Beginning teachers’ achievements and challenges : implications for induction and mentoring

It is recognised worldwide that beginning teachers require more support as reasons for high attrition rates (e.g., lack of appreciation from colleagues, unsatisfying working conditions, inadequate teacher preparation) indicate current systems are failing them. One way of addressing their specific needs is to understand their achievements and challenges during their first year of teaching. This qualitative study tracks 10 beginning primary teachers’ achievements and challenges at two points (April and September) during their first year of teaching in Australian public schools. Findings showed that building relationships and behaviour management were considered achievements at these two points, yet behaviour management was also considered a challenge. Other challenges included: learning differentiation, working with parents, and negotiating a life-work balance. Induction into the school culture and infrastructure continued to be important, especially developing skills on handling difficult parents and creating a life-work balance. Simultaneously, they required mentoring for effective teaching in classroom management and differentiation. A two-prong approach of induction into the school culture and infrastructure and mentoring for effective teaching needs to continue throughout the first year of teaching, and possibly beyond.

Teaching teachers for the future : how, what, why, and what next?

This paper contextualises the Teaching Teachers of the Future (TTF) Project and acts as a preamble for the TTF stream of papers at ACEC2012. It discusses the aims and objectives of the project, its genesis in a changing educational and political landscape, the use of TPACK as a theoretical scaffold, and briefly report on the operations of the various components and partners. Further, it will discuss the research opportunities afforded by the project including a national survey of all pre-service teachers in Australia gauging their TPACK confidence and the use of the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology. Finally the paper will discuss the outcomes of the project and its future.

Exploring emotional climate in preservice science teacher education

Classroom emotional climates are interrelated with students’ engagement with university courses. Despite growing interest in emotions and emotional climate research, little is known about the ways in which social interactions and different subject matter mediate emotional climates in preservice science teacher education classes. In this study we investigated the emotional climate and associated classroom interactions in a preservice science teacher education class. We were interested in the ways in which salient classroom interactions were related to the emotional climate during lessons centered on debates about science-based issues (e.g., nuclear energy alternatives). Participants used audience response technology to indicate their perceptions of the emotional climate. Analysis of conversation for salient video clips and analysis of non-verbal conduct (acoustic parameters, body movements, and facial expressions) supplemented emotional climate data. One key contribution that this study makes to preservice science teacher education is to identify the micro-processes of successful and unsuccessful class interactions that were associated with positive and neutral emotional climate. The structure of these interactions can inform the practice of other science educators who wish to produce positive emotional climates in their classes. The study also extends and explicates the construct of intensity of emotional climate.

Teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and identification of excessive anxiety in children

This study examined primary school teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and excessive anxiety symptoms in children. Three hundred and fifteen primary school teachers completed a questionnaire exploring their definitions of anxiety and the indications they associated with excessive anxiety in primary school children. Results showed that teachers had an understanding of what anxiety was in general but did not consistently distinguish normal anxiety from excessive anxiety, often defining all anxiety as a negative experience. Teachers were able to identify symptoms of excessive anxiety in children by recognizing anxiety-specific and general problem indications. The results provided preliminary evidence that teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and anxiety disorders does not appear to be a barrier in preventing children’s referrals for mental health treatment. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Primary classroom teachers' use of social and emotional wellbeing programs and the factors influencing program use

There has been a rapid escalation in the development and evaluation of social and emotional well-being (SEW) programs in primary schools over the last few decades. Despite the plethora of programs available, primary teachers’ use of SEW programs is not well documented in Australian schools, with even less consideration of the factors influencing program use. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken with primary classroom teachers across twelve schools in the Brisbane and Sunshine Coast Education Districts in Queensland, Australia, during 2005. A checklist of SEW programs and an audit of SEW practices in schools were employed to investigate the number, range and types of SEW programs used by primary classroom teachers and the contextual factors influencing program use. Whilst the majority of implementation studies have been conducted under intervention conditions, this study was designed to capture primary classroom teachers’ day-to-day use of SEW programs and the factors influencing program use under real-world conditions. The findings of this research indicate that almost three quarters of the primary classroom teachers involved in the study reported using at least one SEW program during 2005. Wide variation in the number and range of programs used was evident, suggesting that teachers are autonomous in their use of SEW programs. Evidence-based SEW programs were used by a similar proportion of teachers to non-evidence-based programs. However, irrespective of the type of program used, primary teachers overwhelmingly reported using part of a SEW program rather than the whole program. This raises some issues about the quality of teachers’ program implementation in real-world practice, especially with respect to programs that are evidence-based. A content analysis revealed that a wide range of factors have been examined as potential influences on teachers’ implementation of health promotion programs in schools, including SEW programs, despite the limited number of studies undertaken to date. However, variation in the factors examined and study designs employed both within and across health promotion fields limited the extent to which studies could be compared. A methodological and statistical review also revealed substantial variation in the quality of reporting of studies. A variety of factors were examined as potential influences on primary classroom teachers’ use of SEW programs across multiple social-ecological levels of influence (ranging from community to school and individual levels). In this study, parent or caregiver involvement in class activities and the availability of wellbeing-related policies in primary schools were found to be influential in primary classroom teachers’ use of SEW programs. Teachers who often or always involve parents or caregivers in class activities were at a higher odds of program use relative to teachers who never or rarely involved parents or caregivers in class activities. However, teachers employed in schools with the highest number of wellbeing-related policies available were at a lower odds of program use relative to teachers employed in schools with fewer wellbeing-related policies available. Future research should investigate primary classroom teachers’ autonomy and motivations for using SEW programs and the reasons behind the selection and use of particular types of programs. A larger emphasis should also be placed upon teachers not using SEW programs to identify valid reasons for non-use. This would provide another step towards bridging the gap between the expectations of program developers and the needs of teachers who implement programs in practice. Additionally, the availability of wellbeing-related school policies and the types of activities that parents and caregivers are involved with in the classroom warrant more in-depth investigation. This will help to ascertain how and why these factors influence primary classroom teachers’ use of SEW programs on a day-to-day basis in schools.

Standing brave in the face of rapid curriculum change : EAL/D teachers speak about critical literacy and its place in senior English teaching

Critical literacy (CL) has been the subject of much debate in the Australian public and education arenas since 2002. Recently, this debate has dissipated as literacy education agendas and attendant policies shift to embrace more hybrid models and approaches to the teaching of senior English. This paper/presentation reports on the views expressed by four teachers of senior English about critical literacy and it’s relevance to students who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are learning English while undertaking senior studies in high school. Teachers’ understandings of critical literacy are important, esp. given the emphasis on Critical and Creative Thinking and Literacy as two of the General Capabilities underpinning the Australian national curriculum. Using critical discourse analysis, data from four specialist ESL teachers in two different schools were analysed for the ways in which these teachers construct critical literacy. While all four teachers indicated significant commitment to critical literacy as an approach to English language teaching, the understandings they articulated varied from providing forms of access to powerful genres, to rationalist approaches to interrogating text, to a type of ‘critical-aesthetic’ analysis of text construction. Implications are also discussed.

Developing and sustaining successful mentoring relationships

As mentor teachers hold the balance of power in the relationship, how do they build and sustain positive mentor-mentee relationships? This study involved eleven pairs of mentors and mentees (n=22) with audio-recorded interviews to explore their relationships, mentors’ support and mentors’ expectations for mentees’ involvement in the school. Findings suggested ways to build and sustain mentoring relationships (e.g., professionalism, respect, and support). Indeed, support in providing information for planning, access to resources, two-way dialoguing with feedback and reflections, and establishing safe, risk-taking environments to trial and evaluate newly-learnt teaching practices were considered as a ways to build and sustain relationships.

Attitudes of future special education teachers toward gifted students and their education

Saudi Arabian education is undergoing substantial reform in the context of a nation transitioning from a resource-rich economy to a knowledge economy. Gifted students are important human resources for such developing countries. However, there are some concerns emanating from the international literature that gifted students have been neglected in many schools due to teachers’ attitudes toward them. The literature shows that future teachers also hold similar negative attitudes, especially those in Special Education courses who, as practicing teachers, are often responsible for supporting the gifted education process. The purpose of this study was to explore whether these attitudes are held by future special education teachers in Saudi Arabia, and how the standard gifted education course, delivered as part of their program, impacts on their attitudes toward gifted students. The study was strongly influenced by the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen, 1980, 2012) and the Theory of Personal Knowledge (Polanyi, 1966), which both suggest that attitudes are related to people’s (i.e. teachers’) beliefs. A mixed methods design was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from a cohort of students enrolled in a teacher education program at a Saudi Arabian university. The program was designed for students majoring in special education. The quantitative component of the study involved an investigation of a cohort of future special education teachers taking a semester-long course in gifted education. The data were primarily sourced from a standard questionnaire instrument modified in the Arabic language, and supplemented with questions that probed the future teachers’ attitudes toward gifted children. The participants, 90 special education future teachers, were enrolled in an introductory course about gifted education. The questionnaire contained 34 items from the "Opinions about the Gifted and Their Education" (Gagné, 1991) questionnaire, utilising a five-point Likert scale. The quantitative data were analysed through the use of descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation Coefficients, Paired Samples t-test, and Multiple Linear Regression. The qualitative component focussed on eight participants enrolled in the gifted education course. The primary source of the qualitative data was informed by individual semi-structured interviews with each of these participants. The findings, based on both the quantitative and qualitative data, indicated that the majority of future special education teachers held, overall, slightly positive attitudes toward gifted students and their education. However, the participants were resistant to offering special services for the gifted within the regular classroom, even when a comparison was made on equity grounds with disabled students. While the participants held ambivalent attitudes toward ability grouping, their attitudes were positive toward grade acceleration. Further, the majority agreed that gifted students are likely to be rejected by their teachers. Despite such judgments, they considered the gifted to be a valuable resource for Saudi society. Differences within the cohort were found when two variables emerged as potential predictors of attitude: age, experience, and participants’ hometown. The younger (under 25 years old) future special education teachers, with no internship or school practice experience, held more positive attitudes toward the gifted students, with respect to their general needs, than did the older participants with previous school experiences. Additionally, participants from a rural region were more resistant toward gifted education than future teachers from urban areas. The findings also indicated that the attitudes of most of the participants were significantly improved, as a result of the course, toward ability grouping such as special classes and schools, but remained highly concerned about differentiation within regular classrooms with either elitism or time pressure. From the findings, it can be confirmed that a lectured-based course can serve as a starting point from which to focus future teachers’ attention on the varied needs of the gifted, and as a conduit for learning about special services for the gifted. However, by itself, the course appears to have minimal influence on attitudes toward differentiation. As a consequence, there is merit in its redevelopment, and the incorporation of more practical opportunities for future teachers to experience the teaching of the gifted.

E-learning 2.0 experiences within higher education : theorising students' and teachers' experiences in Web 2.0 learning

This study explores and evaluates students’ and teachers’ experiences when using a range of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education teaching and learning. It contributes to our understanding of how Web 2.0 learning communities are constructed, experienced and the nature of the participation therein. This research extends our knowledge and understanding of the Web 2.0 phenomena, and provides a framework that can assist with improving future Web 2.0 implementation.

Early childhood teachers' pedagogical practice : what they know, think and do with young children experiencing parental separation and divorce

This grounded theory study examined the practices of twenty-one Australian early childhood teachers who work with children experiencing parental separation and divorce. Findings showed that teachers constructed personalised support for these children. Teachers’ pedagogical decision-making processes had five phases: constructing their knowledge, applying their knowledge, applying decision-making schema, taking action, and monitoring action and evaluating. This study contributes new understandings about teachers’ work with young children experiencing parental separation and divorce, and extends existing theoretical frameworks related to the provision of support. It adds to scholarship by applying grounded theory methodology in a new context. Recommendations are made for school policies and procedures within and across schools and school systems.

Something’s coming, something good: Identifying TPACK competence in pre-service teachers’ analyses of learning objects

There is a song at the beginning of the musical, West Side Story, where the character Tony sings that “something’s coming, something good.” The song is an anthem of optimism, brimming with promise. This paper is about the long-held promise of information and communication technology (ICT) to transform teaching and learning, to modernise the learning environment of the classroom, and to create a new digital pedagogy. But much of our experience to date in the schooling sector tells more of resistance and reaction than revolution, of more of the same but with a computer in the corner and of ICT activities as unwelcome time-fillers/time-wasters. Recently, a group of pre-service teachers in a postgraduate primary education degree in an Australian university were introduced to learning objects in an ICT immersion program. Their analyses and related responses, as recorded in online journals, have here been interpreted in terms of TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge). Against contemporary observation, these students generally displayed high levels of competence and highly positive dispositions of students to the integration of ICT in their future classrooms. In short, they displayed the same optimism and confidence as the fictional “Tony” in believing that something good was coming.

Producing and maintaining professional identities in early childhood

This study is an inquiry into early childhood teacher professional identities. In Australia, workforce reforms in early childhood include major shifts in qualification requirements that call for a university four-year degree-qualified teacher to be employed in child care. This marks a shift in the early years workforce, where previously there was no such requirement. At the same time as these reforms to quality measures are being implemented, and requiring a substantive up skilling of the workforce, there is a growing body of evidence through recent studies that suggests these same four-year degree-qualified early childhood teachers have an aversion to working in child care. Their preferred employment option is to work in the early years of more formal schooling, not in before-school contexts. This collision of agendas warrants investigation. This inquiry is designed to investigate the site at which advocacy for higher qualification requirements meets early childhood teachers who are reluctant to choose child care as a possible career pathway. The key research question for this study is: How are early childhood teachers’ professional identities currently produced? The work of this thesis is to problematise the early childhood teacher in child care through a particular method of discourse analysis. There are two sets of data. The first was a key early childhood political document that read as a "moment of arising" (Foucault, 1984a, p. 83). It is a political document which was selected for its current influence on the early childhood field, and in particular, workforce reforms that call for four-year degree-qualified teachers to work in before-school contexts, including child care. The second data set was generated through four focus group discussions conducted with preservice early childhood teachers. The document and transcripts of the focus groups were both analysed as text, as conceptualised by Foucault (1981). Foucault’s work spans a number of years and a range of philosophical matters. This thesis draws particularly on Foucault’s writings on discourse, power/knowledge, regimes of truth and resistance. In order to consider the production of early childhood teachers’ professional identities, the study is also informed by identity theorists, who have worked on gender, performativity and investment (Davies, 2004/2006; McNay, 1992; Osgood, 2012; Walkerdine, 1990; Weedon, 1997). The ways in which discourses intersect, compete and collide produce the subject (Foucault, 1981) and, in the case of this inquiry, there are a number of competing discourses at play, which produce the early childhood teacher. These particular theories turn particular lenses on the question of professional identities in early childhood, and such a study calls for the application of particular methodologies. Discourse analysis was used as the methodological framework, and the analysis was informed by Foucauldian concepts of discourse. While Foucault did not prescribe a form of discourse analysis as a method, his writings nonetheless provide a valuable framework for illuminating discursive practices and, in turn, how people are affected, through the shifts and distribution of power (Foucault, 1980a). The treatment used with both data sets involved redescription. For the policy document, a technique for reading document-as-text applied a genealogical approach (Foucault, 1984a). For the focus groups, the process of redescription (Rorty, 1989) involved reading talk-as-text. As a method, redescription involves describing "lots and lots of things in new ways until you have created a pattern of linguistic behaviour which will tempt the new generation to adopt it" (Rorty, 1989, p. 9). The development and application of categories (Davies, 2004/2006) built on a poststructuralist theoretical framework and the literature review informed the data analysis method of discourse analysis. Irony provided a rhetorical and playful tool (Haraway, 1991; Rorty, 1989), to look to how seemingly opposing discourses are held together. This opens a space to collapse binary thinking and consider seemingly contradictory terms in a way in which both terms are possible and both are true. Irony resists the choice of one or the other being right, and holds the opposites together in tension. The thesis concludes with proposals for new, ironic categories, which work to bring together seemingly opposing terms, located at sites in the field of early childhood where discourses compete, collide and intersect to produce and maintain early childhood teacher professional identities. The process of mapping these discourses goes some way to investigating the complexities about identities and career choices of early childhood teachers. The category of "the cost of loving" captures the collision between care/love, inherent in child care, and new discourses of investment/economics. Investment/economics has not completely replaced care/love, and these apparent opposites were not read as a binary because both are necessary and both are true (Haraway, 1991). They are held together in tension to produce early childhood teacher professional identities. The policy document under scrutiny was New Directions, released in 2007 by the then opposition ALP leader, Kevin Rudd. The claim was made strongly that the "economic prosperity" of Australia relies on investment in early childhood. The arguments to invest are compelling and the neuroscience/brain research/child development together with economic/investment discourses demand that early childhood is funding is increased. The intersection of these discourses produces professional identities of early childhood teachers as a necessary part of the country’s economy, and thus, worthy of high status. The child care sector and work in child care settings are necessary, with children and the early childhood teacher playing key roles in the economy of the nation. Through New Directions it becomes sayable (Foucault, 1972/1989) that the work the early childhood teacher performs is legitimated and valued. The children are produced as "economic units". A focus on what children are able to contribute to the future economy of the nation re-positions children and produces these "smart productive citizens", making future economic contribution. The early childhood teacher is produced through this image of a child and "the cost of loving" is emphasised. A number of these categories were produced through the readings of the document-as text and the talk-as-text. Two ironic categories were read in the analysis of the transcripts of the focus group discussions, when treated as talk-as-text data: the early childhood teacher as a "heroic victim"; and the early childhood teacher as a "glorified babysitter". This thesis raises new questions about professional identities in early childhood. These new questions might go some way to prompt re-thinking of some government policy, as well as some aspects of early childhood teacher education course design. The images of children and images of child care provide provocations to consider preservice teacher education course design. In particular, how child care, as one of the early childhood contexts, is located, conceptualised and spoken throughout the course. Consideration by course designers and teacher educators of what discourses are privileged in course content —what discourses are diminished or silenced—would go some way to reconceptualising child care within preservice teacher education and challenging dominant ways of speaking child care, and work in child care. This inquiry into early childhood teachers’ professional identities has gone some way to exploring the complexities around the early childhood teacher in child care. It is anticipated that the significance of this study will thus have immediate applicably and relevance for the Australian early childhood policy landscape. The early childhood field is in a state of rapid change, and this inquiry has examined some of the disconnects between policy and practice. Awareness of the discourses that are in play in the field will continue to allow space for conversations that challenge dominant assumptions about child care, work in child care and ways of being an early childhood teacher in child care.

Integrating early childhood teachers into long day care : building respectful relationships

Amongst the current reforms in early childhood in Australia is the requirement for four year university degree-qualified teachers to be employed to provide a kindergarten program for four-year-old children in the year prior to school entry. The possibility for long day care to provide a funded kindergarten program, with an early childhood teacher (ECT) presents a change for the field. With this change come challenges, though also opportunities to think in new and different ways about what long day care and working in long day care might look like.