EDF4015

The Professional Teacher

6 points - Clayton Campus.

Objectives Upon successful completion of this subject, students should
* be familiar with the expectations of the profession of teaching
* be able to identify activities, roles and competencies that are appropriate for use by a professional teacher
* be able to construct a teaching portfolio to document their professional abilities and philosophy of teaching
* be able to use a wide variety of tools for documenting their practice for inclusion in a professional teaching portfolio
* be familiar with the roles and responsibilities that exist within schools
* be able to articulate their ideas about teaching in a variety of forums, eg employment interviews, parent/teacher interviews
* be able to document the integration of what they know about teaching and learning with their practice of teaching
* reflect on their own experiences with the teaching profession and use this to inform their future professional decisions

Synopsis This subject provides an introduction to the life of the professional teacher. It is important to focus on the term professional here as the subject will help students identify what is professional practice in terms of teaching. The issues of the professional teacher is an important one in terms of the current accountability procedures in place in all teaching institutions, where teachers are required to document their professional practice to other professionals and members of the school and local community. Current standards and competencies required of teachers will be addressed as well as methods currently employed to document teachers work.

Assessment As much of this subject is about developing a professional persona it would be inappropriate to grade students at any level other than pass only. The subject requires to students to undertake a great deal of reflection on their own abilities and conceptualising themselves in a professional setting. It would be providing an inappropriate learning environment for students to institute a grading system greater than pass grade only under these circumstances.
Assessment strategies to be employed are:
The development of a professional teaching portfolio. This relates to all of the objectives (1-8) outlined above and will be used as a means for tying together all of the ideas presented in this subject. (50%)
A presentation in tutorial time aimed at developing a key idea that they have been presented with. While again this relates to most of the objectives listed above, it specifically highlights objectives 2,4,6,7 & 8. (20%)
Construction of portfolio items using a variety of tools as presented throughout the subject. (Objectives 3,4 & 7).(10%)
Participation in the subject at a level of 80%. This becomes particularly important in terms of objectives 1,2,5,6,7 & 8. (20%)

Recommended texts
Below is a list of required reading. There are number of additional books and reading available in both the LMR and HSS Libraries on the Clayton campus that can be easily accessed.

Australian Teaching Council (1996). National Competency Framework for Beginning Teaching, National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning, Australian Government Printing Service.
Loughran, J.J. & Corrigan, D.J. (1996) Teaching Portfolios: a strategy for developing learning and teaching in preservice education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(6).
Shulman, J. (1992) Case Methods in Teacher Education, New York, Teachers College Press.
Victoria (1996) Guidelines For Portfolio Development For Teacher Education Undergraduates, Standards Council of the Teaching Profession.
Wolf, K. (1994) Teaching Portfolios: capturing the complexity of teaching, in Ingvarson, L. and Chadbourne, R. (eds) Valuing Teachers' Work, ACER.

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