Category Archives: Uncategorized

If you haven’t read the last article in this series, it might help set the context as I’ll be referring to a few of the authors and ideas presented in that post; however, if you would prefer to start here, the post can stand on its own as well.  In the first post, I referencedContinue reading “Teaching Strategies Part 3: The case for and against evidence”

The answer to this question is not straightforward, unless of course you are a teacher or are working towards being a teacher, in which case, of course, for you, teaching is a profession.  The current state of play is that teaching is now a profession, but it hasn’t always been considered as such. Teaching isContinue reading “Is Teaching a Profession?”

The next post in the Becoming a Teacher series is about what I consider to be one of the most important aspects of becoming a teacher and should be a sustained thread throughout a teacher training program – no matter if that program is two years or five years: building your teacher identity.  There areContinue reading “Becoming a Teacher: Teacher Identity”

This will be a series of posts on teaching strategies and the importance of the recognition that the process of teaching, learning, assessment, feedback and appraisal is cyclical and that a one-size-fits-all model does not take into account the intricacies of most classroom environments. These posts are a long time in the making and followContinue reading “Teaching Strategies Part 2: What teachers know, but researchers fail to acknowledge”

For those who follow the blog, you may have noticed that my posts have become less frequent. They started out at one per week, which was just a little too ambitious and then settled at one per fortnight. That is, until October when I went silent. Well, that silence was due to a new additionContinue reading “School Choice”

When many people think of teaching, they may think of long summer holidays/vacations and short 6-hour workdays, but this is far from reality.  When a parent thinks of their child’s teacher, they likely think about the 9 am-3 pm aspect of the day that that primary teacher spends in the classroom with the students ‘teaching’Continue reading “Becoming a teacher: The work of a teacher”

For the second instalment of the becoming a teacher series, I want to explore what a teacher is and what a teacher is not. I’ve long thought about the work of teachers and what we actually do and have come to the realisation that the title ‘teacher’ is a misnomer and gives the wrong impressionContinue reading “Becoming a teacher: What is a teacher?”

I have previously referred to the NSW curriculum reform that is currently being undertaken and have also written about the frivolity of reform movements. I also wrote previously about the new mathematics curriculum and the new history curriculum, so, why another post on reform? The NSW curriculum reform will be a recurring theme in thisContinue reading “NSW Curriculum Reform – Is it really necessary?”

As we move toward the end of the year, the current cohort of year 12 students will start to study, stress and fret about the upcoming final examinations in each state and territory (HSC, QCE, VCE, WACE, SACE and NTCET) – and the determinant ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank). I have a long-held belief thatContinue reading “The ‘value’ of the Higher School Certificate”

This post will be part of an on-going series in the processes involved in becoming a teacher. As a teacher educator over the past 12 or so years, this series will be a sequence of observations and evidence-based practices regarding the process of becoming a teacher and some of the key learnings in that process.Continue reading “Becoming a teacher: A process of unlearning”