Year: 2024
Author: Jennifer Dove, Kathryn Holmes, Wayne Sawyer, Nathan Berger, Susanne Gannon
Type of paper: Individual Paper
Abstract:
Teacher professional learning is a significant factor in building teacher collective efficacy and improving student outcomes. Professional learning is most effective when it takes account of student and teachers’ contexts and is delivered by teachers for teachers. This paper explores the efficacy of online professional learning for senior secondary teachers, highlighting the importance of teacher collaboration and awareness of the complexities and affordances of rurality in teacher professional development.
Rural schools in Australia are classified according to distance from metropolitan centres as inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote. These distances have traditionally presented barriers to rural teachers’ attendance at face-to-face professional learning. However, the pivot required by COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 saw the expansion of planned face-to-face professional learning to an online platform accessible to all teachers in NSW public schools. The collaborative nature of the professional learning allowed rural teachers to learn from subject specialist teachers, compare their students’ work with that of other students across the state, and gain a better understanding of the requirements of the senior curriculum and final assessment. The experiences of rural teachers in the context of teaching senior secondary students were explored through data collected from lesson observations, teacher interviews and student focus groups. Five of the 14 schools in the study (9 of 26 research participants) were from inner or outer regional schools.
Rather than a focus on ‘rural disadvantage’ specifically, this professional learning purports to focus on ‘equity and excellence’ for all students, regardless of context. However, rather than ignoring context as irrelevant and attempting to apply one size fits all learnings about pedagogy to their students, teachers learned to apply action research principles to their own pedagogy and students’ work. Although some teachers questioned the suitability of professional learning aimed at mostly metropolitan teachers given their perception of differences between urban and rural students, most welcomed the opportunity to not only work with metropolitan teachers but also their rural peers. Teachers teaching out of field and in isolation benefited from access to professional support and content knowledge, constructive feedback from experienced senior secondary teachers, and building networks with other teachers. Rural teachers appreciated the equity focus and felt a great sense of acknowledgement and recognition of their expertise through participation in action learning collectives and professional learning. This paper advocates for the monitoring and encouragement of participant demographics to ensure the continued participation of rural teachers over time.
Rural schools in Australia are classified according to distance from metropolitan centres as inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote. These distances have traditionally presented barriers to rural teachers’ attendance at face-to-face professional learning. However, the pivot required by COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 saw the expansion of planned face-to-face professional learning to an online platform accessible to all teachers in NSW public schools. The collaborative nature of the professional learning allowed rural teachers to learn from subject specialist teachers, compare their students’ work with that of other students across the state, and gain a better understanding of the requirements of the senior curriculum and final assessment. The experiences of rural teachers in the context of teaching senior secondary students were explored through data collected from lesson observations, teacher interviews and student focus groups. Five of the 14 schools in the study (9 of 26 research participants) were from inner or outer regional schools.
Rather than a focus on ‘rural disadvantage’ specifically, this professional learning purports to focus on ‘equity and excellence’ for all students, regardless of context. However, rather than ignoring context as irrelevant and attempting to apply one size fits all learnings about pedagogy to their students, teachers learned to apply action research principles to their own pedagogy and students’ work. Although some teachers questioned the suitability of professional learning aimed at mostly metropolitan teachers given their perception of differences between urban and rural students, most welcomed the opportunity to not only work with metropolitan teachers but also their rural peers. Teachers teaching out of field and in isolation benefited from access to professional support and content knowledge, constructive feedback from experienced senior secondary teachers, and building networks with other teachers. Rural teachers appreciated the equity focus and felt a great sense of acknowledgement and recognition of their expertise through participation in action learning collectives and professional learning. This paper advocates for the monitoring and encouragement of participant demographics to ensure the continued participation of rural teachers over time.