Professional certification: Promoting and recognising successful teaching practices

This paper focuses on the challenge of developing a system forrecognising and rewarding accomplished teachers operated by the teaching profession – a standards-based professional learning and certification system. While the focus is on recent Australian experience, it draws on the experience of several countries that have sought to reform teacher career structures and pay systems so that there is a closer alignment between career progression and increasing expertise. Over the past twenty years or so, teacher associations in several countries have demonstrated that the profession has the ability to reach a consensus on teaching standards without imposing uniformity of teaching style. These standards indicate that the profession can lay down long term professional development goals for its members based on research and successful professional practice. A standards-based professional learning and certification system has the potential to overcome major limitations in traditional systems of professional learning for teachers: the lack of clarity about what teachers should get better at; the lack of incentive to attain high teaching standards, and the low level of ownership and control teachers have over the professional development system

National Curriculum and National Professional Standards: Potentially a Powerful Partnership

The author discusses the potential impact on Australian education of the creation of the interim National Curriculum Board (NCB) and subsequently the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and of the National Partnership on Quality Teaching (NPQT). The author argues that their roles should be seen as distinct, but complementary and mutually reinforcing – which has important implications for the new national curriculum, the success of which will depend fundamentally on the willingness and capacity of teachers to meet related standards

Changing Cities

This chapter sets a context for action to move us towards a sustainable society, and then examines two Australian grassroots initiatives

A Study of Work Practices in Tasmanian Government Schools: Final report to the Australian Education Union – Tasmanian Branch

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conducted an online survey of members on behalf of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU). The survey, which was open to teachers, school leaders (principals and assistant principals) and education support staff working in Tasmanian government schools and offices, was available to the majority of members of the Union in August 2017, and remained open for four weeks during Term 3. The survey was based on one conducted for the Victorian branch of the AEU in 2016. The survey of the work of union members in Tasmanian government schools focussed on the hours of work by school staff, staff perceptions of their work, and the relationship between work practices and the quality of teaching. More than 3000 teachers, school leaders and education support staff completed the survey, a response rate of 60%

Conforming to accreditation in Iranian hospitals

This paper examines the operation of an accreditation programme for hospitals in Iran. It explores the process of accreditation as a regulatory control system and analyses hospitals’ responses to this type of control. We draw on the notion of steering and argue that the accreditation system is transactional in nature. Our findings show that hospitals conform to the scheme, although they also resist some of its requirements. On a wider policy level, we suggest that accreditations offer the accreditor the opportunity to impact on how activities are undertaken, but hospitals require incentives in order to make the necessary organisational changes

Subject specific demands of teaching: Implications for out-of-field teachers

This chapter provides a framework for thinking about the subject-specific nature of teaching in terms of the knowledge, modes of inquiry and discursive practices that delineate one subject from another in the traditional school curriculum. The chapter will explore how these disciplinary traits are translated into teaching as curriculum, knowledge and pedagogy, and how this subject-specificity of teaching is juxtaposed against the more generic aspects of teaching. The chapter explores the idea that if a teacher’s expertise can be situated within a field, then they can also be positioned out-of-field. Implications for teaching out-of-field are discussed in terms of the subject-specific knowledge, processes and skills, and the difficulties associated with teacher practice. English and Australian illustrations of teacher practices from in-field and out-of-field situations are provided, in particular highlighting the demands of moving across subject boundaries. Cross-fertilisation is especially evident when subjects are integrated, therefore, the issues associated with integrated curriculum are discussed where the traditional subject boundaries are being challenged as schools are reorganised to integrate subjects through, for example, STEM teaching, or holistic curriculum designs

Attracting the best and brightest to teaching

Creating increasing demand for teacher education from high achieving students is an important step in improving outcomes in our schools, as Lawrence Ingvarson explains

School improvement and a strong professional learning community

School leaders and teachers are improving the quality of teaching and student outcomes by strengthening their school as a professional learning community. Lawrence Ingvarson explains how

Teaching talent : the best teachers for Australia\u27s classrooms

Australian business leaders want to see reforms to school education that improve learning outcomes and opportunities for all students. If we are to continue to compete effectively in the global market, the quality of our education system needs be among the best in the world. Research has shown that improving the quality of teaching is the most effective way to achieve better educational outcomes for individual students. Excellent teaching is the key to increased student engagement and higher levels of achievement, regardless of student background