Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Influencing the Curriculum

This paper describes a two‐part investigation into how teachers perceive the curriculum. In the primary stage, teachers were asked to assess how much freedom they felt they should have to determine the content of what they taught in their own classrooms, and how much freedom they fell they actually had, in this respect. A sample of 196 teachers, from varied schools and teaching backgrounds, took part. It was found that there was a very definite tendency to take a ‘middle way’ between total freedom and total constraint, in both cases. By and large, these teachers seemed to feel that they should have some freedom to determine what they taught in their own classrooms, but that there should be restraints as well. The general lack of discrepancy between what the teachers wanted, and what they felt they had, seemed to indicate that the great majority of the teachers were happy with the situation as they perceived it.

The same sample of 196 teachers was then asked to assess thirty varied potential influences, in terms of their power to shape the content of what they themselves taught in their own classroom. These potential influences included LEA advisers, parents, school governors, national educational associations etc. A factor analysis of the ratings made by the respondents showed that they regarded EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL influences as the most important of all. This category included such influences as local colleges, and universities, national reports (such as the Warnock Report), professional journals and articles, local teachers’ centres, LEA advisory personnel, H.M. Inspectorate, etc. Four other types of influence were seen as important, but the EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL category was seen as the most important by far. It was concluded that teachers’ perceptions of the influences which they felt shaped their curricula were positive and optimistic.     

Learning How to Make Inquiry into Electricity and Magnetism Discernible to Middle Level Teachers

As university professors we sought to disrupt the practice of giving our students the actions we felt they should imitate in their teaching practice. Instead, we sought to actively engage teachers in the creation of workable solutions to real-life problems. We accomplished this by conducting a participatory action research project. This paper illustrates our action research project focused on preparing middle level science teachers to foster inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. The findings of this study not only lead to a revised professional development opportunity for science teachers, but also provided an example of university faculty engaging in pragmatic research focused on addressing contemporary issues in K-12 science education. The work reported within was partially supported by a National Science Foundation Grant. The opinions, views and conclusions expressed in this paper may not reflect those of the funding agency.     

University‐community engagement: exploring service‐learning options within the practicum

Since 1999, pre‐service teachers undertaking the Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary) Program at the University of Western Sydney have participated in an alternate practicum called Professional Experience 3 (PE3). This practicum encourages students to engage in broader educational settings within local communities. Increasingly, a number of service‐learning opportunities have been developed, most notably, senior student tutoring programs and the involvement of students in the Plan‐It Youth project in conjunction with the Department of Education and Training (DET) and the South‐western Sydney Institute of TAFE. A focus of these programs has been to address the issues related to students at risk of leaving school early within the local South‐western Sydney community.

In this paper we discuss the benefits of these programs to the university, pre‐service‐teachers, school students and school communities, and the broader local community. Specifically, we examine service learning as a conduit for the development and maintenance of meaningful symbiotic relationships between the university and the educational community, and pre‐service teachers and the local community. Finally, we look towards the future and highlight the challenges and opportunities for service‐learning programs within the practicum.     

School libraries fostering children's literacy and literature learning: mitigating the barriers

While qualified school librarians can have a positive influence on children's literacy attainment, very little consideration is given to the educative role of librarians in schools. Lack of attention on these librarians' educative capacity may be due to a devaluing of the educational contribution of school librarians, and it can be argued that school libraries are poorly valued in current times, as evidenced in cuts to budgets and staffing. While school librarians may foster literacy and literature learning through a range of strategies, and for diverse purposes, perhaps their most expected contribution relates to the fostering of literacy and literature learning through wide reading and reading engagement in students. However, little is known about the specific barriers that librarians in schools may encounter in achieving these goals in the current school environment. Research from teacher librarians at 30 Australian schools is drawn upon to explore barriers to children's literacy and literature learning in school libraries. Recurring barriers were limited time and competing demands, crowded curriculum, low teacher valuing, low student engagement, skills and motivation, issues with parental support, limited space and constrained budget. These findings provide a valuable foundation for future inquiry in this under‐researched space.     

The conundrum of low achievement and feedback for learning

Abstract

The literature on improving student engagement with assessment and feedback has a tendency to treat all students as if they are the same. Students with lower levels of attainment are generally under-represented within empirical studies and their feedback behaviours are less well understood. The recent drive to improve student assessment and feedback literacy and the move from ‘feedback’ being information about a task to being a process of understanding and using performance information is a larger conceptual leap for some students than others. In this paper, we consider issues surrounding the transition to new modes of feedback, focussing on what is needed for those who find study difficult and persistently are disappointed by their levels of attainment, to benefit from and take advantage of our feedback pedagogies. We examine literature advocating strategies such as increasing agency, using praise, developing feedback literacy and cultivating a growth mind-set. We argue that students who underachieve may benefit from strong relationships with educators and peers, exposure to feedback rich, low stakes environments, which permit repeated integrations of practice and feedback, and building feedback literacy through peer assessment activities.