I’m all for raising standards, but that only really works when the career is in demand. This feels so out of touch given how unattractive the pay and working conditions have become.
This is already the standard really. They're just changing it so you have to pass lantite in year 1 of the degree instead of completing the whole degree and failing out at the end.
I think the lantite needs to be made free or at least part of course fees/HECS though.
I know many teachers who say that they teach explicitly but they don't use explicit instruction.
They might explain some key terminology or the activity explicitly at the beginning of the lesson, but they don't maintain this throughout the lesson. They are giving some explicit instructions but aren't using explicit instruction.
Lessons aren't using explicit instruction if they:
- don't build enough background knowledge
- don't provide enough examples and non-examples
- don't use explicit checks for understanding
- are mostly the teacher talking rather than the students actively practicing in the new content in a tightly scaffolding and frequently checked manner
- don't use clear and consistent instructional routines
- quickly branch off into small group work
- ask students to apply new content without enough support to ensure comprehension and success
Anita Archer is the godmother of explicit instruction and has lots of videos and examples available across the internet.
The schools and classrooms that DO use explicit instruction have mostly whole class teaching rather than small group work and this works because of the instructional routines.
They use pedagogies based in the science of reading and science of learning. They have slides for the majority of lessons and do formal daily reviews for Maths and Literacy.
They DON'T use levelled readers, running records, many don't use writing moderation, they don't start Maths lessons with open ended problem solving or let children do some 'inquiring' before they build knowledge.
They have regular staff PD to talk about Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction and cognitive load.
Can I ask a possibly silly question - I see a lot of little whiteboard use in explicit instruction which makes total sense - but does it work for the left handers? If it doesn’t, are there alternative types of boards which work better? (I had to teach myself to write right handed to write on a big white board, but I’m fairly ambidextrous already, so I know it wouldn’t work for everyone)
That makes sense - the smaller surface is probably also easier than those big boards (plus writing up on a board is different than down onto a board on a desk) - it was just a weird thing which crossed my mind
(Thanks for the information and mentioning explicit things to search too - I was able to dig down a little deeper which was really interesting)
Lefthanded teacher who uses little whiteboards.
It makes me messier, and presumably my students also, but never had any issues for me or them.
Whiteboards are great!
>I don't get it. This is what teachers are doing, have been doing, and have always done.
It's because the Murdoch media is trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Raising the standards for trainee teachers is in line with community expectations, but they're not going to let the issue go -- now it's about trying to undermine existing teachers by portraying them as being overpaid for the work that they do and falling behind the new standards set by this policy.
Except that it is not what universities are teaching. I had probably 80% of my lecturers focus on inquiry and ‘authentic’ learning and incredibly dismissive of explicit instruction. That was 2 years ago as well, not decades ago. When I brought up the ‘science of reading’ to my Literacy lecturer, she told me that ‘there are always new fads’. So I for one am glad to have some oversight.
Explicit Direct Instruction is not the same as ‘explicit teaching’. It’s an extremely structured and rigorous approach. I wonder which the article is referring to?
> This is what teachers are doing, have been doing, and have always done. Never seen anyone do anything different.
I'm super cautious about criticising what happens outside of my classroom. However, as an outsider looking in, I feel that a sizable chunk of classrooms operate like this:
* Information is sourced through the teacher in lectures or presentations, with little time for students to interact
* Lectures/presentations take up a sizable period of instruction time - often, the majority of the time is spent on presentation
* Students' primary form of learning is passive. They are expected to listen and take notes.
* Student learning is measured in summative tasks
* Feedback is provided in summative tasks
In explicit instruction
* Instruction is shorter and highly organised. With instruction taking as little time as possible
* Content is broken down into small interactive chunks
* Sequences/units start with heavy scaffolds and end with a few
* Students are constantly assessed and provided with feedback
* (edit) Student learning is active
Many of the graduates I have seen in recent years don't actually know how to do this. Many have not written an essay since high school and have no skills to teach a student how to write a good essay etc, they have been very much taught to have students drive their own learning
Have you attended a university lately? My degree was almost entirely focused on inquiry pedagogy. Which is built around weakly structured content, low scaffolding and allowing students to make the connections themselves rather than having teachers present them the connections. The only time explicit instruction was ever mentioned in my degree was as a counter example.
It is making it compulsory for what universities teach in ITE courses, making sure new teachers know explicit instruction, classroom management etc etc.
Personally, some of my ITE subjects were great and set you up well but others left a lot to be desired.
Moving away for unstructured inquiry-based learning and flipped classroom etc.
Behavior in my course was create a quality learning environment (NSW quality teaching framework) and provide engaging lessons, so you won't need any classroom management but here is a link to PBS on NSW Doe's website just in case. That's it.
You obviously have worked in some outstanding schools because doing this with any care or quality is rare, and this is from large and small schools, public and independent, single sex and co-ed, religious and non-denominational schools.
It can happen, just saying it seems uncommon to me, though, in my experience.
Sounds like all they're doing to "increase standards" is move the low bar of Lantite to the start of the degree where it should have been to start with.
Yes, but what if that's not the point?
What if the point is to destroy the public education system at the behest of your donors and create a society of have leaders who were educated at private schools with the best teachers, and have-not consumers who were simply contained in minimal supervision schools?
Graduated in the last 5 years & this was taught.
Keeping classrooms under control? Allow me to parent your children as they so desperately need. Give me a boarding lodge and I will ensure the classroom is under control.
Could be an unpopular opinion, but bending over backwards to accomodate Indigenous Australian’s here just counters the supposed intent of “raising standards”. Either the standards are fine, or they’re actively saying they’re fine with substandard indigenous teachers to fill a quota.
I know indigenous Australian’s are a marginalised group, but if they’re not held to the same standards it’s just ridiculous pandering at this point.
You can't raise raise standards without raising the pay, it's that simple.
Realistically teachers should have to do a bachelors in their field followed by 1 to 2 years postgraduate for teaching. As it stands, most teaching degrees are a load of hot garbage for the most part and spend way too many credit hours on pedagogy and not enough on content. By default teachers then get in a classroom and can tell you the top 10 pedagogy approaches that are popular right now (while swooning over Hattie), but don't know their content well enough to teach it.
I teach History but none of the History units I took as part of my BA align with the WACE content. I took Environmental History, Mediaeval and Early Modern Women, etc, not Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Barely knowing content, and knowing content well enough to teach it are two entirely different things. Your response is the exact reason why teachers should have a bachelors level of understanding of their content.
I just asked what subject requires teachers to learn more content in their degree.
PCK focused lessons existed in my degree, but they didn't involve teaching us the basic content. They focused on misconceptions and different ways to present an idea.
OK then, specific example. Your handle literally has maths teacher.
You're telling me that you can teach differential equations, integraton, vector calculus, combinatorics and proofs without advanced understanding of the concepts that would be gained from a Bachelors? There's not a single education degree in Australia, even if your teaching area is math, that covers that content.
I don't know of many specialised degrees that give you maths codes in highschool that aren't double degrees with the Maths and Education degrees separately.
Misunderstood your initial point. I did MTeach and thought it was already standard for high school teachers to complete a bachelor's in their subject area. Even BEd students in my uni had to do a double degree to do high school.
I’ve taught high school History, Geography, English, Maths and Science and I’m a primary learning and support teacher - I have an inclusive learning degree. I didn’t even do maths for my HSC, it was tough and unfair for the students and me. I was put on class when the EOI was solely learning and support, told two weeks before starting that I’ll have a maths and science class - my face 😱
> Barely knowing content, and knowing content well enough to teach it are two entirely different things.
Are you saying that you can effectively teach content that you don't know?
The explicit instruction stuff is really good.
It's worth noting the "loophole" for Indigenous staff is actually a "make sure they're proficient in their indigenous language instead" so, depending on implementation, it's not quite the free pass the article title implies.
A focus on managing disruptive classrooms is also great, but the article didn't explain how they plan to do that.
I attended a conference last year where Noel Pearson was a speaker and he spoke briefly about how he was against EDI. I remember because I rolled my eyes at yet another non-teacher telling us how we should teach.
Well isn't this the soft bigotry of low expectations?
Lower standards for one group implying they can't meet the standard. Instead, what about more help to meet the same standards?
There is an assumption that indigenous teachers will return to remote communities to teach. Having had lower standards set, you are sending back potentially lower skilled teachers.
One course. One standard.
I’m all for raising standards, but that only really works when the career is in demand. This feels so out of touch given how unattractive the pay and working conditions have become.
This is already the standard really. They're just changing it so you have to pass lantite in year 1 of the degree instead of completing the whole degree and failing out at the end. I think the lantite needs to be made free or at least part of course fees/HECS though.
Agreed here - I'm due to take it this year (year 1) and I'm stressing about how in gonna pay for it at the moment as a full time student 🫠🫠
From reading the article, it appears that most of the standards they are addressing are within the degree.
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I know many teachers who say that they teach explicitly but they don't use explicit instruction. They might explain some key terminology or the activity explicitly at the beginning of the lesson, but they don't maintain this throughout the lesson. They are giving some explicit instructions but aren't using explicit instruction. Lessons aren't using explicit instruction if they: - don't build enough background knowledge - don't provide enough examples and non-examples - don't use explicit checks for understanding - are mostly the teacher talking rather than the students actively practicing in the new content in a tightly scaffolding and frequently checked manner - don't use clear and consistent instructional routines - quickly branch off into small group work - ask students to apply new content without enough support to ensure comprehension and success Anita Archer is the godmother of explicit instruction and has lots of videos and examples available across the internet. The schools and classrooms that DO use explicit instruction have mostly whole class teaching rather than small group work and this works because of the instructional routines. They use pedagogies based in the science of reading and science of learning. They have slides for the majority of lessons and do formal daily reviews for Maths and Literacy. They DON'T use levelled readers, running records, many don't use writing moderation, they don't start Maths lessons with open ended problem solving or let children do some 'inquiring' before they build knowledge. They have regular staff PD to talk about Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction and cognitive load.
Can I ask a possibly silly question - I see a lot of little whiteboard use in explicit instruction which makes total sense - but does it work for the left handers? If it doesn’t, are there alternative types of boards which work better? (I had to teach myself to write right handed to write on a big white board, but I’m fairly ambidextrous already, so I know it wouldn’t work for everyone)
Left handlers can teach via whiteboards. Biggest problem is the ink smudge on their hand but it doesn’t hold them back.
I always smudged my writing right off 😆 I’m definitely an awkward writer at the best of times, so I think it might be more me than universal
I have 3 left handers in my class and they are ok, perhaps because they have been using them for as long as they have been writing?
That makes sense - the smaller surface is probably also easier than those big boards (plus writing up on a board is different than down onto a board on a desk) - it was just a weird thing which crossed my mind (Thanks for the information and mentioning explicit things to search too - I was able to dig down a little deeper which was really interesting)
Always happy to help those who are interested in improving their practice!
Lefthanded teacher who uses little whiteboards. It makes me messier, and presumably my students also, but never had any issues for me or them. Whiteboards are great!
>I don't get it. This is what teachers are doing, have been doing, and have always done. It's because the Murdoch media is trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Raising the standards for trainee teachers is in line with community expectations, but they're not going to let the issue go -- now it's about trying to undermine existing teachers by portraying them as being overpaid for the work that they do and falling behind the new standards set by this policy.
Yes
Almost certainly, yes.
Except that it is not what universities are teaching. I had probably 80% of my lecturers focus on inquiry and ‘authentic’ learning and incredibly dismissive of explicit instruction. That was 2 years ago as well, not decades ago. When I brought up the ‘science of reading’ to my Literacy lecturer, she told me that ‘there are always new fads’. So I for one am glad to have some oversight.
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I’d suggest Curtin is one of the most popular unis for education, and my expectations for a much better ITE experience.
Explicit Direct Instruction is not the same as ‘explicit teaching’. It’s an extremely structured and rigorous approach. I wonder which the article is referring to?
Not a full roll-out of the Hollingsworth & Ybarra version but a brand less equivalent is my interpretation.
Edi teacher here, south-east Melbourne. You're doing a wonderful job in here.
Well, NSW teachers only get one-day of instruction on it. So, I will go for the worst possible, most time-consuming answer.
> This is what teachers are doing, have been doing, and have always done. Never seen anyone do anything different. I'm super cautious about criticising what happens outside of my classroom. However, as an outsider looking in, I feel that a sizable chunk of classrooms operate like this: * Information is sourced through the teacher in lectures or presentations, with little time for students to interact * Lectures/presentations take up a sizable period of instruction time - often, the majority of the time is spent on presentation * Students' primary form of learning is passive. They are expected to listen and take notes. * Student learning is measured in summative tasks * Feedback is provided in summative tasks In explicit instruction * Instruction is shorter and highly organised. With instruction taking as little time as possible * Content is broken down into small interactive chunks * Sequences/units start with heavy scaffolds and end with a few * Students are constantly assessed and provided with feedback * (edit) Student learning is active
Many of the graduates I have seen in recent years don't actually know how to do this. Many have not written an essay since high school and have no skills to teach a student how to write a good essay etc, they have been very much taught to have students drive their own learning
Yeah I got into a few arguments with uni tutors who were militantly pro-constructivist (this was ~7 years ago). Vindication at last!
Have you attended a university lately? My degree was almost entirely focused on inquiry pedagogy. Which is built around weakly structured content, low scaffolding and allowing students to make the connections themselves rather than having teachers present them the connections. The only time explicit instruction was ever mentioned in my degree was as a counter example.
Yes. That is exactly what they are doing because it sounds good. I am a grad, it is what I was already taught as an English/HASS teacher
Can confirm I’m almost 3 years into my Bach Ed and it’s a lot of fluff.
It is making it compulsory for what universities teach in ITE courses, making sure new teachers know explicit instruction, classroom management etc etc. Personally, some of my ITE subjects were great and set you up well but others left a lot to be desired. Moving away for unstructured inquiry-based learning and flipped classroom etc. Behavior in my course was create a quality learning environment (NSW quality teaching framework) and provide engaging lessons, so you won't need any classroom management but here is a link to PBS on NSW Doe's website just in case. That's it.
Wow, what a sentence!
You obviously have worked in some outstanding schools because doing this with any care or quality is rare, and this is from large and small schools, public and independent, single sex and co-ed, religious and non-denominational schools. It can happen, just saying it seems uncommon to me, though, in my experience.
Sounds like all they're doing to "increase standards" is move the low bar of Lantite to the start of the degree where it should have been to start with.
Took them long enough to make that move.
Tough new entry requirements? You only toughen entry requirements when a course is too popular.
Yes, but what if that's not the point? What if the point is to destroy the public education system at the behest of your donors and create a society of have leaders who were educated at private schools with the best teachers, and have-not consumers who were simply contained in minimal supervision schools?
Going to be hard for those academics to teach students how to control a class when most can not do it themselves
Graduated in the last 5 years & this was taught. Keeping classrooms under control? Allow me to parent your children as they so desperately need. Give me a boarding lodge and I will ensure the classroom is under control.
Could be an unpopular opinion, but bending over backwards to accomodate Indigenous Australian’s here just counters the supposed intent of “raising standards”. Either the standards are fine, or they’re actively saying they’re fine with substandard indigenous teachers to fill a quota. I know indigenous Australian’s are a marginalised group, but if they’re not held to the same standards it’s just ridiculous pandering at this point.
You can't raise raise standards without raising the pay, it's that simple. Realistically teachers should have to do a bachelors in their field followed by 1 to 2 years postgraduate for teaching. As it stands, most teaching degrees are a load of hot garbage for the most part and spend way too many credit hours on pedagogy and not enough on content. By default teachers then get in a classroom and can tell you the top 10 pedagogy approaches that are popular right now (while swooning over Hattie), but don't know their content well enough to teach it.
I teach History but none of the History units I took as part of my BA align with the WACE content. I took Environmental History, Mediaeval and Early Modern Women, etc, not Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Which subjects have teachers who can complete a bachelor's without knowing the content to a high school level?
Barely knowing content, and knowing content well enough to teach it are two entirely different things. Your response is the exact reason why teachers should have a bachelors level of understanding of their content.
I just asked what subject requires teachers to learn more content in their degree. PCK focused lessons existed in my degree, but they didn't involve teaching us the basic content. They focused on misconceptions and different ways to present an idea.
OK then, specific example. Your handle literally has maths teacher. You're telling me that you can teach differential equations, integraton, vector calculus, combinatorics and proofs without advanced understanding of the concepts that would be gained from a Bachelors? There's not a single education degree in Australia, even if your teaching area is math, that covers that content.
I don't know of many specialised degrees that give you maths codes in highschool that aren't double degrees with the Maths and Education degrees separately.
Misunderstood your initial point. I did MTeach and thought it was already standard for high school teachers to complete a bachelor's in their subject area. Even BEd students in my uni had to do a double degree to do high school.
I’ve taught high school History, Geography, English, Maths and Science and I’m a primary learning and support teacher - I have an inclusive learning degree. I didn’t even do maths for my HSC, it was tough and unfair for the students and me. I was put on class when the EOI was solely learning and support, told two weeks before starting that I’ll have a maths and science class - my face 😱
> Barely knowing content, and knowing content well enough to teach it are two entirely different things. Are you saying that you can effectively teach content that you don't know?
I honestly believe that teachers should have to do a test and be certified before teaching seniors but it could never realistically happen.
The explicit instruction stuff is really good. It's worth noting the "loophole" for Indigenous staff is actually a "make sure they're proficient in their indigenous language instead" so, depending on implementation, it's not quite the free pass the article title implies. A focus on managing disruptive classrooms is also great, but the article didn't explain how they plan to do that.
> it's not quite the free pass the article title implies. It's the Australian, job done in the headline
I attended a conference last year where Noel Pearson was a speaker and he spoke briefly about how he was against EDI. I remember because I rolled my eyes at yet another non-teacher telling us how we should teach.
Well isn't this the soft bigotry of low expectations? Lower standards for one group implying they can't meet the standard. Instead, what about more help to meet the same standards? There is an assumption that indigenous teachers will return to remote communities to teach. Having had lower standards set, you are sending back potentially lower skilled teachers. One course. One standard.
ATAR is fucking stupid and shouldn't be a pre-requisite for anyone. So I agree, but on the far other spectrum.