Last week I attended the NESA online professional development opportunity – My Teaching Impact: Inspiring stories of teaching impact in the classroom and beyond.
This event was chaired by Jennie Brockie, with a live audience as well as the online participants.
The Q&A format allowed five teachers who had achieved Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher accreditation with the AITSL Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to describe their key messages about practice. The teachers also responded to questions from audience members.
The forum was of interest to me as a constant learner, and also because of my long-term preoccupation with effective teaching.
In an earlier blog, Teachers and Teaching 1, I described some of the research that impacted early years in my career. I quoted Arnold Morrison and Donald McIntyre, in ‘Teachers and Teaching’ (1973)
The quality of an educational system depends first and foremost on what happens inside the classroom – in particular on the behavioural skills of the teachers themselves, their relationships with both individuals and with classes, their ability to motivate pupils, and their overall ‘management’ of classroom activity.
I said in that earlier blog, that I didn’t believe that this had changed.
So I was very interested in what these teachers – skilled and recognised – had to say about successful teaching.
The main messages were as follows:
Invest in ourselves as teachers – this was described in their own practice as:
- working with, participating in, and developing strong professional networks,
- being aspirational for ourselves
- constantly continuing learning
- building self-efficacy through developing an understanding of current research, including neuroplasticity and mindfulness.
Invest in our students – described as:
- recognising and being understanding of student perspective and experience
- developing innovative programs and structures within our schools to value student voice
- acknowledging and working with student need
- being aware of the need to educate the whole child to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes
- being aspirational for our students
Invest in our profession – described as:
- mentoring both early career and experienced teachers
- using data and evaluation for driving student progress
- recognising the whole school’s responsibility for students.
Morrison and McIntyre may not have recognised the detail, but the intent is the same.
Successful educators are constantly investing in themselves, their students and their profession – our profession.
This event acted as an introduction to the My Teaching Impact award ceremony for newly-accredited teachers.
A highlights package will be released by NESA for those who were not able to attend.
Abbreviations:
NESA – NSW Education Standards Authority (formerly the NSW Board of Studies and Teacher Education Standards)
AITSL – Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
References:
Morrison, A. & McIntyre, D. (1973) Teachers and Teaching 2nd Ed. Penguin Education UK
NESA (2018) My Teaching Impact: Inspiring stories of teaching impact in the classroom and beyond, online at: http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/about/events/my-teaching-impact accessed 20/09/2018
