The federal government of Canada has declared September 30 a statutory holiday in response to calls by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that universities and schools must acknowledge how colonial education has reproduced anti-Indigenous racism.
We discuss innovations in design and delivery of a laboratory-based Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) workshop for Year 12 Physics. We describe how we applied best-practice guidelines in Action Research (AR) methodology to the design, delivery and evaluation of our TPL, to enhance quality and best meet our teachers' needs. During the workshop, the task of collecting data was divided up among groups, and data collated and shared online for analysis. This enabled teachers to conduct more experiments than would normally be possible in the time available. We incorporated Peer Instruction (PI) questions into laboratory instructions to stimulate reflection and discussion, and made experimental instructions, shared data, PI questions, and photographs/videos available as a flexible package of resources for use in the classroom. We offer advice on employing shared data-collection and writing and using PI questions in TPL workshops or student laboratories.
In a new survey commissioned by learning technology firm D2L, only 20% of K–12 educators responding said they are “strongly satisfied” with the professional learning options, even as 94% agreed that ongoing professional development is important to a teacher’s effectiveness, D2L said Tuesday.
All teachers in Australia must now achieve and maintain certification through mandatory accreditation processes that include specified professional learning hours. While key policies that outline teacher professional learning in Australia and New South Wales make no specific reference to a role for universities, this discussion paper proposes that the new teacher accreditation landscape provides opportunities for universities to work collaboratively with education systems to co-design and deliver contextually relevant teacher professional learning, support teachers-as-researchers and support schools to become learning communities. This collaboration would advance the policy agenda inherent in the accreditation processes by developing the intended culture of professional learning among teachers, education systems and universities that goes beyond mandated professional learning hours. We review the Australian policy context from a systems-thinking perspective and argue that university Sc