We've had an open dialogue in Queensland with our University partners and our schooling sectors.
Six years ago there was a task force formed, looking at the issues of initial teacher
education and teacher quality. There seemed to be a need between the partnering, from
when pre-service teachers undertake their preparation, through to the commitment of
our schooling partners as well, through to their induction.
The Queensland Catholic Education Commission, the Queensland College of Teachers,
Independent School Queensland, Education Queensland, were all involved.
What had happened in the past after review there was a lot of blame,
pointing the finger, misperceptions about what each of our roles were.
That task force designed a series of recommendations, which were formed
into the Fresh Start strategy that Queensland has been implementing at last couple of years.
We wanted to get a better
synergy between what is taught in the theory component at the university or higher education
institution, and what actually happens in schools. So how do we actually take that theory,
how do we actually choose some of those recommendations that we can, across those six years
and say, "Well, let's make some winners with some of those"?
The Queensland Higher Education Partnership Agreement was a collaborative
and negotiated initiative that drew together stakeholders
from Queensland, employers, teachers employers, representatives from the higher education
sector and of course the state Government through the Queensland College of Teachers.
As a result, those partnership agreements have now been signed and been enacted in all
higher education institutions and employing sectors in Queensland.
The key component of it was the Common Professional Experience Reporting Framework.
The Professional Experience Reporting Framework was developed because of the difficulties across the sectors
for supervising teachers and for universities in providing consistency of judgment.
Each institution had its own criteria for professional experience,
and that provided a problem for the supervising teachers.
I think it was really important that when we talk about the professional
experience, that there was some clarity of who owned what in the process. It seemed to
be that different institutions would implement the professional experience in the schools in different ways.
We drew together representatives of each of the stakeholders, came up with
a final prac report, ran that by experienced mentor teachers for their input and guidance,
and as a result those prac reports are now available for all institutions to use.
The Agreement provides a single mechanism of reporting which will allow benchmarking across all
schools in terms of providing a quality assessment of a pre-service teacher's practicum.
It also raised the awareness that the Australian Professional Standards are developmental.
Expectations might be such that supervising teachers are looking for somebody who is ready to teach,
rather than someone who is part way through a teacher education program.
I think we've made some really good headway and agreement that the supervising teacher is a key person
in all of that, and that person needs training. You can be a good teacher but not necessarily
translate that into being a good supervisor. Also they may have a first year, a second
year and a third year experience in a school, but those three experiences need to be different.
This Framework and the supporting documents will help teachers make that distinction between
how the standards play out at the different career phases.
The key characteristics of an effective partnership would be that, number one, you have to have mutually
beneficial aims and outcomes. We need to acknowledge the roles and responsibilities and the constraints
and challenges of each others' work.
What the QCT is working on at the moment is a guide
for supervising teachers assessing professional experience, like a companion document; the
planning discussions that the supervising teacher would have with the pre-service teacher,
what to look for in classroom observations, what sort of information should be involved
in the discussion and feedback process. It is always
looking at the development and growth of the pre-service teacher.
So it is really an example of effective collaboration in order to achieve a shared goal of quality.
Student learning is always key to any reform we choose
to tackle, improving the preparation of pre-service teachers. It is always the hope to improve
student outcomes and that seems to be driven through all of the initiatives and conversations
we currently have with our stakeholders.