Guidance for awarding institutions on teacher roles and initial teaching qualifications (August 2007: Version 3)

"This document provides guidance for awarding institutions developing qualifications for the initial training of teachers in the Further Education (FE) Sector in England. It provides details of the qualifications required for those teachers new to the sector and undertaking teacher training from September 2007." - Page 8

Newsletter of the analytical and capacity development partnership (ACDP), March 2015

The newsletter have information about OECD review of the Indonesia education sector, development of the Indonesia qualifications framework, teacher absenteeism in Indonesia, rural and remote area education strategic planning for Tanah Papua, improving the teaching of islamic education, and improving student assessment

Teacher Quality and Educational Production in Secondary School

This study uses administrative data linking students and teachers at the classroom level to evaluate teacher quality and joint production in secondary school. Teacher quality is measured by value-added to student test scores in math and reading. Although empirical research has struggled to link observable teacher qualifications to student achievement, teacher quality measured by student performance varies significantly and has important effects on educational outcomes. I identify which teacher inputs affect which test-score outputs in secondary school and find strong evidence of joint production. The results from this study are applicable to incentive design and teacher accountability. programs.teacher quality, educational production, joint production, teacher value-added, value-added, teacher evaluation, secondary school

Pedagogic approaches to using technology for learning: literature review

This literature review is intended to address and support teaching qualifications and CPD through identifying new and emerging pedagogies; "determining what constitutes effective use of technology in teaching and learning; looking at new developments in teacher training qualifications to ensure that they are at the cutting edge of learning theory and classroom practice and making suggestions as to how teachers can continually update their skills." - Page 4

The staffing of science departments in New Zealand secondary schools : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University

This thesis attempts to ascertain the state of staffing in science departments of New Zealand Secondary Schools as at 1st September 1980. This study updates, and extends, the work done by E.J. Searle (1954) and O. Taylor (1965) of producing data about the staffing of science departments in secondary schools. The survey consisted of two different questionnaire forms. One was to be completed by the Head of Department (H.O.D.) Science while a second form was completed by every teacher in the schools who was teaching one or more science classes. The questionnaires were sent to all State and Private Secondary Schools, District High Schools and the Form 3-7 departments of Form 1-7 Schools. A response from 70% of the schools resulted. The major areas for which information was obtained included: qualifications held and qualifications relevant to senior science subjects being taught, the percentage of trained teachers teaching science, salaries, the resources available to the teacher of science, the main areas of concern in science education as perceived by the teacher of science, and information from H.O.D s about the numbers of science teachers leaving teaching and the type of employment they had gone to. Information was also obtained relating to class sizes, the level of training and the teaching ability of teachers in training (i.e. those on Section and List A teachers), morale in science departments, the extent to which science teachers have become subject specialists and the type of people involved in part-time science teaching. The responses made were hand coded by the researcher, punched on to computer discs and the necessary sorting and statistical analyses were done by Massey University's B6700 Computer. Listed below are some of the major findings of the project. It seems that most teachers of science teach mainly science (81.7%) which is a marked increase in subject specialisation since 1965. The teacher of science is generally much better qualified than in 1965 and 86.6% of the sample were trained teachers. Teachers with tertiary qualifications in Education, other than the Diploma in Teaching, are quite rare (13%). One of the major findings of Taylor's 1965 survey was that 57.7% of the science teachers in District High Schools and F. 1-7 Schools lacked completed degrees or diplomas. This value has now dropped to 20.5%. Most teachers (76.4%) are reasonably happy with their present salary even though they do lack salary relativity with other professions having similar qualifications. Excluding salary considerations, 64.4% of the sample were reasonably happy with their present situation as post-primary teachers of science. Science teachers did, however, recommend most strongly that less class contact time, better equipment and textbooks, more technician assistance and smaller teacher/pupil ratios are essential requisites of future modifications to their present conditions. There is a definite shortage of well-trained, well qualified teachers which has to some extent been improved by the recruitment of teachers from overseas. For the schools in the sample the total shortage of science teachers was 1170 class contact hours per week. The mean size of a science class has remained static at 23 over the past twenty-six years since Searle's 1954 survey. The thesis concludes with some recommendations of future changes that the researcher feels would help improve staffing and conditions in the science departments of New Zealand secondary schools

Teacher-Student Matching and the Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness

We use administrative data on North Carolina public schools to document the tendency for more highly qualified teachers to be matched with more advantaged students, and we measure the bias this pattern generates in estimates of the impacts of various teacher qualifications on student achievement. One of the strategies we use to minimize this bias is to restrict the analysis to schools that assign students to classrooms in a manner statistically indistinguishable from random assignment. Using data for 5th grade, we consistently find significant returns to teacher experience in both math and reading and to licensure test scores in math achievement. We also find that the returns in math are greater for socioeconomically advantaged students, a finding that may help explain why the observed form of teacher-student matching persists in equilibrium.

Communication and collaboration skills in teacher qualifications

Las tecnologías digitales han servido de altavoz para la comunicación y la colaboración, proporcionándonos un escenario el que comunicarse y colaborar es cada vez más fácil y rápido. ¿Nuestra comunicación es mejor? ¿Cómo colaboramos cuando aprendemos? Partiendo del análisis de la influencia de los procesos comunicativos y colaborativos en la labor docente, desde un punto de vista educomunicativo, este artículo aporta un panorama multidisciplinar sobre las ventajas de las competencias comunicativas y colaborativas en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje de los docentes. Para ello, se ha realizado un análisis de tipo documental, aportando una visión pormenorizada de los campos que debe tratar la formación de docentes en materia de comunicación y colaboración.Digital technologies have served as a loudspeaker for communication and collaboration, providing us a situation where communicating and collaborating is becoming easier and faster. Is our communication better? How do we collaborate when we learn? Based on the analysis of the influence of communicative and collaborative processes on teaching work from an educomunicational perspective, this article provides a multidisciplinary overview of the advantages of communicative and collaborative competences in the teaching-learning processes of teachers. For this purpose, a documentary analysis has been carried out, providing a detailed view of the fields that teacher qualifications in communication and collaboration must deal with

Quality in early years settings and children’s school achievement

Childcare quality is often thought to be important for influencing children’s subsequent attainment at school. The English Government regulates the quality of early education by setting minimum levels of qualifications for workers and grading settings based on a national Inspectorate (OfSTED). This paper uses administrative data on over two million children to relate performance on national teacher assessments at ages 5 and 7 to the quality characteristics of the nursery they attended before starting school. Results show that staff qualifications and childcare quality ratings have a weak association with teacher assessments at school, based on comparing children who attended different nurseries but attended the same primary school. Our results suggest that although children’s outcomes are related to the nursery they attend, which nurseries are good cannot be predicted by staff qualifications and OfSTED ratings; the measures of quality that Government has focused on

English teaching in New Zealand: The current play of the state

Curriculum, assessment and qualifications reforms in New Zealand have wrought significant changes in the construction of English as a subject and in the practices of English teachers. While the content of the new English curriculum suggests continuities with past syllabuses, its structural parameters indicate a different discursive agenda. Reforms in senior secondary school qualifications have also acted to construct English in ways that need to be contested and which may be making the subject less responsive to changes in textual practice resulting from the rise in digital technologisation. In a variety of ways, the reforms are also serving to reshape the everyday classroom practices of English teachers, both overtly and covertly through a process of discursive colonisation. Because the reforms have been highly centralised, state initiated and state managed, they have posed a huge challenge to teacher professionalism and identity. Through all of this, the hegemonic status of English as the vehicle through which literature is studied remains unchallenged. The article concludes by listing five challenges to English teachers

Secondary school teachers' attitudes to and beliefs about ability grouping

Background. Internationally and historically considerable research has been undertaken regarding the attitudes of secondary school teachers towards different types of ability grouping. There has been no recent research taking account of the changing educational context in the UK. Aims. This paper aims to explore secondary school teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about ability grouping taking account of school type, gender, experience and qualifications. Sample. The sample comprised over 1500 teachers from 45 schools divided into three groups based on their ability grouping practices in years 7-9. The sample included all the lower school teachers of mathematics, science and English and a random sample of teachers from other subjects in each school. Methods. Teachers responded to a questionnaire which explored their attitudes towards ability grouping through the use of rating scales and open ended questions. Results. The findings showed that the teachers’ beliefs broadly reflected research findings on the actual effects of ability grouping, although there were significant 3 differences relating to the type of school they taught in and the subject that they taught. Separate analysis of school types showed that length of time teaching, individual school differences and teacher qualifications were also significant predictors of attitudes. Conclusions. Teachers’ beliefs about ability grouping are influenced by the type of groupings adopted in the school where they work, the subject that they teach, their experience and qualifications. As pedagogical practices are known to be influenced by beliefs these findings have important implications for teacher training