Jennifer Allen and Megan Lugg

This paper is an extension of a project submission which, if successful, will enable a Faculty of Education to develop an innovative model for initial teacher education that engages lecturers and students in a collaborative, reflexive learning context. The model reflects a paradigmatic shift in current practices for teaching and learning, subject development and presentation, approaches to assessment, and Faculty culture. It is underpinned by the belief that successful learning involves interaction between lecturers and students, between students and the learning environment, among students themselves, among lecturers themselves, and between the educational context and the workplace. Each of these interactive encounters are embedded within the project model.

The project responds as a Faculty of Education to greater accountability; demands for increased flexibility; the problematic and dynamic workplace environment; and the contemporary dilemma of meeting the needs of increasing numbers of students with a decreasing number of staff. It extends a problem-based model of initial teacher education, incorporating a flexible mode of delivery within a reflexive framework—a framework which emphasises multiple solutions, privileges questions as well as answers, and is underpinned by a recognised need for more flexible and responsive strategies for teaching and learning. It strives to embrace the competencies and _values identified within the National Competency Framework for Beginning Teaching and empowers learners to make decisions about purposes, goals, content choice, learning experiences, teaching strategies [both andragogical and pedagogical], assessment and evaluation. It considers the organisation [within the context of increasing student numbers and decreasing staff] and the organisation of both lecturers’ and learners’ work.

The key learning components within the model are: video inputs and triggers; an interactive internet site; problem-based resource manuals [for use by individuals and/or teams]; facilitated large group workshops; learning team interaction; school-based rolling practicum and mentoring programs; and authentic assessment, including self- and collaborative evaluation.

For students, the project aims to provide undergraduate teacher trainees with an appropriate model for teaching, learning and workplace practice within their course of study; to cater for their individual learning and teaching styles; to encourage them to take more responsiblity for their own learning and ongoing professional development; and to enable them to be an active and effective team member. The project also aims to help staff engage in a burgeoning ‘cultural shift’ within the Faculty; to embrace a broader, more inclusive, vision of teaching and learning; and to provide the necessary skills and knowledge to support the success of the project and the organisational and individual benefits which will grow from it.

The explosion of knowledge, the increase of state mandates related to a myriad of issues, fragmented teaching schedules, concerns about curriculum relevancy, and a lack of connections and relationships among disciplines are reported as characteristics of a changing educational context (Lake, 1994). The context of teacher education and the roles of teachers requires ever increasing flexibility. This flexibility encompasses all areas of curriculum development, evaluation and implementation as well as organisational, political and societal demands. In a report commissioned by the Australian Teaching Council (1995) it is reported that teachers are ‘besieged by the enormity of such changes . . . in the midst of an avalanche of change and new expectations’ (p.1). In addition Higher Education is influenced by funding decisions and quality assurance rhetoric. This project responds as a Faculty of Education to the need for increasing flexibility for teachers, the problematic and dynamic workplace environment, and increasing student numbers with fewer staff.

Traditional approaches to teaching and learning are based on information processing approaches _where the teacher transmits a fixed body of information to students via an external representation. The teacher represents an abstract idea as a concrete image and then represents the image to the learner via a medium. The learner in turn perceives [within the student's context], decodes and stores it (Sherry, 1996). Henson (1994) however reported in an eight year study of the effectiveness of student-centred education, that when compared to traditional teacher dominated teaching, learner-centred teaching was far more effective in terms of cognitive gains, creativity, leadership skills, intellectual curiosity, and motivation. This project seeks a learner who actively constructs internal representations of knowledge by interacting with the material to be learned (Streibel, 1991; Savery & Duffy, 1995). To achieve this a paradigm shift from the traditional ‘transmission’ model to one which is more complex, interactive, and evolving is required (Sherry, 1996, p.340).

The project will extend a problem-based learning (PBL) model incorporating a flexible mode of delivery within initial teacher education. Existing PBL programs can be defined as an educational model that involves:

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Emerging from these existing PBL programs this project proposes an innovative model for initial teacher education, within a reflexive framework. The term ‘reflexive’ refers in some educational disciplines to learning that ‘turns back upon itself’ where learners monitor their own actions _(Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Gaudiness, 1994). This project delineates a strategic framework for instruction, and construction of learning that builds upon this concept. It thus extends existing PBL frameworks which value single solutions by recognising that teachers and learners may develop multiple ‘solutions’ to any given problem. Case studies are then used to generate consequences of decision making within this context.

Other disciplines, particularly medicine and the sciences have developed a number of PBL models, but teacher education has been tentative in applying these models recognising the specific needs of the teacher training context. Whilst the project builds on existing PBL programs in other disciplines it is innovative in seeking to acknowledge our singular educational context.

480These features place the framework within unexplored territory for teacher education in Australia. Previously ‘within higher education, traditional approaches to teaching and learning have tended to emphasise the content-based dimension represented by subject-matter, theories and bodies of knowledge, at the expense of developing capability in overarching processes such as enquiry, reflection, creative synthesis and self managed learning’ (Lester, 1995, p.37). Alternatively, the framework defined here privileges learning that:

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Within this reflexive framework students will be required to develop the traits of effective thinkers developed by Melchior (1994, p.1), as noted in the table below.

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A paradigmatic shift in practices of teaching and learning also requires a shift in how we view assessment and evaluation. Traditional notions of assessment can contradict with the learner’s attempt to become ‘self managed’ (Lester, 1995, p.40). This project redefines summative and formative evaluation within the defined goals of student learning, recognising that changes to andragogy and pedagogy should be reflected in evaluation. If this change is not achieved then students can receive implicit and explicit messages that conflict with the goals of the project (Lester, 1995).

The project has a number of aims for students. First to provide undergraduate teacher trainees with an appropriate model for teaching, learning and workplace practice within their course of study. This framework or ‘learning web’ will simulate and model a teacher culture that links theory and practice through reflection, action, and responsibility. The National Competency Framework for Beginning Teaching together with recommendations from students and staff will form the framework for the teaching and learning components of the project. The various components comprise competency in: using and developing professional knowledge and values; communicating, interacting and working with students and others; planning and managing the teaching and learning process; monitoring and assessing student progress and learning outcomes; reflecting, evaluating and planning for continuous improvement. These components are also reflected in the National Key Competencies identified for ‘effective participation in the emerging patterns of work and work organisation’ (AEC and MOVEET, 1992). Thus this project is multi-layered, engaging trainee teachers in an inquiry based learning-teaching program based first on beginning teaching competencies and endorsed work-related key competencies, but designed also to familiarise them with the competency areas that might underpin school-based curricula they will make use of as working teachers. They will learn about the competencies by using and reflecting on a competency approach.

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