Who says we are not attracting the best and brightest? Teacher selection and the aspirations of Australian school students

Internationally, the quality of teachers is a growing focus of educational reform, with new policies attempting to ensure that only the ‘best and brightest’ are selected for the teaching profession. This article tests the assumption underpinning these developments that prospective teachers lack the desired academic and personal qualities. Drawing on data on the career aspirations of 6492 Australian school students in Years 3–12, we investigated who, among these students, expressed interest in teaching and their reasons for doing so. Using logistic regression, we found that interest in teaching was widespread and prior academic achievement was not a significant predictor. Thematic analysis of reasons expressed for interest in teaching indicated that working with children and/or in specific subject areas, altruism, and perceptions of personal suitability for the job dominated student responses. These data provide a counter-narrative to the primacy, in policies for teacher recruitment and selection, of needing to attract ‘better’ students. We argue that policies for improving teacher quality should also capitalise on the widespread interest in teaching among school students. Without such a discursive broadening, we caution that current attempts to attract the ‘best and brightest’ risk undermining the very goals espoused.     

Contemporary Art and the Role of Interpretation: Reflections from Tate Modern's Summer Institute for Teachers

Recent research indicates that the taught curriculum in art and design secondary school education pays scant attention to meaning‐making in visual art. This article explores possibilities for teaching interpretation through a report on an action‐research project based on Tate Modern's Summer Institute for Teachers. In doing so it argues for the value and necessity of interpretation as a taught skill.     

Degree apprenticeships,the ‘joy of learning’ excellence framework,and the common good

Degree Apprenticeships are fairly recent in the landscape of UK Higher Education. As is often the case with initiatives that try to build bridges between the world of work and the world of university education, there is suspicion that in such relationships higher education becomes servant to the needs of business and industry. Alternatively, Degree Apprenticeships perhaps offer a way for Higher Education to add value to the students’ working life. In our paper we try to argue for ways in which the value of the University-side of the provision within Degree Apprenticeships might reflect something of the value of the common good, and of the value of the joy of learning. Leaning on the venerable history of the triangle in the Western philosophical canon, and in Plato in particular, we demonstrate ways in which Degree Apprenticeships and Plato’s famous example of education as the journey to and from the cave can be brought together. In passing, we are claiming that Higher Education in all its forms would do well not to lose sight of its responsibilities to education as a servant of the common good, and above all, to the joy of learning.     

Developing a measure to understand young children’s Internet cognition and cyber-safety awareness: a pilot test

Abstract

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children’s access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children’s understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being ‘online’. Without an understanding of children’s thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and pedagogically appropriate cyber-safety education. This study developed and pilot-tested an interview schedule that focuses on the Internet thinking and cyber-safety awareness of Australian children aged 4–5 years. The schedule is informed by sociocultural theory, cyber-safety education research and approaches for researching with young children. The schedule shows potential to elicit children’s understandings of the Internet and cyber-safety awareness. Adjustments are required to allow more contextualised responses from children.     

An Innovative Higher Education Course to Meet Industry's Needs

This paper describes the development and implementation of a multilevel undergraduate degree course in technology management designed to meet identified needs of manufacturing industry. The program has a number of innovative features, including flexible entry and exit points and three levels of award, and is delivered in the workplace with the aid of a computer managed learning system and self paced learning materials supported by electronic mail and workplace tutorials. A feature crucial to its success is extensive collaboration with industry, a partnership with a technical and further education college, and cooperation between applied science and business faculties. An evaluative account of the implementation of the program in two motor vehicle manufacturing plants during 1990, and a discussion of the implications of the findings of the evaluation are also included.     

Young children learning about well-being and environmental education in the early years: a funds of knowledge approach

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children’s interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor and highly packaged food in the early childhood setting. This paper reports preliminary findings from a pilot randomised trial examining the interconnectedness of sustainability, well-being and popular-culture in early childhood education. Planning, assessment documentation and summaries from twenty-four learning experiences implemented by six educators over a six-week period were analysed using a deductive approach. Twenty well-being and environmental education topics were identified and shown to be generated by the educators when considering the children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ on popular-culture inspired food products. We argue that topics derived from children’s engagement with popular-culture may help educators to create an integrated approach to curriculum provision. This may impact child weight and facilitate obesity prevention and environmental sustainability as children create stronger connections between these content areas and their everyday choices and practices.     

Development of adolescents' self-perceptions, values, and task perceptions according to gender and domain in 7th- through 11th-grade Australian students

Latent growth models estimated developmental trajectories for adolescents' math and English self-perceptions (perceived talent, success expectancies), values (intrinsic, utility) and task perceptions (task difficulty, effort required). A longitudinal cohort-sequential study included 1,323 participants spanning Grades 7 to 11, with Occasion 1 mean ages 13.19, 12.36, and 14.41, respectively, for Cohorts 1, 2, and 3. Self-perceptions and values declined through adolescence, and ratings about difficulty and effort required increased. Gender differences favored boys for math and girls for English, with little evidence for gender intensification or gender convergence hypotheses. Explanations reference socialization and social-cognitive developmental theories and features of the curricula, with domain-specific patterns implying domain-specific explanations. Existing research is extended by modeling a broadened set of social-cognitive constructs within the Australian context.     

Gaining a better understanding of your teaching through self-study

As the director of a small preschool, Mary struggled to come up with a meaningful form of staff development for her teachers. She encouraged her staff to enroll in local workshops, and together they attended weekend-long state and national early-childhood conferences. The staff always returned from these sessions a closer knit group, and the conferences often stimulated them with new ideas that they wished to incorporate into their teaching. Too often, though, by Monday, the demands of the real world of their classrooms had overwhelmed them, and the excitement and energy that had filled them on the weekend had faded away.Dwight Rogers is Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Joy Mermin is a teacher at the Family Preschool, 632 Laurel Hill Road, Chapel Hill, NC. Mary Jenne is a teacher and Director of the Family Preschool, Chapel Hill, NC.