Murdoch University

Related consultation
Teacher Education Expert Panel Discussion Paper Submissions

Murdoch University 

Related consultation – Teacher Education Expert Panel Consultation

Submitter information

Name Murdoch University

Reform area 1: Strengthening initial teacher education programs to deliver confident, effective, classroom ready graduates.

Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities strengthen ITE to deliver confident, effective, classroom ready graduates?

Little

Reform area 2: Strengthening the link between performance and funding of initial teacher education.

Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities provide a strengthened focus on improving the performance of ITE programs?

Not at all

Reform area 3: Improving the quality of practical experience in teaching.

Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities improve the quality of practical experience?

Little

Reform area 4: Improving postgraduate initial teacher education for mid-career entrants.

Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities improve postgraduate programs to attract mid-career entrants?

Not at all

Feedback

  • The workforce, teacher shortage, quality of graduates, retention issues raised are pertinent. However, it is worth noting, there may not be a shortage of trained teachers, but the number of trained teachers not willing to teach is problematic.

  • There is no explicit evidence presented to confirm the status of existing ITE course delivery. Therefore, the proposed interventions are based on assumptions of deficiency in ITE delivery.

  • The proposed core content is limited and should address differentiation, neurodiversity, social context including remote/regional/metropolitan, cultural diversity, continuity between ITE and the teacher career phases as they relate to quality of work life, efficacy, impact, retention, and attrition.

  • The proposal would be strengthened by consideration of play-based learning, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, and experiential learning.

  • The whole child should be considered, including affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains.

  • With respect to ITE provider performance the most significant and informative data are the Western Australian DoE:

  • Principal Perceptions of First Year Graduates Survey Report

  • First Year Graduates Survey Report.

I recommend that the above two measures be used as a template for all States and for the proposed national ITE benchmarking.

Second, the mandatory ‘Unit Student Satisfaction Survey’ undertaken by universities would also serve as a valuable measure. These data can be presented as discrete unit satisfaction scores or can be aggregated for a course. The response rates support relatively valid measures.

Student attrition and retention are not strong measures of ITE provider support. A suitable proxy is embedded within the above mentioned ‘Unit Student Satisfaction Survey’.

Finally, the use of ‘QILT’ or ‘Graduate Outcome Surveys’ is not a robust measure. The data points are often from a small sample, and in my experience, are skewed.

  • Unfortunately, no described strategy will quickly resolve the issues identified. Moreover, no strategy is likely to immediate arrest the extant workforce trends. That is, the issues of concern are likely to further deteriorate before improving.

  • Teacher respect afforded by stakeholders (e.g., administrators and parents/children), arguably the most significant issue, is not addressed by the identified proposal and mitigation strategies.