meet the diverse needs and interests of their students. More opportunities for learning to create problems are needed for both practicing and beginning mathematics teachers. What then is involved in learning to pose, adapt and create worthwhile mathematics tasks? More specifically, how can teacher educators design tasks that support teacher candidates in learning to create mathematical tasks? As teacher educators we have, over the past few years, used our own courses as sites in Australia and Canada for investigating various contexts to support preservice teachers in their learning to adapt and create mathematical tasks. Our research includes both large scale and small qualitative studies to explore the perspectives of teacher candidates on learning to create and pose mathematical problems, the kinds of problems they pose, and the opportunities and challenges this offers us as teacher educators. Our work is inspired by Variation Theory that focuses on learning as the act of awareness and discernment of variation. We are exploring both how variation theory can be useful for preservice teachers in their designing, posing and adapting of mathematical tasks and for teacher educators in their design of such pedagogical tasks. The results of our work support the argument that tasks to design, adapt and pose mathematical problems enhance their pedagogical understanding and should be a feature of teacher education courses. This is a new area for research and practice; further exploration of the suitability of particular tasks in elementary mathematics teacher education is recommended.

The teacher education evolution : the shift from online to mobile learning in curriculum, assessment and delivery

Most teacher education programs have online applications. Increasingly teacher education programs are expanding their distance education applications with mobile learning, or m-learning. Although related to online learning, m-learning focuses on the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies. Mobile learning is a big step towards providing flexible teacher education; it has brought about a new forum for learning, decreased limitations of learning location, and provided learners with choices about how and when they access learning materials. Universities are finding themselves grappling with how best to utilize mobile technologies for learning, while staying within their educational missions and resources. In this paper the mobile devices used in higher education and the current status of mobile technologies as learning tools at universities are described. The background of approaches and methods which are currently in use are also discussed, plus universities and teacher readiness for this transformation are also reviewed. Affordances and constraints are considered.

Context matters: SETE mapping of teacher education in diverse contexts

The Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project (2010- ) investigates, as a priority, how well equipped teacher education graduates are to meet the requirements of diverse school settings. This paper outlines notions of diversity as reflected in large-scale longitudinal data sets including quantitative teacher and principal surveys (n=5,000+), national audit of teacher education programs (n=500+), and analysis of data from intensive case studies which track 170 graduate teachers through the first three years of their teaching career.

Navigating teacher education: mapping the terrain, surveying the landscape

While there are many small-scale case studies that investigate specific teacher education practices, large scale longitudinal studies designed to provide rich and comprehensive data about the effectiveness of teacher education, are limited (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). The Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of teacher education programs in preparing teachers for the variety of school settings in which they begin their careers. This three-year study utilises large-scale surveys and case studies, and includes a comprehensive mapping of teacher education programs across Australia. It tracks all 2010/2011 teacher education graduates in Queensland and Victoria to investigate the effectiveness of particular characteristics of their teacher education programs in equipping them with the capacity to meet the learning needs of young people in a diverse range of Australian school settings.

This paper presents the findings from the mapping exercise and the surveys of teachers and principals, and the problematics and possibilities of reading across the data sets. The SETE mapping exercise used publicly available online information to examine the characteristics of initial teacher education programs accredited by the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) and the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT). Preliminary results address, inter alia, the length, content and delivery of programs and critical issues of the development of pedagogical and assessment expertise and preparation to teach in diverse contexts. The paper also presents findings from the first of a series of online surveys completed by teacher education graduates in Queensland and Victoria. Beginning teachers’ responses are mapped against key characteristics of participants' pre-service programs and framed in relation to the key themes of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, behaviour management, and engagement with school stakeholders and local community.