School-based Learning for Individual Diversity in Education: The SLIDE Project
Whole-School Professional Development (PD) days held regularly in schools are designed to promote and up-skill school staff on relevant areas of educational policy and practice. An aim of PD days is to empower participants with new knowledges and skills, and to confirm that current practices and interpretations of education policy and procedure are correct. In determining the nature of the professional development content, school executives make decisions based on their perceived needs of the staffing group, available speakers, current departmental policy and practice requirements. Deciding the topics for the professional development day for school staff has tended to adopt a 'one size fits all' general approach that is rationalised as being broad in nature and of benefit to all. In adopting such an approach to a diverse teaching cohort, one may question just how valuable and meaningful this training day is in meeting the individual needs of all participating teachers. This paper reports on the benefits a more individualised approach to a whole-school PD training day had for one government primary school in Australia. Foundational to the detailed design of the PD days, the 'School-based Learning for Individual Diversity in Education' (SLIDE) project proceeded by identifying the individual needs of each staff member in the school community through an interview prior to the delivery of the two-day training. Embedded in an action research model, the SLIDE project reported evidence of improved teacher self-confidence, improved communication between all levels, and a boost to the level of whole-school staff cohesion and morale.
Inklusion in Deutschland und Australien
Der Inklusionsbegriff wird derzeit weltweit eingesetzt und in den unterschied-lichsten Facetten ausgestaltet. Eine Gruppe von Studentinnen der Sozialen Arbeit (B.A.) an der Fachhochschule Dortmund und ein australisches Team der University of New England, Armidale, Australien, haben in den Jahren 2012 und 2013 Schulen in Deutschland und Australien besucht und nach ihren Inklusionsmerk-malen untersucht. Ergebnisse dieser Studien flossen in Abschlussarbeiten ein und werden in diesem Buch in ihren zentralen Auszügen widergegeben.
"When the Wattle Comes Out, the Turtles are Ready": Success of the Enhanced Teacher Training Program
Teacher preparation and preparedness have been the focus of much research connecting quality teaching and learning, retention, and teacher satisfaction (Halsey, 2005; Hayes, Mills, Christie, & Lingard, 2006; MCEETYA, 2006). The successful recruitment and retention of teachers to rural and remote schools Australia-wide has been problematic for all states and territories (Vinson, 2002). Education departments have implemented a number of immersion programs with success (Halsey, 2005) in order to empower new teachers with the cultural and classroom awareness necessary for teaching in Indigenous communities. In 2006, the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education and Training (DET) implemented the Enhanced Teacher Training (ETT) scholarship program. This paper reflects on the experiences and retention of the first five teachers to graduate through the UNE ETT scholarship program, three years since successfully entering the teaching profession in indigenous communities in NSW.
The Reality of Beginning Teachers: Trials and Tribulations
New or beginning teachers are well received by the education profession, yet for a large portion of new teachers the assessment of how successful their transition into the first year of teaching has been tends to be overtly negative. Research reports that the often traumatic and difficult nature of new teachers' experiences is not a new phenomenon, and is a problem shared by many new teachers nationwide and in the western world. Consequently, the retention rate for new teachers is decreasing at an alarming rate and it is currently reported that 33% of beginning teachers in New South Wales (NSW) do not expect to be teaching in public schools within the next 10 years. While literature about how to teach is prolific, managing the real lift situation for many new teachers is often more daunting than first envisioned. This paper reports on the experiences of the University of New England (UNE) teacher education graduates in their first year of teaching based on their postings to an online support network launched by UNE in 2005, entitled the 'Professional Development Support (PDS)' project. Analysis of the postings revealed that these beginning teachers sought support from the network on a number of specific topics at different times of the school year. This paper presents the nature and patterns of their inquiries and puts forward recommendations for teacher education programs in response.
Successful inclusion of children with Asperger Syndrome in primary school: Parental voices
The quality of the overall primary school experience for students diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (AS) and other learning disabilities may be typically challenging and stressful on a number of fronts, particularly the successful negotiation of the social curriculum. The term 'inclusion' is defined as a process taking into consideration features such as welcoming diversity, promotion of teacher consistency and collaboration, and the provision of learning opportunities and experiences to match the needs of the child. This paper provides parents of children diagnosed with AS a voice to speak about their own experiences and perspectives of how inclusive the primary school system was in meeting their child's needs. Based on parental experiences working with their child and primary School staff, a number of strategies and recommendations are put forward to empower new parents of children diagnosed with AS and teachers on how to improve the quality of the child's primary school experiences. Through the use of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, 12 parents participated in the 'Looking back to work forward' research and their data analysed initially using the Leximancer Version 2.25 (2001) qualitative software. A thematic analysis was undertaken using Bruner's (1990) concept of generative themes that revealed key topics shared by the participants, including bullying, the importance of community and social supports, and parental involvement with schools. The paper puts forward strategies and recommendations to teachers, education staff and parents on how to improve the process of inclusion for students with AS, and for those students who exhibit similar difficulties at school.
Migrating to the Classroom: Online Support for the 2005 Beginning Teacher Alumni of UNE - Summary of Findings
The key purposes of the EdASP were to enhance the innovation in and/or the quality of higher education by establishing a support service model for beginning teachers aimed at improving teacher retention in their first five years of service. The Project used The University of England (UNE) web-based technologies, to deliver support for beginning teachers in 2005 by providing fora for sharing professionally-based and academically-based information and for social interaction. The professional significance of the project was twofold: (1) The neophyte professional has to be assisted to adjust to specific classroom situations as part of the life-long learning continuum. Broadly this has not been done well in teaching despite reports over the last 25 years calling for various forms of support to be provided. (2) Teacher supply is currently a problem as many, especially baby boomers, are leaving teaching and there is the perennial problem of hard-to-staff schools. Beginning teachers are seen as potentially vulnerable as they cross the line into their new professional world. They bring with them social, cultural and political capital to deal with this new world. Where these are ineffective then vulnerabilities will arise and such teachers, more particularly, will need support. The method was essentially a case study using UNE alumni of 2005 who were invited to take part in primary and secondary online environments divided into discussion fora perceived to be useful to them. Discussion fora were available from the first day of first term until the end of the year. Postings by mentors and beginning teachers formed the bulk of the data though a specially prepared evaluative questionnaire was sent to all 2005 alumni. Data were mainly analysed using nVIVO and thematic analysis.
Education Alumni Support Project (EdASP): Progress Report
The Education Alumni Support Project provides online support for UNE graduand beginning teachers. In late November 2004 we were invited to rework the HEIP project application to suit the changed timeframe. The original timeframe can be seen in Appendix 1. Our modified proposal met HEIP requirements. We are grateful to DEST colleagues, especially Mr Paul Pfluger, for swiftly assisting us in getting the formalities of the project cleared. UNE staff also assisted us greatly in the demanding process of establishing the web environment shells and the associated log on requirements for graduands. We quickly determined that the projected trials could not take place (and hence baseline data as originally planned could not be obtained). A key decision was that the project had to be ready for the first day of school in 2005. We successfully achieved that objective. Much of the preparatory work set out prior to Monday 17 January 2005 was concertinaed into the December/January period. In short, major milestones we have achieved to date are: 1. Re-worked the outcomes and budget consistent with the thrust of the project and timeframes allowed; 2. Mailed recent graduates (twice); 3. Created a WebCT environment for primary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 4. Created a WebCT environment for secondary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 5. Created related resource web pages; 6. Gained UNE Human Research Ethics approval; 7. Achieved participation by six additional academics covering different areas for online support (the research participants/facilitators); 8. Went ‘public’ on 17th January 2005, just before schools in NSW began; 9. Guided and facilitated online discussions responding to neophyte teachers’ needs at least weekly or more often if discussion activity demanded; 10. Developed a preliminary literature review to guide conceptualisation and action research of the project; and Education Alumni Support Project Progress Report 3 11. Conducted semi-regular EdASP team meetings to consider the direction and needs of the online discussion and collaborate on project development issues. The remainder of this progress report provides some detail, where appropriate, of the above outcomes together with an indication of early results.
Strategies for the Successful Inclusion of Students with Asperger Syndrome in Primary School
Today's classrooms contain exciting cultural, academic and behavioural dimensions that teachers need to fully understand and embrace in order to manage the successful learning of every student. In mainstream classrooms, students presenting with learning disabilities and learning difficulties require the teacher to carefully think through effective learning strategies to promote inclusive classroom practices. This article summarises a seminar delivered at the University of Hong Kong on the 8th February where a number of strategies to successfully include students with Asperger Syndrome (AS) in Primary School were discussed.
Supporting Primary and Secondary Beginning Teachers Online: Key findings of the Education Alumni Support Project
During 2005, the Education Alumni Support Project (EdASP) (Maxwell, Smith, Baxter, Boyd, Harrington, Jenkins, Sargeant & Tamatea 2006) provided online support for University of New England (UNE) graduand, and later, graduate, teachers as they commenced their careers. The project was based on research which reported that many beginning teachers did not get the support they needed as permanent or contract workers, or, as casual, relief or support teachers, and that small scale trials had shown that online support could be effective. One third of beginning teachers who were alumni of UNE in 2004, reported they did not receive adequate or any mentoring. UNE web-based technologies provided the teachers and mentors with online environments for professional and social interaction, and resource sharing. We found that support was especially sought by the project participants in their first school term, and there were differences in the levels of online support sought by secondary and primary beginning teachers. The project raises implications for on-going systemic support for beginning teachers, the issue of transition from students to teachers, as well as questions about teacher education students' preparation. This paper provides the key findings of the project. Detailed description of the project structure, data collection and data analysis are available in Maxwell et al. (2006).
Casual Beginning Teachers: Who Cares?
This paper reports findings of a study on recent UNE graduates from a range of Primary and Secondary initial teacher education programs who are employed as casual beginning teachers and, specifically, their lived experiences. There are some positives, for example, lifestyle flexibility but mostly it's about on-going struggle to maintain personal motivation and well being in the face of unpredictable and transient teaching assignments, low professional status and negligible professional development and support. Given the increasing casualisation of teaching, the proportion of early career teachers leaving the profession and the need for better classroom pedagogy, there are important messages here for both employers and university teacher educators.