Bedding down the embedding : IL reality in a teacher education programme

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is one of Australia's largest universities,enrolling 30,000 students. Our Information Literacy Framework and Syllabus wasendorsed as university policy in Feb 2001. QUT Library uses the AustralianInformation Literacy Standards as the basis and entry point for our syllabus. Theuniversity wide information literacy programme promotes critical thinking and equipsindividuals for lifelong learning (Peacock, 2002a). Information literacy has developedas a premium agenda within the university community; as documented by JudithPeacock, the university’s Information Literacy Coordinator (Peacock, 2002b).The Faculties at QUT have for the last few years, started to work through how theinformation literacy syllabus will be enacted in their curricula, and within theorientations of their subject areas. Attitudinal change is happening alongside arealisation that discipline content must be taught within a broader framework.Curricula and pedagogical reforms are a characteristic of the teaching environment.Phrases such as lifelong learning, generic skills, information revolution, learningoutcomes and information literacy standards are now commonplace in facultydiscussion. Liaison librarians are strategically placed to see the "big picture" ofcurricula across large scale faculties in a large scale university. We work withfaculty in collaborative and consultative partnerships, in order to implement reform. QUT Librarians offer three levels of information literacy curriculum to the university.The generic programme is characterised by free classes, offered around the start ofsemesters. The next level is integrated teaching, developed to answer a specificneeds for classes of students. The third level of information literacy is that ofembedding throughout a programme. This involves liaison librarians working toensure that information literacy is a developmental and assessed part of thecurriculum, sequenced through a programme in a similar way to traditional disciplineknowledge, and utilising the IL syllabus. This paper gives a glimpse of what ishappening as we attempt the process of embedding information literacy into theBachelor of Education programme

The four attributes model of the middle school teacher

This paper investigates 'middle schooling', in particular the attributes of the middle school teacher and what differentiates the middle school teacher from other teachers: primary and secondary school teachers. This notion of a middle school teacher with its own unique set of attributes sheds new light on the centrality of the teacher in this education reform. So much so that it is challenging the default position that the attributes of the teacher are generic and not usually differentiated from other teachers. Teachers in this phase of education are focused on young adolescence in what is broadly defined in the Australian literature as 'the middle years of schooling'. During the 1990s and into the present there are persistent and unyielding calls for schools to re-structure, re-culture and reform learning and teaching practices that focus on improving student learning outcomes. This paper presents the key findings of a recent doctoral study. The purpose of this study was concerned with creating the conditions that support a different type of teacher who is responsive to the developmental needs of young adolescents and to develop a model based on the understanding of these conditions. A profession is not created by certificates and censures but by the existence of a substantive body of professional knowledge, as well as a mechanism for improving it and a genuine desire of the profession's members to improve their practice. (Stigler & Hierbert 1999:146