Professional Engagement

 7. Teachers reflect on, evaluate and improve their professional knowledge and practice

 Within the context of professional studies, graduating teachers will:

7.3  engage in discussion of contemporary issues and research

As a teacher and activist, this year I engaged in contemporary issues and discussion in relation to education, particularly the school funding debate. One session I participated in was a discussion of the Gonski review titled The fifth Estate

As a teacher interested in equity and the issue of low educational outcomes for indigenous students, this year I researched and wrote the following paper: What are the barriers to effective learning for indigenous students?

As an educator interested in other pedagogies apart from western ways of learning and teaching, this year I researched: The eight-way Framework of Aboriginal Pedagogy based on indigenous ways of knowing and being

As a bilingual Australian and language advocate whose key interest is bilingual education, I researched bilingual education with focus on the German-English program at Bayswater South Primary School:

Bayswater South Primary School Research Paper

Bayswater South Primary School Presentation

I also attended a lecture by Evelyn Douglas at the Deutsche Schule Melbourne who wrote her masters thesis on the development of the bilingual school: A Community-Led Bilingual School in Action: The Deutsche Schule Melbourne

8. Teachers are active members of their profession

 Within the context of professional studies, graduating teachers will:

 8.1 be aware of the ways teachers typically engage with their profession, and demonstrate a capacity to do so themselves

As Dewey highlights ‘education is a mode of action’; teachers typically engage in active research to improve their praxis’. This year I engaged in much active research in order to improve my praxis as well as the praxis of the language teachers at my practicum school.

I developed the following questionnaire during my practicum the results of which inform the language teachers of the new students’ prior learning: Questionnaire A: New Student Prior Language Learning questionnaire

 I developed the following questionnaire as part of my Applied Curriculum Project (ACP) in my practicum school. The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out what prior language exposure the students bring to their learning and how that affects their target language acquisition. A second purpose was to determine which strategies used by the language teachers are effective in helping the new language students catch up in their learning. Results from the questionnaire informed my ACP which is available in hard copy.

Questionnaire B: New Student Prior Language Exposure and TL learning Strategies

 A further questionnaire I developed this year the results of which informed my integrated unit of work is: student learning questionnaire. Through the process of action inquiry, I planned a highly appropriate and learner friendly unit of work using the literacies with which my students engage. This included  digital, interactive computer programs.