The Australian Professional Teaching Standards require pre-service teachers to complete a minimum number of days of professional experience in order to graduate. Problems can arise, however, when the evaluation of their professional experience against the Standards shifts from the providers of teacher education programmes to school-based…

The capacity for schools to improve student learning represents an important area of scholarship for policymakers, schools, and scholars. In understanding how to support student learning, the notion of school leadership has emerged as a key area of research interest. Understanding the influence of this literature in schools is important. As such,…

A constant dilemma for teacher education in Australia and overseas is the difficulty of finding sufficient numbers of placements for preservice teachers to complete the professional experience/student teaching component of their course. Statements related to quantity of placements gain both public and professional attention while less attention is…

Professional development for teachers will continue to be central to the continuing need to help schools deal more effectively with the problems of change. Three themes are emphasized--the individual teacher, the school, and the system. This publication, consisting of 24 papers, is intended to inform public debate on the issue which is critical to…

This paper reports a qualitative case study of four preservice student teachers' professional learning experiences in an international field experience programme situated in the language and cultural immersion component of a PGDE (Primary) Programme in Hong Kong. Two of the student teachers undertook the international field experience in Australia…

Reforms to Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector over the past few years have brought about significant changes to the work of VET staff and the focus of their roles. This publication summarizes recent research into the changing roles of VET leaders, managers, teaching and support staff, and the way they work. The role of…

Consultations with and written submissions from practitioners and administrators provided the basis for this overview of adult basic education in Victoria, Australia. Based on the findings, recommendations were formulated to allocate new funds to improve programing. The recommendations center on these issues: (1) the need for greater understanding…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and describe the features of a new e-learning quality framework developed for a large multi-campus university. The framework is explicitly designed to improve the quality of e-learning sites and the quality of online student learning, by developing the skills of the academics who design the sites.…

In Australia, concerns about the quality of mathematics education that students experience are particularly salient in rural schools. These schools typically report great difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified teachers of mathematics. Teachers in non-metropolitan locations may also experience professional isolation if they have limited…

This research paper is about the role of the principal in enabling teacher leadership for pedagogical innovations and school improvement studied in two Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools (IDEAS) schools in Singapore and Australia over a 3-year period from 2005 to 2007. The research reported is based on the developing…

Professional learning communities among teachers and schools have been envisioned as a mechanism for development, knowledge building and implementation. However the formation of an effective learning community is more complex than giving teachers a project and asking them to share a room. This paper reports a synergistic interaction between a…

This paper takes a large-scale social perspective in describing a national project in Australia that was premised on local school communities working together and contributing ideas for the benefit of their students, and potentially, the whole country. The project was intended to improve schools' capacity for educating boys, and in the long-term,…