Beyond the Abaya : School reform in the Middle East
- Authors: Albon, Nerissa
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: ATEA 2009 Conference, Australian Teacher Education Association, 2009, p. 1-17
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This autoethnography focuses on a study undertaken during the writers 15 month employment in a Muslim girls’ school in the United Arab Emirates. The paper outlines a school improvement project in the Abu Dhabi Emirate and the imposition of an Australian curriculum on the schools involved in this program. The teachers in these schools were exposed to regular professional development sessions as part of an informal teacher education program. While most of the teachers had a degree related to their teaching specialism they lacked any formal teaching qualifications. The professional development the teachers were required to undertake in the schools added to their daily teaching load and did not involve credit towards a degree. School improvement strategies currently in use in Australian state education systems will be discussed in light of their recent implementation in the United Arab Emirates. In discussing the issues that schools faced implementing a new curriculum, teaching approaches, and associated school improvement strategies, it is important that the cultural context of the community and the school be explored with reference to the impact of these proposed changes in many schools across Abu Dhabi. Implementing a new curriculum and encouraging teachers to involve the students in more active learning challenged local teachers’ notions of teaching and of how students learn. An outline of my reasons for undertaking an autoethnography will be provided including the problematic nature of “cultural difference” where a western researcher is working with and observing teachers in a Muslim context. As Rosaldo (1993:202) suggests “Although the notion of “difference” has the advantage of making culture particularly visible to outsiders, it poses a problem because such differences are not absolute. They are relative to the cultural practices of ethnographers and their readers.” On-going discussions related to the western notion of school reform implementation in the Middle East continues to raise issues related to culture and long standing teaching practices that are now being challenged by those who have come from communities and cultures that have very different borders, boundaries and contexts
‘Stepping back’ to understand learning: Pre-Service Teachers’ perspectives on their learning through authentic experiences in professional settings
- Burke, Jenene, Wheatland, Jill
- Authors: Burke, Jenene , Wheatland, Jill
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: The Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) 2011 Conference
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper will examine Pre-Service Teachers’ (PSTs) perspectives on their learning through their involvement in one of three workplace-based initiatives undertaken as part of their teacher education program. Research conducted by Darling-Hammond and colleagues (2008) confirms that highly effective teachers support meaningful learning in a number of ways, including ‘creating ambitious and meaningful tasks’ that reflect how knowledge is used in the field, by engaging students in active learning and by encouraging the type of thinking that enables students to learn to evaluate and guide their own learning (p. 5). The three school-based initiatives selected for this research project have been designed accordingly in an attempt to promote meaningful learning for PSTs. The initiatives that are examined are The Youth Festival, undertaken as part of the Graduate Diploma of Education Secondary (GDE Sec); Pathways to the Adult World (PAW); and, several Small Group Learning Projects in the Bachelor of Education (Physical Education). The study has been conducted as a University of Ballarat Institute of Professional and Organisational Learning (IPOL) teaching and learning fellowship. While the researchers employed a qualitative, self-study methodology in the research, this paper focuses on the PSTs self-study on their learning through their involvement in the various initiatives. Data were derived from an assessment task that was completed by the PSTs after their involvement in one of the work-place based initiatives and subjected to thematic analysis by the researchers. The research attempts to interrogate and reveal what students say that they are learning through their authentic experience in a professional education setting as part of their teacher education coursework.
- Description: E1
- Authors: Burke, Jenene , Wheatland, Jill
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: The Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) 2011 Conference
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper will examine Pre-Service Teachers’ (PSTs) perspectives on their learning through their involvement in one of three workplace-based initiatives undertaken as part of their teacher education program. Research conducted by Darling-Hammond and colleagues (2008) confirms that highly effective teachers support meaningful learning in a number of ways, including ‘creating ambitious and meaningful tasks’ that reflect how knowledge is used in the field, by engaging students in active learning and by encouraging the type of thinking that enables students to learn to evaluate and guide their own learning (p. 5). The three school-based initiatives selected for this research project have been designed accordingly in an attempt to promote meaningful learning for PSTs. The initiatives that are examined are The Youth Festival, undertaken as part of the Graduate Diploma of Education Secondary (GDE Sec); Pathways to the Adult World (PAW); and, several Small Group Learning Projects in the Bachelor of Education (Physical Education). The study has been conducted as a University of Ballarat Institute of Professional and Organisational Learning (IPOL) teaching and learning fellowship. While the researchers employed a qualitative, self-study methodology in the research, this paper focuses on the PSTs self-study on their learning through their involvement in the various initiatives. Data were derived from an assessment task that was completed by the PSTs after their involvement in one of the work-place based initiatives and subjected to thematic analysis by the researchers. The research attempts to interrogate and reveal what students say that they are learning through their authentic experience in a professional education setting as part of their teacher education coursework.
- Description: E1
- Goriss-Hunter, Anitra, Burke, Jenene
- Authors: Goriss-Hunter, Anitra , Burke, Jenene
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Australian Teacher Education Association and Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand Conference, 4-6 July 2018, Melbourne.
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: In uncertain contemporary times, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) educators are under considerable pressure from political, social and institutional sources to ensure that PSTs are “classroom ready”; fully equipped to prepare diverse student cohorts to lead fulfilling post-school lives in an increasingly complex and changing world. To achieve this goal, current research and policy is increasingly focusing on foregrounding inclusive teaching practice. A great deal of education literature focuses on notions of diversity and inclusion with regard to student education in schools (Blackmore, 2009, Campbell & Whitty, 2002, Nieto, 1999, Smyth & McInerney, 2007, and Smyth & McInerney, 2009). Much has also been written about the difficulties inherent in educating PSTs regarding the complexities of inclusive teaching (Blackmore, 2009, Shor, 1992, Sleeter, 2001, Smyth & McInerney, 2007, and 2018 ATEA & TEFANZ Conference: Teacher Education in and for Uncertain Times Smyth & McInerney, 2009). In addition, leading education organizations and accrediting institutions, such as the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) promote inclusion as a mandated teaching approach. While inclusion is the approach mandated in Australia for catering for diversity, the authors argue that current notions of inclusive teaching are still haunted by ghosts of integration and other non-inclusive practices in approaches that hierarchical, additive and focused on deficit thinking. In this model, students are diagnosed as having a particular condition, disorder, impairment, or other difference, which is prioritized as their chief learning characteristic. The rich complexity of a learner’s strengths, preferences, challenges and goals is then narrowed down to one major ingredient – the impairment or difference – which becomes the focus of strategies and practices recommended as appropriate for that particular condition. In this presentation, the authors ask the thorny question, how do we teach PSTs to identify the complexity of learner needs and to make pedagogic decisions to enable learning to occur for all students? The presentation contributes a way forward through the authors’ examination of a range of pedagogies used in class to facilitate PSTs’ investigation of approaches and practices that encourage teaching for inclusion. In order to facilitate PSTs’ learning concerning inclusive teaching, the authors focus on creating opportunities to enable students to work with a diverse range of learners “selecting strategies on the basis of what is to be learnt rather than what is wrong with the learner” (Florian, 2008, p. 2004). As an exploration of pedagogic decisions and teaching approaches, the paper outlines a case study that makes use of a self-study methodology as well as discourse analysis. This research mode “includes elements of ongoing inquiry, respects personal experience, and emphasizes the role of knowledge construction. The collaborative component of self-study acknowledges the important role of the social construction of knowledge (Lassonde, Galman & Kosnik, 2009, p. 10). The inclusivity of a self-study approach and its multi-faceted nature encourages reflection, collaboration and on-going dialogue between educators and PSTs providing insights into teaching practices. From observations and reflective examination of their teaching practices and course development, the authors identify and analyse the pedagogies that are being used to achieve the aims of promoting teaching for inclusion in ITE courses. In addition to a self-study methodology, discourse analysis is used to examine formal literature and policy discussing diversity and inclusion."
Teacher education for rural communities : A focus on ‘incentives’
- White, Simone, Green, Bill, Reid, Joanne, Lock, Graeme, Hastings, Wendy, Cooper, Maxine
- Authors: White, Simone , Green, Bill , Reid, Joanne , Lock, Graeme , Hastings, Wendy , Cooper, Maxine
- Date: 2008
- Type: Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at 2008 Australian Teacher Education Association National Conference: Teacher Educators at Work: What works and where is the evidence?, Novotel Twin Waters, Sunshine Coast, Queensland : 8th-11th July 2008 p. 381-390
- Full Text:
- Description: In Australia we face a national crisis in attracting and retaining teachers and other professionals with regard to rural areas. In response to this difficulty in ‘staffing the empty schoolhouse’ (Roberts 2004), the majority of state education departments have initiated some form of rural incentive scheme designed to attract teachers to rural schools. This paper argues that such schemes have little chance of success unless teachers taking up such incentives have actually been prepared for teaching in nonmetropolitan schools. Although many universities claim to prioritise rural and regional education and community development as part of their vision statements, in reality relatively few education providers reflect this rhetoric in their practice and only a handful have made direct links to such state-based schemes in pre-service teacher education, or initiated their own rural incentives. A preliminary study into pre-service preparation and rural incentive schemes, as part of a three-year ARC Discovery Grant, indicates that, nationally, the majority of Faculties and Schools of Education have no easily accessible or advertised incentive programs to encourage students to undertake a rural practicum. Nor do many reflect rural education in their course-work. This paper will introduce the ‘TERRAnova’ project, and then discuss findings of the preliminary work to date that has focussed on identifying incentives and their significance. Drawing on evidence collected from websites from Australian Universities representing all pre-service teacher education programs in the nation, we argue that few Faculties and Schools appear to see it necessary or desirable to provide students with links to information about particular state-based rural funding opportunities. We show how some, either directly or indirectly, imply the importance of a rural practicum, and that a few teacher education programs provide written advice to students who are considering taking up a rural practicum. It is unclear, however, whether follow-up advice is provided, so that the impact and effectiveness of such advice on students’ experiences and willingness to take rural education seriously can be questioned. Our analysis so far indicates that it is the regional universities which are more likely to address rural education needs, and on this basis we question the metro-centricity of teacher education practice more broadly and suggest ways of expanding the options of teachers in their initial teaching appointments.
- Description: 2003006408
- Authors: White, Simone , Green, Bill , Reid, Joanne , Lock, Graeme , Hastings, Wendy , Cooper, Maxine
- Date: 2008
- Type: Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at 2008 Australian Teacher Education Association National Conference: Teacher Educators at Work: What works and where is the evidence?, Novotel Twin Waters, Sunshine Coast, Queensland : 8th-11th July 2008 p. 381-390
- Full Text:
- Description: In Australia we face a national crisis in attracting and retaining teachers and other professionals with regard to rural areas. In response to this difficulty in ‘staffing the empty schoolhouse’ (Roberts 2004), the majority of state education departments have initiated some form of rural incentive scheme designed to attract teachers to rural schools. This paper argues that such schemes have little chance of success unless teachers taking up such incentives have actually been prepared for teaching in nonmetropolitan schools. Although many universities claim to prioritise rural and regional education and community development as part of their vision statements, in reality relatively few education providers reflect this rhetoric in their practice and only a handful have made direct links to such state-based schemes in pre-service teacher education, or initiated their own rural incentives. A preliminary study into pre-service preparation and rural incentive schemes, as part of a three-year ARC Discovery Grant, indicates that, nationally, the majority of Faculties and Schools of Education have no easily accessible or advertised incentive programs to encourage students to undertake a rural practicum. Nor do many reflect rural education in their course-work. This paper will introduce the ‘TERRAnova’ project, and then discuss findings of the preliminary work to date that has focussed on identifying incentives and their significance. Drawing on evidence collected from websites from Australian Universities representing all pre-service teacher education programs in the nation, we argue that few Faculties and Schools appear to see it necessary or desirable to provide students with links to information about particular state-based rural funding opportunities. We show how some, either directly or indirectly, imply the importance of a rural practicum, and that a few teacher education programs provide written advice to students who are considering taking up a rural practicum. It is unclear, however, whether follow-up advice is provided, so that the impact and effectiveness of such advice on students’ experiences and willingness to take rural education seriously can be questioned. Our analysis so far indicates that it is the regional universities which are more likely to address rural education needs, and on this basis we question the metro-centricity of teacher education practice more broadly and suggest ways of expanding the options of teachers in their initial teaching appointments.
- Description: 2003006408
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