Despite all the talk about improving the quality of teachers and teaching in Australia, the general downward slide of entry standards to undergraduate teacher training courses continues.
While the top performing education nations such as Finland and South Korea draw their teachers from the the top quartile of school leavers (75th percentile or higher), some Australian universities have set their ATAR entry score for this year at 45 or even lower.
Teacher education is typically the largest undergraduate professional program in most universities and is a significant source of income. Unfortunately, to fill the desired number of places, some universities resort to setting minimum entry scores that are far too low in order to meet student and financial targets. Additionally, when universities experience an overall shortfall in student applications, this “load” is often shifted to teacher education, further driving down entry scores.
This has a number of consequences. Students with higher scores who might otherwise be attracted to teaching feel they are “wasting” their marks if they take on teaching and are in kind deterred. More broadly, lower entry scores reinforce the perceived low status of teachers and teaching.
Meanwhile, those accepted with low scores will find completing their course challenging and teaching itself difficult. If they do manage to complete their course, they may well end up teaching students who are potential “90+” ATAR candidates, something which presents challenges for both teacher and student.
It needs to be recognised that, contrary to popular thinking, entry scores to undergraduate teacher training courses vary widely. While some universities go as low as the 40s, other require ATAR scores of more than 90. This discrepancy is widening, particularly with the entry of some TAFE colleges to teacher education, and cannot be allowed to continue if we are serious about improving the quality of teaching and learning in Australian schools.
It also needs to be recognised that the quality of teacher education courses is also variable. National accreditation of teacher education courses which is currently being introduced needs to address the issue of course quality and in particular the effectiveness of graduating teachers and their impact on student learning.
If we are to continue to offer teaching as an undergraduate qualification – and I don’t think we should for reasons outlined below – we must set minimum acceptable standards for entry and as a general rule draw our candidates from the top quartile.
Many will cite equity issues in that high school students from certain backgrounds and geographic locations experience disadvantage which is reflected in their final ATAR scores. We do need to recognise this and to attract a broadly representative teaching service, but accepting candidates with very low secondary school marks is not the way to do this, particularly if it sets them up for failure.
We need other measures of suitability to teaching to augment ATAR scores.
But I do believe that the days of taking people straight from school, training them as teachers and then sending them back to school, often in the same geographical area from which they have come, is no longer appropriate. Graduate entry teaching degrees are attracting candidates with high undergraduate academic performance who are older, more experienced and have made a mature decision to become a teacher.
It is time the issue of the standard of entrants to teaching was addressed. In fact, it’s overdue. If entry scores to undergraduate programs are allowed to continue to decline there will be a heavy price. All the effort around improving the quality of teachers, the quality of teaching and student achievement in this country will be undermined. The quality of teaching needs to be addressed at each point of leverage but the quality of those entering the profession is a crucial issue.
David Hardie
logged in via Facebook
Well done.
Good to finally see someone commenting on the decline of entry standards into teacher courses from the point of view that they actually care about the quality of teachers and teaching.
Colin MacGillivray
Retired architect
Interesting.
"those accepted with low scores will find completing their course challenging and teaching itself difficult. If they do manage to complete their course, they may well end up teaching students who are potential “90+” ATAR candidates," This made me wonder if teachers need to be further defined beyond kindergarten, primary, secondary, tertiary types
Unpopular, I guess, to stratify teachers by their capabilities on qualifying but it would avoid the problem stated if 90+ teachers taught 90+ students.
Thaiis Thei
logged in via Twitter
This problem could be solved by having no such thing as entrance scores. Allow anyone who matriculates to enrol in whatever course they like. Mark first year work to a high standard (unlike the hodge podge of farce that it is now). If they pass they continue. No course ends up with low entry mark stigma. This system was run successfully in NZ for many years.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
This approach has some attraction but would be enormously costly to implement. It is hard enough to staff university courses as it is.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
I agree with this. The situation in Australia is insane. Any one university might offer 50 different degrees, each with its own individual ATAR cut-off, which is determined by how many spots the university decides to allocate to each of those 50 degrees. I don't have the data, but the impressions I have gained are firmed up by Stephen's article. It seems that the universities have a financial incentive to offer huge numbers of spots to Education degrees, possibly more than any other degree, including…
Read moreGavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
While the piece's text about the funding of teacher education programs is accurate, the sub editor's 'cash cow' heading is highly misleading.
Teacher education programs are rather expensive because each student must spend a minimum number of days gaining practical experience in schools, and school systems charge very high rates, transferring some of schools' costs to the Australian Government via universities.
So while a university may increase enrolments in its teacher education programs to fill its enrolment targets, I would be very surprised if any university transferred funding from education to, say, research in engineering or science. That kind of 'cash cow' transfer of funds is much more likely to happen to the funds generated from international students enrolments in business.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
A few clarifications. In Australian universities undergraduate coursework students heavily cross-subsidise higher research degree students and research more generally, and as I noted, teacher education is the largest undergraduate professional program in most universities and thus an important source of income. It is also relatively cheaper to train a teacher than a scientist, nurse, dentist or doctor, despite the costs associated with placements.
At previous universities where I have worked…
Read moreKim Darcy
Analyst
Now, I have done a fair bit of googling, I get the picture. I'm going to ignore the international students fees for now. Universities receive funding for each domestic student from basically 2 sources: the student's HECs contribution, which is determined according to which of 5 bands, the student's degree is classified. The second source is direct Commonwealth contribution, based on the same Band structure, but with different amounts to the HECs. The Commonwealth's contribution is funded through…
Read moreGavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
I'd be very surprised if any university reallocated funds generated by education to another school or purpose, altho as Professor Dinham observes, it is routine to reallocate resources within schools. Thus, funds generated by subjects with big enrolments are used to support subjects with small enrolments, and funds generated by teaching are routinely used to support academics' scholarship and research.
But most of those reallocations are with each school.
A big teacher education program might be able to reallocate $1,000 or possibly even $2,000 per equivalent full time student to specialised subjects or research. But I would be surprised if it were able to reallocate $4,000 and would be astounded if it could reallocate $7,000 per student and maintain its staff and accreditation.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
The mechanism universities use to reallocate funds beyond schools is (partly) via central on-costs, rental on teaching spaces and buildings and overhead charges which can be substantial, thus faculties/schools which bring in large amounts of income via students are 'taxed' and this income is then used for various purposes across the university, including propping up other faculties and courses.
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
I suggest that the uncapped system is most disadvantageous to the newer universities, which are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their student intakes in the face of increased intakes by more preferred universities.
Entry scores are criticised by many people from a range of universities. One of the longest and most serious critics has been Professor Richard James from the University of Melbourne, and his most recent report was written for the Group of 8 elite universities.
See: Palmer, Nigel, Bexley, Emmaline and James, Richard (2012) Selection and participation in higher education: university selection in support of student success and diversity of participation, retrieved 22 January 2013 from
http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/people/james_docs/Selection_and_Participation_in_Higher_Education.pdf
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
It is true that most universities retain a high proportion of funds attributable to teaching for central allocation. I suggest that the extent to which this supports other programs, schools, faculties and activities varies very greatly by university.
Correctly or not, universities generally have rather high central and overhead costs. Some universities also have substantial central discretionary and research funds which are often used to reallocate funds to research and other preferred activities.
But I suggest that most of the reallocation is of international student fees (generated mostly by business schools) and consultancy revenue, and that there is little reallocation outside schools of funds generated by places supported by the Australian Government.
Jake Kirk
Student (Pharmacology major)
ATAR scores are there for a reason.
They are not set by the university, they are a function of supply and demand. If a university has 2000 applicants for a particular course but only 300 places, how do you decide who gets in? Usually, the process is to accept the applicant with the highest ATAR score for the #1 spot, the applicant with the 2nd highest score for the #2 spot, etc until all spots are filled.
SEAS (disadvantaging factors like illness or low SES status) are also taken into account…
Read moreStephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
It is actually possible for universities to set ATAR/GPA scores through choosing not to make offers to applicants below a certain level - we are in that process now of selection for our Master of Teaching through VTAC although we don't use ATARs as we are a graduate program - we use GPA and have determined to raise these. This method is fine as long as there are sufficient applicants above the desired level. The other way to manipulate entry scores is by deciding how many places to offer based on…
Read moreKim Darcy
Analyst
Indeed Stephen, who do nott ALL the kids who have accepted Dawkins University Education places enrol on Monash instead? Why has Monash insisted in a floor of around 80.0, while the likes of 'Victoria University' will take kids with 50.O?
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
I think the answer is in this thread. Most will not get into Monash, even if they wanted to go there, with scores below the threshold (in this case 80). Monash has not so much insisted on 80 as much as demand for places available has lead to a minimum of 80 being required to gain entry. But yes, having studied the history of conversation of preferences, to offers, to acceptance,s to enrolments, to numbers remaining at census, a university could decide not to offer candiates a place below a certain figure. All universities would like to have the highest ATAR possible for their courses, but if they want to fill all their planned CSP places, may have to go lower. If they get 'greedy' and increase the number of places, to fill these they will have to go lower.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Stephen, doesn't 'uncapped' mean that rather thaan stop offering spots at 80,0, that Monash can in fact lower its cutoff to whatever is necessary to entice most, if not all Victoria University's Education students? After all, the Commonwealth will pay for everyone of thoese extra students. Now, clearly they would have to have signal this on offer day, by publishing their Education cutoff as 60.0, maybe even 50.0 Surely, there would be a stampede away from Melbourne's less prestigious universities. If all you have is 62.5, and this year Monash is offering as low as 60.0, you'd take it. Theoretically, Monash (or Melbourne) could close down most of Victoria's universities if followed this strategy. After all, under the 'uncapped; regime, it doesn't appear to be a zero-sum game for the unis. If Monash offers an extra 200 Education places years with a cut-off of 60.0, it is not required to compensate someone else for that extra revenue, or is it?
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
Yes, in principle in the demand driven system a highly preferred university could wipe out its less preferred competitors by increasing its intakes by enough to enrol all the students who would otherwise enrol at the less preferred universities. However, that is not the way the higher education market works.
Consider an exclusive club. It, too, could wipe out its competitors by increasing its membership by so much that it accepts as members all the people who would otherwise join less preferred…
Read moreKim Darcy
Analyst
Yes, that's was I was thinking. I just wanted to see just how far the new demand-driven' system to take things. I've been reporting some reports from 2009-12 on trends in applications, offers, and acceptance for Australian undergrad degrees. Is it correct that the total number of applications made A = applications direct to the TACs + applications made directly to the universities *minus the small numbers who do both and/or apply to more than just their state's UAC)? And should A also = Total number of Year 12 applicants + non-Year applicants?
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
Yes, that's right if I understand you correctly.
It might also be relevant to know that of the students starting a bachelor degree, 45% were selected on the basis of their year 12 results, 23% on the basis of a complete or incomplete higher education program (typically, students transferring from arts to law), 9% on the basis of vocational education study, 6% on the basis of mature age and special entry provisions, and 14.4% on another basis.
The proportions differ markedly by university and program. For example, in general, the high status institutions and programs select around 80% of their students on the basis of year 12 results and < 3% on the basis of vocational studies; education, law and medicine admit almost no student on the basis of vocational studies.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
The usual situation is that universities get a 'quota' of CSP places and they decide how to allocate these. With uncapped CSP in theory a uni could offer as many places in a course as they wanted but there are constraints caused by suitable teaching staff, teaching spaces etc. and in the case of teaching, the ability to find suitable placement sites for practicum. In theory a uni could try to corner the market although why would you want to have such low standards is questionable. It will hurt the uni's reputation.. What has happened however is that some have doubled their numbers or more as discussed at a time of surpluses of teachers.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Yes, I recall something like that, though I've got application, offer, and acceptance data from 2009-12 swirling around my head, and preliminary data on 2013 applications, but not the full stoy on offers and acceptances yet. I could be wrong,not sure if my figures are for 2012, where the HSC-direct/ATAR group at 54%. But the interesting thing about the remaining 46%non-HSC was its breakdown:
Of that 46%, over 24% was applicants who already had some form of university education, all the way from…
Read moreGavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
The Queensland and South Australian tertiary admission centres convert all applicants to an Australian tertiary admission rank according to rules agreed by universities. So all applicants for admission to a program in those States has an Atar or an Atar equivalent.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Well Stephen, I have been following these developments over the past 2 years, and I think that at least 1/3 of Australia's universities should be defunded from tomorrow on. It is an abuse of taxpayers money to be funding untold thousands of such clearly academically incapable people to take degrees in Education, and whatever else they;re doing in those courses, which will take you with open arms, even if your ATAR is below 70, let alone 50. If it is the interests of the nation and those sub-70 individuals to learn some new skills, then I'm fine with that. But they ain't helping anybody by enrolling in a university.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Well Queenslan's Overall Position scale is simply a bellcurve, which is easily transformed from the 1-24 scale to the 30-99.95 of the ATAR. And, as far as I know SA does the same as NSW and Victoria. Rank each studnet according to the Aggregate of all his/her subjects, then condence that range again down to 30-99.95
Kim Darcy
Analyst
As an employer, we have fortunately built some good relationships with a few universities, but more importantly quite a few different departments within those universities. So we have a very good idea of the standards of the kids they enrol, but also the differences in both the skills and the pedagogical methods peculiar to each department, and each university. This helps a lot, as we can attach a LOT of explanatory power to an applicant's transcript, resume, and any referees.
We've made a decision…
Read moreMark Harrigan
Dr
All good points - but I think we will struggle to lift the status, and attractiveness, of teaching as a profession while it is modestly paid?
I would be interested to see any data on teacher starting salaries as a ratio to median or average graduate starting salaries in comparable countries and see if there was wany correlation with professional status and student outcomes?
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Teachers have one of the highest starting salaries of all professions.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by+Subject/4125.0~Jan+2012~Main+Features~starting+salaries~2320
Not bad for about 6-8 hours work a day, no shift work, no weekend work, and about 10 weeks holiday per year.
I have wondered why more men don’t go into teaching, as I am sure this would lift the standards?
I personally think there are now far too many feminists in the education system, and this turns men away from teaching.
Good for feminists, bad for the students.
Mark Harrigan
Dr
Interesting. Clearly starting salaries are competitive which is probably good One must also consider their salaries over time - which I suspect will make them fall behind.
Your feminist arguments are ideological projection without substance (but I know from your regular posts that you have a bee in your bonnet about that)
And if you think teacherss only work 6-8 hours and no weekends you have no idea what you are talking about.
The real data is here
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/557e80a2b6d29244ca2570ec001b193d!OpenDocument
"Average earnings of full-time teachers have remained above earnings for all occupations. However they have continued to fall below the average earnings of professional employees. Over the period 1987 to 1995, the earnings of teachers fell from 96% of the earnings of all professionals to 91%. "
It would be interesting to know if this has changed much since - but I doubt it.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
I can only dream of starting at 8 o’clock, finishing by 4, in the surf or going on a twilight sail by 5, and then there would be all the camping trips on the weekends, before a quick dash home to dig out last year’s class plan, to repeat it for this year.
And if I don’t like teaching something, such as maths or science (too male), then I call in a specialist teacher, while I sit at the back of the class, and wait for them to finish teaching.
.
If teachers are earning more than average earnings, but want to earn more than “professionals”, then they could work similar hours, and have comparable college entrance scores.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
Teacher starting salaries are comparable to other professions e.g., accountancy, pharmacy. The problem lies with the lockstep incremental salary structure which sees teachers' salaries peaking too soon and at too low a level. More than three quarters of Australia's teachers are at the top of such incremental salary scales which sees their salary peak usually in their early 30s at a time when salaries for the most able practitioners are increasing rapidly in other professions. The second part of this…
Read moreStephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
Please see my previous point about starting and finishing salaries the teachers. Another key issue is that there has been a decline in real terms of teacher salaries since the 1970s of 25% or more. Teaching used to be relatively well paid but these days most people need two incomes to raise a family, buy a house etc. In most Western nations there has been a steady decline of males going into teaching over the last 30 to 40 years. Teaching used to be an avenue for increased social mobility and increased…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
That is correct about teachers starting salary being high and then declining, but I don’t know too many professions that pay on years of service similar to teaching.
However, that is what the teacher’s union wants, and teacher's overall pay is likely to remain below average because of that.
Many professionals are now on contracts, and work to complete the contract. If that involves working 80 hours in a week, then that is what they do.
In regards to male teachers, there are almost no male…
Read moreSuzanne Donnelly
logged in via Facebook
I am a teacher and would love to work only 6-8 hours a day, have no weekend work and about 10 weeks holiday per year! That does sound amazing! However, that is not a true perspective of working in the education system. My day at work starts at 7:30am and I usually don't leave work until 5pm. Later if I have staff and/or parent meetings. When I do get home I have to create resources, answer emails, mark work etc. Sometimes I can be doing this to 2am! Especially if it is report writing time! All things…
Read moreterry lockwood
maths teacher
"If they do manage to complete their course, they may well end up teaching students who are potential “90+” ATAR candidates, something which presents challenges for both teacher and student."
It is worth noting that sometimes having struggled with a subject at secondary school yourself can make you better at teaching it to kids who also struggle. If you found trigonometry a breeze yourself, it can be hard to truly understand, perhaps even believe, how some kids 'just don't get it'. Empathy can go a long way.
There are plenty of brainiacs that make lousy teachers.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Terry, nobody doubts any of that. But how about the struggler waits until s/he has tried, tried again until s/he can provide the rest of the community s/he has improved enough to reach the standards we expect of our Maths teachers? If you are getting below an ATAR, then about 20% of your cohort performed better than you. Translated into a school room situation that would mean that an average school, about 20% of the all the students would be brighter than you, basically excluding you from ever being able to teach the top classes. And ATAR of 75.0 pts right in the middle of your cohort with 50% of students above, and 50% below.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
It is correct that not all people who have knowledge of an area can teach it, i.e., what we call pedagogic content of knowledge is also important. However after being involved in teacher education for over 20 years you need more than just empathy and enthusiasm to be a successful teacher. Intellectual capacity is also very important.
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
Evidence!
This piece offers no evidence that graduate entry teacher education programs produce better teachers than undergraduate entry programs. It doesn't even provide any evidence that teachers with high entry scores are better than teachers with modest entry scores.
Indeed, Hattie (2009) has shown that teacher education programs have trivial effects on their pupils' learning, increasing pupils' learning by 0.12 of a standard deviation, well below the 0.23 to 0.34 increase that pupils achieve just by getting older and being in school for an extra year.
Hattie, John (2009) Visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, Routledge, London and New York.
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
There is considerable evidence that some graduate programs are better than others. The problem is the quality varies widely. We have surveyed teachers in over 10 countries now and only around 41% say that their preservice training prepared them well or very well teaching. However the program I'm involved with at Melbourne which is a clinical model of teaching and teacher education is recording much higher efficacy ratings. See McLean Davies, L.; Anderson, M.; Deans, J.; Dinham, S.; Griffin, P.; Kameniar, B.; Page, J.; Reid, C.; Rickards, F.; Tayler, C. and Tyler, D. (2013). ‘Masterly Preparation: Clinical practice in a graduate pre-service teacher education program’, Journal of Education for Teaching, 39(1), pp. 93-106.
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
Teachers' reports and evaluations of their teacher education program are interesting, but say nothing about their pupils' learning.
McLean Davies et al (2013) mostly describes just one graduate entry teacher education program. The only evaluative data reported are internal student evaluations and the evaluation by the Australian Council for Educational Research, which relied heavily on student evaluations and peer and supervising teachers’ evaluations.
While these are something, they don’t demonstrate that pupils taught by graduates of this or any other graduate entry teacher education program learned more than pupils of other teacher education programs or even more than pupils of ‘unqualified’ teachers. Since the whole point of schools, teachers and teaching is to improve pupils’ learning this is a crucial piece of missing evidence.
Mark Harrigan
Dr
Gavin,
Thanks for reminding about Hattie - the data I have shows an effect size of 1.0 for teacher instructional quality (3rd on the list - and I understand it was a student assesment). I agree with your rating about teacher education levels
https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://growthmindseteaz.org/files/Visible_Learning_by_J_Hattie_draft_summary.doc&chrome=true
www.geoffpetty.com/downloads/WORD/GeoffonHattie.doc
I think what this means is that level of education of the teacher in the subject matter domain has little influence but the level of teacher quality in the pedagogy of the domain IS important?
So I suspect the real issue is the quality of the teaching programs themselves in terms of equipping teachers to teach well? And I am reminded that Hattie found that "informative" feedback (as opposed to evaluative feedback) that helped students with expectations and what they were doing well and needed to work on was the most vital factor?
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
To reinforce several points, the quality of entrants as measured by ATARs (school leavers entering undergraduate programs) and GPAs (graduates entering graduate programs) varies considerably and this gap is widening - it ranges from as low as 35 ATAR for special admission schemes to over 90 for the 'top' Australian faculties of education. We then have the situation of the quality and effectiveness of teacher education programs. Having taught in both undergraduate and graduate entry programs over…
Read moreGavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
Again, many statements of authority but no evidence is offered. For example, where is the evidence that teachers' entry scores affects their pupils' learning? Without such evidence the observation of (increased) dispersal of teachers' entry scores is irrelevant if not just status posturing.
Catherine Scott
Senior lecturer
Do you think that intellectual fire power matters for other professions? Is this a bit of covert sexism because things women do are 'low skill' don't require brains?
Good teaching is a highly intellectially demanding task. Figuring how best to teach this material to these kids in this context requires training, skill and experience.
I've watched the less academically qualified teacher trainees I have taught concentrate on 'looking like' a teacher. They don't comprehend the thought that goes into pedagogical decision making. They want the tricks, the tips, the recipe books.
The research by Linda Darling Hammond demonstrates that course studied does affect student outcomes.
Gavin Moodie
logged in via LinkedIn
I have an open mind on whether a person's IQ, entry score, grade point average or any other intellectual attainment affects their performance in an activity until someone produces some data.
So far no one has referred me to data demonstrating that a teacher's IQ, entry score, grade point average or any other intellectual attainment affects their pupils' learning. This seems very curious since teachers' entry scores and grade point averages are already available and their IQ would be readily…
Read moreKim Darcy
Analyst
Surely in this context, NAPLAN is a godsend, for the quality, sheer volume, and consistency of the data it can provide.
Laura Coulter
Practitioner
Once a week we tag along with our four-year old son to a early childhood gymnastics program which - in terms of content - is clearly based in an excellent understanding of early childhood development. During our regular weekly sessions, the coach we have is an employee of the club, clearly very-well trained, and has that elusive, difficult-to-define aptitude for relating to young children...and us as parents.
Last holidays we thought we would go to the holiday program as well. What a terrible…
Read moreStephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
Laura
We have one of the few pre-service masters degrees in Early Childhood in Australia. It has attracted a range of very qualified people, including some with PhDs, professional training in areas like pharmacy, etc. The Grade Point Average needed to enter the program ism actually higher than that for primary and secondary teaching at UoM. However, once again the issue of variability of entrants and courses occurs, with EC training varying from TAFE courses upwards. We now know that young people entering schooling vary considerably in their development (social, physical, literacy, numeracy) and that such differences can actually widen during primary schooling, hence the need for universal early childhood education staffed by highly trained and effective educators. This is actually one of the biggest equity issues in Australian education.
Laura Coulter
Practitioner
"This is actually one of the biggest equity issues in Australian education."
Couldn't agree more. Thanks Stephen
Andrew Smith
Education Consultant at Australian & International Education Centre
Not sure on the need for high ATAR scores, though English and maths/science would appear important, when so many qualitative factors affect teacher training/practice and learning. Rather than focus upon inputs and outputs to assess teaching quality, the process of development e.g. evaluation, observation, action research and training needs to constantly monitored i.e. teacher performance (not just paper based).
Further, unless students are a from a uniform catchment and/or uniform group, there cannot be a constant direct causal relationship between teacher "quality" and student achievement.
Rachel Wilson
Senior Lecturer - Research Methodology / Educational Assessment & Evaluation at University of Sydney
This is a great article - thank you. It is reassuring to see educaiton faculty staff standing up for the integrity of the teaching profession rather than pandering to university agendas.
I'm interested to know what you think of teacher assessment programs; like those running in the UK and USA. Both these coutnries have recently improved their performance on international assessments. Do you think their programs
http://www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/apply-for-teacher-training/skills-tests
and
http://www.ets.org/praxis
have had an impact?
With the wide variation in ATAR cutoffs and extremely varied practice as to wether those cutoffs are actually applied, is there a case for other education student assessment?
Stephen Dinham
Chair of Teacher Education and Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Melbourne
Rachel
As I noted in my article above, we need to augment ATARs/GPAs with other assessments/measures. To that end we have developed and piloted an instrument called Teacher Selector and will be using it from next year to assist in the selection of candidates for our Master of Teaching. It is based on known predictors of tertiary success, desirable attributes for teaching, 'big 5', and other measures. As to entry and exit tests of literacy/numeracy I'd prefer a more thorough process of teacher course accreditation and quality assurance along with impact measures on student learning once candidates graduate. We are working on these areas as well.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Rachel, not quite what you after, but ets publishes some fantastic data on GRE performance by intended graduate major field. Now, every single applicant to a graduate degree (whether Masters of Ph.D) must sit the same GRE General exam. {Except those applying to Law/Med School, who take the LSAT/MCAT. ets has produced a tabulation of 3 years of results for each of over 100 intended graduate school majors, ranging from Physics to Economics to Nursing to Social Work to Actuarial Studies, and so on…
Read moreKim Darcy
Analyst
Drat, posted too early. Note that very last is Phys. Education, with Early Childhood, Special, and Elementary all in the bottom out of 110. l
But these scores have been refined to take account of the different means and s.d that characterise the Verbal vs. Quant scores. So ETS has produced this really cool graphic, which not only shows relative ranking (/1600), but also the cognitive balance in each major by plotting verbal on the horizontal axis and Quant on the vertical. This, each major is…
Read moreRachel Wilson
Senior Lecturer - Research Methodology / Educational Assessment & Evaluation at University of Sydney
Dear Kim,
thanks for that - very interesting.
Do you know anything about the "Praxis" assessments that are being adopted in many states? Presumably they are part of the efforts to lift the standards in education students that ultimately produces this type of GRE performance.