We need to re-think teacher training. - Bad Apple Bullies
A teacher's story: Victoria
West Australian teacher: We need to re-think teacher training. Historical link preserved from the original page.
I am a current class room teacher, past consultant and Head of Learning and Acting Deputy in the WA public education system
I am perplexed by Australian teacher training centres and Universities. Historical link preserved from the original page.
Many University Departments have removed the solid preparation courses of the past and the in-school-mentoring programmes or (even more of a noticeable trend) handed it to educators who have taken refuge from classrooms in these tertiary centres and have not held roles in schools for many years.
Many of these University 'educators' are ignorant of what is actually happening today in schools and have failed to build thriving and important relationships with the very schools in which they send their students for pracs and ultimately, a future career.
When are these key teacher training organisations, along with Ministers and politicians, going to realise that they must have currency in teacher training education that is valid aand coupled with real modelled approaches to learning that are realistic and reflect the current environment and clientale of schools today.
The approaches they employ must teach the best learning and classroom management skills, so our young teachers are prepared for the classroom.
Tertiary teacher training orgs seem to be following the fast money with the proliferation of online training units and modules, or offering often poorly taught face-to-face lectures that showcase ignorance or model often outmoded approaches to learning.
We need to recognise that schools themselves are the training sites for new teachers.
Schools need to define the environment and day to day schedules that best suit its community, teachers and the future teachers, or Tertiary teacher training orgs risk becoming the "Kodak company" of Education, one that is left behind while the rest of the world changes.
If the trend continues of the provision of poor Tertiary teacher training and professional development, public schools and compulsory education will risk finding itself no longer a viable option for educating our children,
JH, Reader's Comment, Hey politicians, leave those teachers alone, Jane Caro, The Drum, ABC News, 11 March 2013: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4565396.html Historical link preserved from the original page.
Couldn't agree more.
Tertiary educational institutions need to take a hard look at what they have been doing in preparing teachers.
4 year uni courses have too much theory that applied to an old education system and a 20th century society, student and classroom.
Four years at university should be cut to 3 years, with a full year in a school with an experienced teacher/mentor being far more worthwhile.
(Prac weeks are too short and it’s difficult to find teachers in schools to be mentors/supervising teachers and it costs a lot of money to organise).
There was some mention in Govt policy about ‘good’ teachers being paid more, so why not tie that to them being those who will mentor a graduating teacher for a year?
The 4th year student teacher can assist in the classroom, teach a lesson or 2 in the first semester with an increasing teaching workload in semester 2 with feedback along the way and a professional development program for the year.
This could be organised within the cluster of schools /district with experienced teachers presenting and facilitating workshops.
BNR, Reader's Comment, Hey politicians, leave those teachers alone, Jane Caro, The Drum, ABC News, 11 March 2013: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4565396.html Historical link preserved from the original page.
'Whole Language' is an example of poor quality teacher-training.
Kevin Donnelly writes in The Australian: Historical link preserved from the original page.
The University of Wollongong's Brian Cambourne is regarded as one of the prime movers in Australia's adoption of the whole language approach.
This is an approach where children are taught to look and guess instead of being taught the relationship between letters and groups of letters and sounds.
Cambourne argues that learning to read is as natural and easy as learning to talk on the basis that "oral and written forms of language are only superficially different".
Reading, so the argument goes, does not have to be taught in a highly structured, systematic way as it occurs naturally as "the brain can also learn to process oral and written forms of language in much the same way".
Whole language involves immersing children in a so-called rich language environment where they are taught to guess unknown words by their context or by looking at related pictures and illustrations.
Wrong.
The reality is that reading, similar to learning how to write, is decidedly unnatural.
As noted by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, oral speech is "spontaneous, involuntary and nonconscious" while activities like reading and writing are "abstract, voluntary, and conscious".
The 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy concludes that successful reading programs involve "an early and systematic emphasis on the explicit teaching of phonics" and a "focus on direct teaching".
The 2005 inquiry found that the prevailing approach to pedagogy in teacher training is based on constructivism even though there is "a serious lack of supporting evidence for its effectiveness".
Whole language advocates like Cambourne are also wrong to argue that beginning teachers are taught a phonics and phonemic awareness approach during teacher training.
A 2007 study by academics at NSW's Avondale College summarising national and international research analysing pre-service and in-service approaches to reading also concludes there is a definite lack of balance.
The researchers note there is a "mismatch between, on the one hand, what converging evidence-based research supports as effective early reading instruction and, on the other hand, the knowledge and skills which new teachers bring to the task of teaching beginning reading".
Most teachers lack the knowledge and skills to implement a phonics approach.
The Editor: When Whole Language was introduced to NSW schools in about 1986, many experienced teachers did not think it was an effective strategy.
They were in-serviced for hours and told that they were 'finding it hard to adapt to change'.
I used phonics (SRA readers) in my NSW primary class and, unbeknown to me, my class was compared with a class where TWO teachers had worked on a Whole Language approach.
The children in my class did much better.
In 1987 I went to a language teachers' conference in Darwin.
We compared Grade 5 writing at one school in 1882 with Grade 5 writng in 1987, after the introduction of 'whole language' to the school.
It was immediately obvious to everybody that the 1987 writing wa sof a much lower standard and that Whole Language was failing.
We were asked to keep the information "in-house" because it was not 'politically correct' to criticise Whole Language.
It is an absolute disgrace that this ineffective Whole Language strategy is still lingering on in Australian schools in 2013. Historical link preserved from the original page.
It is an example of how harmful some Australian teacher-training has been. Historical link preserved from the original page.
Teaching needs to be based on evidence, not on warm fuzzy 'beliefs'.
And Australian classroom teachers need to be respected, their professional opinions about teaching strategies need to be heard. Historical link preserved from the original page.
It is much too easy for the 'education experts' to dismiss classroom teachers who question ineffective teaching strategies as 'troublemakers' who are 'finding it had to adapt to change'.
Phonics proven path to literacy, Kevin Donnelly, The Australian, 3 October 2013: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/phonics-proven-path-to-literacy/story-e6frgd0x-1226731823107 Historical link preserved from the original page.