Finding passion and purpose in the teaching of reading in secondary school English through critical readings of practice : A huge kind of spider web
- Authors: McGraw, Amanda , Mason, Mary
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Journal of Language and Literacy Vol. 43, no. 3 (2020), p. 205-213
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- Description: We argue in this paper that the experience of reading is an intricate and dynamic weaving of connections much like the tentative construction of a spider's web. We also use the metaphor of the web to examine a professional learning experience for Australian secondary school English teachers who over the course of a year, and by working in Communities of Practice, find and renew passion and purpose in their teaching of reading. The professional learning project, beginning in 2015, is conducted in Victorian schools under the auspices of the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English (VATE) and is funded for six years by the Victorian Department of Education and Training. In five years it has involved 36 schools. In this paper we focus on the experiences of teachers involved in the first three years of the project. The project begins by drawing attention, through an examination of literature, to disturbing levels of disengagement with reading at school and to a culture of pedagogy in English that has shifted over recent times toward transactional teaching and away from a focus on meaning-making. Drawing upon teacher interviews, the paper examines how teachers find passion and purpose in their teaching of reading through an initial focus on student experience revealed in drawings, which they find surprising and moving. In Communities of Practice and with the support of an external Critical Friend, the teachers explore a complex understanding of reading that has imaginative, dialogic, emotional, critical, metacognitive and embodied dimensions and design and trial reading activities with the aim of deepening students' reading experiences. Through a focus on what teachers say, the paper explores what is learned through this experience and examines some of the challenges associated with sustaining change in schools.
Activating teaching dispositions in carefully constructed contexts : Examining the impact of classroom intensives
- Authors: McGraw, Amanda , McDonough, Sharon , Wines, Chris , O’Loughlan, Courtney
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Teacher Education : Innovation, Intervention and Impact Chapter 12 p. 193-209
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- Description: The current policy stance in Australia which seeks to produce ‘classroom ready’ teachers requires that pre-service teachers (PSTs) be assessed against national professional standards that articulate minimum skills and knowledge required of beginning teachers. There is no mention within these standards of affective qualities (e.g. humour, passion, inspiration) or thinking dispositions (e.g. curiosity, reflection, creativity) that enable good teaching and professional learning and which capture the complexity that is inherent within good teaching. This study focuses on the research of a team of teacher educators in a regional Australian university who believe that a focus on dispositions is central to effective teacher education. They have embedded a ‘Dispositions for Teaching Framework’ within a Master of Teaching (Secondary) program to allow PSTs’ various thinking dispositions to be activated within carefully constructed professional learning contexts. The context in this study was a Classroom Intensive experience at a P-12 School in regional Victoria where PSTs participated in structured classroom observations over a two day period. The key research questions were: Did the Classroom Intensive experience activate the dispositions in the PSTs? Were some dispositions activated more than others? How could evidence be collected of these dispositions in action? A variety of research methods enabled a complex data-set to be collected. It was identified that the Classroom Intensive experience provided a rich professional learning context which activated all five of the thinking dispositions in the framework, and that these dispositions are not discrete but interconnect and rely upon each other. © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016.
New teachers, new teaching
- Authors: McGraw, Amanda
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Jousting for the new generation: Challenges to contemporary schooling Chapter p. 93-95
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003005690
On the brink
- Authors: McGraw, Amanda
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Jousting for the new generation: Challenges to contemporary schooling Chapter p. 118-122
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003005696
Young people as powerful learners
- Authors: McGraw, Amanda
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Jousting for the new generation: Challenges to contemporary schooling Chapter p. 24-27
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003005609
Becoming enquirers into professional practice
- Authors: Brown, Maryann , McGraw, Amanda
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at the 30th Australian Teacher Education Association Conference, Brisbane, July, 2002, Brisbane : 1st July, 2002
- Full Text: false
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- Description: E1
- Description: 2003000184