Manifesto

=The Nine Provocations (plus one)=


 * 1) What kind of a teacher do I want to be? [What are who will impact on the way I teach?]
 * 2) Will I be allowed to be the teacher I want to be? [expectations, etc What kind of teacher does the government/department want me to be? Am I there yet? Do adolescents want to learn? Will they want to learn from me?]
 * 3) To whom am I accountable?
 * 4) Am I ready to teach?
 * 5) Is teaching a profession (academic, free inquiring side) or a trade (Standards movement) govt = dept?
 * 6) What will students want and need from me?
 * 7) Should we teach students or subjects?
 * 8) To what extent is teaching an intellectual pursuit?
 * 9) How will I control my students?
 * 10) What will happen to me if I don't attend tutorials?

Note from Steve: As I work with Assessment 2 (which is based around these provocations), I'm thinking we should call them the something like The Nine Provocations and put our 10th one in brackets or something ... Some students may get disoriented otherwise. ???)

From Meg: Yes, I was thinking that, too.

Agree! Phil

Notes from Meeting, Friday, 12 Nov 2010. Very rough, please make a start! ACTION: All
 * Start with what we want a student to look like?
 * What we expect,
 * This is a new process of prof formation -- you wont be an expert teacher (grad standard)
 * Grad teacher standards early in the prog?
 * Two things: up front and framing the whole thing
 * SS: 1) their professional background, 2) Assumptions about being in a university course //orienting them to their future career//
 * //PR: they have research and content; but research and practice -- emphasis on connecting, synthesising this.//
 * //PR: Unpack what professionalism is//
 * //SS: part of the early weeks is listening to them and allowing them to ask what's importnat, what do i want to become, what matters to me? i.e., foundational questions.//
 * //PR: Framework/overarching stuff for the students? Needs to be upfront about the end product we want. Develop metacompetencies to connect the standards and just 'be' the professional//
 * //SM: Standards are accountability for public management; but we need to them to internalise them//
 * //MP: Let's develop a manifesto of metacompetencies: Let's continue it: Manifesto!!!//
 * //Manifesto: everyone will have some form of engagement; everyone will get across the content; encouraging a professionalism that has commitment, perseverence, depth, initiative -- and how not to undermine these qualities; expectation that they will have a go, stay engaged; one shot at this, sad if it's wasted. Not just lip-service.//

//Manifesto: (brain dump follows)//

//This course is built on the basis that 'we teach children not subjects'. In saying that we recognise that everyone who meets the entry requirements of a graduate program is a recognised expert in their discipline, having achieved a previous degree in the field and often considerable professional experience. Our job is to help you begin to make the transition from subject expert to accomplished professional educator. This is a difficult and often challenging period of transformation for many students. It involves us supporting you through a process of personal change as students typically move from a position of confident and comfortable subject knowledge to a realisation that they may not actually know how to teach this to adolescents. Equally challenging is often the change from a degree of familiarity with schooling from personal experience to a realisation that there is often more about this act than we were aware of as outside participants. It is our job to support you through the beginning of this transition and help you develop some skills and aptitudes to continue your learning as you enter your career. Sometimes posing the question is more important than the answer.//

//Teaching is a profession not a trade. While moves to standardise quality teaching and codify such practice are common, and indeed useful, we advocate that as a profession it is the meta-competencies that connect these standards into what we do in a classroom that matters most. As a profession teaching is built upon a solid core of professional knowledge, as well as a lot of practical experience, trial and error, observation and a little bit of intuition. In this course we will work with you to build the solid base of professional knowledge you need (in the form of psychology, sociology, intellectual skills, case study examples, relevant policies) support you through professional observation and practice, and help you begin to connect the two. However learning is not complete upon graduation, it has only begun. We can start the conversation and skills acquisition, but you will continue it.//

//Typically new teachers transition from novice to competence over the first three to five years of their career, and then continue learning and developing every day they are in the classroom. The level of competence and expertise you will see on professional experience has been built up over years of experience. These teachers make decisions and develop learning environments built upon the knowledge we will help you to learn in way that has often become innate to them. Typically new teachers are concerned primarily with classroom management and the transmission of content. However research consistently tell us that when teachers focus upon teaching students rather than content, focus on the needs of the learner rather than the subject and are alert to cue's about student progress that learning is at its most effective. In this course we have develop a range of experiences to help you understand the knowledge base these teachers are drawing on, and to reflect on your own thinking in the area. In this way we aim to highlight the complexity of teaching in order to help you transition to competency.//

//Teaching is one of the most complex of professions, and indeed one of the most rewarding and important. The excitement of that struggling student finally 'getting it' or the intellectually engaged student flying high is truly infectious. It is often said that without teachers no other profession is possible. With this however comes a highly complex task. At any moment teachers are weighing up the skills, concepts or ideas they are trying to transmit, based on their knowledge of how to teach such a topic, the best way to do this considering a students emotional needs, psychological development, prior learning, based upon their knowledge of how students learn, with consideration of the students and schools sociological background, needs and challenges - for 25 students at a time. We will help you understand this complex task.//

//We only have a small amount of time together so we ask that you engage with the course and the readings and participation that we require of you. As the team delivering your course and supporting you through this journey we continue to ensure your experience is as aligned as we can make it. The course is aimed at ensuring you meet the requirements of a graduate teacher in the professional standards you and the course are registered against, No-one expects you to be competent according to these standards on the day you finish, in most settings this is a 1-3 year period before you are assessed against the competency standards. We will however do all we can to set you up well on the way to getting there.//

//At the end of the day we want you to be confident in your ability to help students learn the subject you love and to be a committed and engaged professional who thinks deeply about hwlping the students in your care to learn.//