Teachers matter: models for effective teaching in low SES schools (original) (raw)

Teachers Matter: Models for Effective Teaching in Low SES Schools (Literature Review))

This literature review synthesises recent research surrounding the recruitment, development, support, retention/ sustainability of high-quality teachers in low socio-economic (SES) schools. It contributes to the scoping project that is a partnership between Social Ventures Australia (SVA) and Australian Council for Deans in Education (ACDE), funded through the Office for Teaching and Learning (OLT) (see http://socialventures.com.au/work/growing-great-teachers/). This literature review analyses existing research and other documents and reports derived from practice and policy. It builds on the work of the SVA’s Growing Great Teachers report and 11 case studies (December 2013) with recent research. The aim is not to establish agreement on empirical truths or identify state-of-the-art forms of measurement. Instead, the landscape of the debates and tensions surrounding socio-economic status and schooling, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Early Career Teaching (ECT) are mapped. This literature review establishes that further work on the recruitment, development, support and retention/ sustainability of teachers in low SES schools is worth undertaking, and recommends gaps in the research literature to be investigated.

Impact of support for preservice teachers placed in disadvantaged schools

Issues in Educational Research, 2019

One of the greatest challenges facing Australian school education is the disparity in quality of education across schools. One aspect of addressing this issue has been greater regulation and requirements to improve the quality of initial teacher education. Course accreditation standards in teacher education programs require secondary preservice teachers to have studied undergraduate units relevant to their specialist teaching area. Many of these secondary preservice teachers will have a professional practice experience in a disadvantaged school. However, issues around managing student behaviour and overcoming students' poor literacy skills can leave these preservice teachers floundering and unwilling to seek employment in these schools after graduation. In an effort to increase the number of teacher graduates choosing to seek employment in disadvantaged schools, this research examined the impact of a one-on-one subject specialist mentor and targeted workshop program for 54 prese...

Australian Journal of Teacher Education Forward to Special Issue: Teacher Education for High Poverty Schools

The six papers in this special issue are all related, in one way or another, to the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools program (NETDS). NETDS began in 2009 at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, and with the support of philanthropy expanded to another six universities nationally. Although the papers in this issue are all related to NETDS, they are not necessarily about NETDS; rather, they reflect the range of scholarship taking place within this emerging network and provide a window on how teacher education for high poverty schools within mainstream Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs can be done differently. Together, the papers draw on the scholarship of researchers who were already respected experts in the field of teacher education and high poverty schools prior to involving themselves in the program. The first five papers are written by scholars from the seven Australian universities who now deliver NETDS programs. The remaining paper is by researchers who are part of the extended international NETDS network, in this case, from Spain. Collectively, these papers represent a broad coalition of scholars with whom we collaborate and who are engaged with the NETDS program at both theoretical and practical levels. Importantly, all contributing authors share the common goal of shifting how teachers work with students who have been historically marginalised and disadvantaged.

The Western Sydney Rustbelt: Recognizing and Building on Strengths in Pre-service Teacher Education

Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 2017

Preparing pre-service teachers to address the disparities in educational attainment that occur in settings with complex demographics such as high poverty and super diversity (Vertovec, 2007) require a theoretically driven contextual and spacial (Soja, 1996) understanding of disadvantage. This understanding highlights the structural and systemic inequalities that exist between the rich and the poor and limit social and economic mobility for disadvantaged students in schools. This paper uses a conceptual and spacial understanding to focus on the strategies implemented by a primary and secondary pre-service teacher program to support and improve pre-service teacher learning of disadvantaged schools. We detail approaches to learning that support pre-service teachers in attempting to consider how their own ethnicity and culture shapes practice and may disrupt the effects of poverty on educational outcomes to make a difference in the lives of their students.

Developing Strategies at the Pre-service Level to Address Critical Teacher Attraction and Retention Issues in Australian Rural, Regional and Remote Schools

2010

This ALTC project is a collaborative endeavour between the four public universities involved in teacher education in Western Australia (Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University and The University of Western Australia), focussed on improving the quality of preparation of pre-service teachers for rural, regional and remote appointments. The project will create a nexus between the theory and practice of teaching and learning by developing models of pre-service teacher rural, regional and remote practicums. The project builds on the work of other recent Australian rural education research projects (conducted through TERRA Nova and the Renewing Rural and Regional Teacher Education ALTC Curriculum Project. Existing rural health collaborative models will be drawn upon to inform the developing project. The project bring s together rural community and professional partnerships (including SPERA and SiMMER) that will help to sustain rural communities through the provision ...

School Leaders’ Perspectives on Educating Teachers to Work in Vulnerable Communities: New Insights from the Coal Face

2017

Classroom teacher quality can significantly impact student learning outcomes. Increased access to skilled teachers in low socioeconomic status (SES) schools could substantially improve the learning outcomes and engagement levels of young people. The National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS) programme is a university based Teacher Education programme that has been implemented by Deakin University in the Geelong/Werribee area. It seeks to prepare high achieving pre-service teachers (PSTs) to teach in low SES school settings. This project investigated the views of school leadership teams in low SES schools including their views of an exemplary teacher, and the understandings and skills deemed necessary for pre-service teachers undertaking placements in low SES schools. These findings will be used to develop and enhance the NETDS programme at Deakin University, build new models of collaborative professional learning and guide schools in mentoring new graduates for ...

Hard-to-staff Australian schools: How can we ensure that all students have access to quality teachers?

2017

How can we ensure that all children have access to an effective teacher, regardless of their sector, home location, and educational trajectory? This chapter will make the case for attracting and retaining effective teachers, outline the challenges facing Australia to do so, and consider some potential policy responses. While overall education outcomes in Australia are relatively high (OECD, 2013), we face an ongoing issue in raising the outcomes of particular groups of students. Those from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those in rural and remote schools achieve at lower levels than their more privileged urban counterparts, both in terms of academic achievement (ACARA, 2014) and other outcomes such as years of education completed (Lamb et al., 2004). These poorer outcomes have long-term effects on students' life trajectories and incomes, and on Australia's economic and