Professional Educator Volume 2 Number 4 October 2003

Published: 1 Oct 03

This month ends with World Teachers' Day, an event to celebrate teaching and education. This year's theme? 'Teachers - opening doors to a better world.' Just how that's happening is the perennial subject in some shape or form of every article in every issue of Professional Educator. Opening doors to a better world through better teaching and learning is about the productive engagement of professionals in education research, policy and action to determine examples of best practice. So what's the driving question behind best practice? What works? Put another way, what does the evidence say? It's a question being answered in preschools, schools and colleges, TAFEs, universities and workplaces across the country - and in the following pages. It's also a question being considered across the board, by all those involved in the educational scene. In this issue you'll find stories on research-driven programs that are opening doors to a better world for many learners. What's working in Indigenous education, in the use of information technology? Geoff Ainsworth has some answers from What Works, while Steve Holden explores some of the programs developed by The Smith Family that are bridging the digital divide for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In what other ways are educators pursuing improved teaching and learning? Susan Groundwater-Smith and Nicole Mockler explain a research approach through school-based practitioner inquiry they're using in a coalition of Sydney schools. Brenton Doecke considers research further, looking at some of the ethical issues for practitioner researchers. What else is shaping the profession? Terence Lovat takes a big-picture look at the role of the 'teacher,' while Marian Lewis has a close look at how teachers are transforming the role of the teacher by reimaging their professional practice. If that sounds like the future is a foreign land, think again: good teaching and learning, as Beth Powell explains it, means 'working with' people, reflecting on practice and participating actively in professional activities. And there's more in this issue, on leadership, on legal matters, on behaviour management, on vocational education. It's all about teachers - opening doors to a better world.

For further information on articles, please check the links.

Teachers - opening doors to a better world

What Works
by Geoff Ainsworth

The What Works materials were developed in 2001 by National Curriculum Services and the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and were launched in September 2002 by the Commonwealth Education Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson. They are now being distributed widely across Australia through the What Works. The Work Program workshop project.
They’ve been called ‘a work program’ and ‘professional action materials’ to draw attention to the fact that they are intended to support local action on the part of users. Although background information, appropriate readings, case studies of good practice and other support materials are included, the focus is on developing and implementing plans aimed at improving outcomes for Indigenous students.
Developing a systematic approach over time contrasts with somewhat isolated ‘professional development’ events, but for systematic work to take place, improved outcomes for Indigenous students must be – or become – a priority for the particular school or training institution.
What Works. The Work Program is funded by the Australian government, through the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training, Indigenous Education Group....

Links:
www.whatworks.edu.au
www.apapdc.edu.au

Teachers - opening doors to a better world

Bridging the digital divide
by Steve Holden

According to research by The Smith Family, published in The new economy revisited: an initial analysis of the digital divide among financially disadvantaged families, children from disadvantaged backgrounds continue to be at risk of falling behind in terms of learning in formal educational settings. The reason? A lack of access to technology.
The report based on data from more than 3,000 low-income families participating in The Smith Family’s Learning for Life program, revealed that just under one third had access to the internet at home. The national average is almost sixty per cent for households with dependent children. Less than sixty per cent of Learning for Life families had a computer at home, compared to seventy-four per cent of all Australian households with children at home....

Links:
http://www.smithfamily.com.au/documents/Background_Paper_5.pdf/ http://www.smithfamily.com.au?documents/Background_Paper_6.pdf/

Teaching and Learning

Learning to listen, listening to learn
by Susan Groundwater-Smnith and Nicole Mockler

The Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools in Sydney, as the name implies, is a loose alliance of schools that has been engaging in and building on school-based research since 1998, when MLC School engaged Susan Groundwater-Smith as a Researcher-in-Residence to work with teams of teachers to investigate matters of concern to the school.
As the Coalition has grown from that, so the approach to evidence-based research has evolved. That’s best illustrated in a particular case. MLC School was interested in collecting the views of students in the junior school. Senior school students were trained to run focus groups with samples of girls from Kindergarten to Year Six and a report was prepared and delivered. The next iteration of the process was at Ashfield Boys’ High School, where boys from the senior years were trained to interview students in the middle years. Following the focus groups, a questionnaire was developed and the results analysed by students in a computer class. A further development occurred at Burwood Girls’ High School, where it was a group of parents who were trained to run focus groups. Asquith Girls’ High School has since used the process and added in a cycle whereby the students have fed back the results to a whole staff forum. Thus, it may be seen that a range of practices has emerged, contributed to by all of the schools in the Coalition, following the initiative taken by MLC School in perceiving that processes leading to improvements to professional practice should be widely shared and discussed...

Teaching and Learning

Ethical issues in practitioner research
by Brenton Doecke

Many educational research post-graduates are classroom teachers investigating their own teaching. Given their professional commitment to improving their teaching through inquiry, it comes as a surprise to them when they are required to justify their research to the University Ethics Committee. As respected members of their school communities, they cannot imagine why anyone would question their capacity to conduct research in an ethical manner, without ‘harm’ to colleagues or students at their school. Things are made worse when the Ethics Committee routinely asks them to consider doing their research with another class or at another school. They find it puzzling why the Ethics Committee should think that this alternative is somehow less fraught with ethical dilemmas than research involving subjects with whom the researcher has existing relationships, over whom he or she might exercise ‘power.’....

The Profession

The role of the 'teacher'
by Terence Lovat

The role of the ‘teacher’ – itself a substantial piece of literature – was initially conceived as an update and expansion of the sixth proposition of the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) charter, New Learning: A charter for Australian education. (2001) That proposition had it that ‘The work of educators will be transformed.’ While the proposition itself remains current, some of the feedback, so essential to the purpose of the charter, suggested that the filling out of the proposition was restricted, in some cases dated by very recent events and, in a couple of instances, unnecessarily pessimistic. It was decided therefore that a more intense study around the proposition was warranted. Particular reference points seen as essential were around the history and tradition of the teaching role as it has come to be perceived in societies of our type, a concentration on developments in teacher education as practical ways in which societal perceptions have been structuralised, and a greater attention to the range of contemporary issues related to the role of the teacher. The result is The role of the ‘teacher,’ dealing with the symbolic power of registration; issues of standards, status and professionalism; new pedagogies and enhanced research understandings; and challenges for the profession...

The Profession

Teachers reimaging their professional practice
by Marian Lewis

There are formidable challenges faced by teachers in a rapidly changing world. Schools are being given a central role in creating Australia’s future prosperity and stability. Teachers are expected to educate their students for continued success in a world as yet unknown. It’s clear that these challenges cannot be met from within the structures and processes of schools that are essentially operating within an industrial age paradigm.
In 1994, Drucker asserted that education would become the centre of the knowledge society and schools would become its key institution. The significance of the research project described in this article lies in the insights it provides into how teachers may become knowledge workers, creating contextualised knowledge to implement in their schools. This represents a redefinition of teacher professionalism, a move towards seeing schools as sites for the creation, not just the transmission, of knowledge...

Interview

'Working with'
by Beth Powell

'Working with' people, reflecting on practice and participating actively in professional activities. That's what education is about for Beth Powell, winner of one of five inaugural Commonwealth awards for outstanding contributions to literacy and numeracy education, announced in September, and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Murdoch University specialising in numeracy. Talk to Powell about numeracy education and the conversation comes immediately to the characteristics needed by good educators, a depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding 'about what numeracy is, about student numeracy and about the teaching of numeracy.' That sounds like the old pairing of content knowledge and skills. Not quite. For Powell, it's the result of 'working with' people. 'My own knowledge, for example, has been built up, layer upon layer, over many years of interaction with a broad range of people and in engaging in a diversity of roles,' Powell says. 'These roles include teaching student-teachers in mathematics education classes, working with teachers and students in classrooms and other professional development activities, through engaging in "the struggle to know" with district curriculum officers and specialist numeracy teachers as we've searched for new understandings about numeracy, and how best to support other key players also to "come to know" these things.' ...

National Perspective

The national perspective
by Steve Holden

September was a month that saw the education sector featuring more publicly than usual – read: page three in the metropolitan dailies. State school teachers across New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia took strike action over pay after enterprise bargaining stalled. An estimated 100,000 teachers took strike action in the three states, with many schools closing – 800 in NSW – while programs were restricted in others. The NSW dispute reached the Industrial Relations Commission after the NSW Teachers’ Federation launched their case for a twenty-five per cent pay rise. Labor governments in the three striking states are typically offering pay rises of around three per cent. In Victoria approximately 20,000 of the state’s 38,000 government school workforce went on strike, but only 110 schools closed. The action in Victoria would appear to indicate the effective end of what has been a surprisingly long honeymoon period for the Labor government, which had enjoyed a positive relationship with the local branch of the Australian Education Union...

For ANTA's initial paper on Training Packages visit www.anta.gov.au/tenders/tpkReview/highLevel.asp/

Issues

Privacy and surveillance in schools
by Andrew Pullar

There are two typical privacy and surveillance issues faced in schools. First, there’s a need for schools to ensure that students are not bringing contraband material to school, which will conflict with the fact that any such materials would be among the personal and private possessions of the students in bags, lockers or on their person. Secondly, schools need to ensure the safety of all the students in their care and, for this reason, may wish to put surveillance equipment in places such as locker bays, locker rooms and toilets, which clashes with the fact that this could be seen as an unwanted and unnecessary invasion of privacy.
These two examples give rise to a number of issues relating to the core question: ‘To what extent can schools put in place procedures which allow them to inspect students’ personal property or put in electronic surveillance equipment to observe otherwise hidden student activity?’ The current spate of school violence in the United States and the spectre of terrorist attack also highlight the possibility of schools needing to become more like their counterparts overseas in terms of security.
Privacy is a fundamental right recognised internationally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948 Article 12) A recent review of privacy issues recognised that ‘Privacy Protection is a process of finding appropriate balances between privacy and multiple competing interests.’ (Privacy V Freedom of Information)....

Resource Reviews

Fresh Thinking About Learning and Learners
Reviewed by Steve Holden

Peter Miles has written an engaging and thought-provoking book about behaviour management. As teachers at any ‘level’ in a school, we all need a fresh look at this ‘bread and butter’ issue of our profession. Miles has done this with good humour, with attention to current issues and concerns, and with engagement and goodwill.
Miles is a teacher of many years’ experience, including experience in behaviour-support teaching, and this is reflected in the text. He makes the point early on that the book is a ‘field guide,’ but with guiding principles supported by a consistently practical emphasis. This is the book’s strength; it addresses a huge range of issues with realistic balance. Miles doesn’t shirk the complexity of the concerns, issues and problems of behaviour in schools, but does demonstrate the significant difference that individual teachers make every day within – hopefully – supportive collegial environments...

Don't Just Stand There, Yell Something
Reviewed by Bill Rogers