Richard Smith

Bio: Richard Smith is an academic researcher from Southern Cross University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Teacher education & Pre-service teacher education. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 10 publications receiving 153 citations. Previous affiliations of Richard Smith include Central Queensland University.

Gauging primary school teachers’ environmental literacy: An issue of ‘priority’

Abstract: Over the past thirty years, it has often been stated that primary school education should endeavour to improve and protect the environment through producing an ‘environmentally informed, committed and active citizenry’. Even so, existing research shows that the implementation of environmental education in primary schools is problematic and has had limited success. However, the reasons for these shortcomings are far from clear, with present research merely speculating about barriers to effective implementation. This paper presents a detailed discussion and analysis of primary school teachers knowledge and beliefs about environmental concepts and environmental education. In so doing, the paper identifies a perceived gap within the field of environmental education research and literature. This field has neglected studies of Australian primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education as a factor affecting the capacity of schooling to achieve environmental education goals. To these ends, we utilise the concept of ‘environmental literacy’ to assess primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education. Based upon preliminary data analysis, we tentatively claim that current Queensland primary school teachers are variably committed to and demonstrably lack content knowledge of environmental concepts and environmental education. More significantly, these primary school teachers tend to dismiss the importance of content knowledge, preferring to focus upon attitudes towards environmental education and environmental concepts. Clearly these levels of environmental literacy are inadequate if environmentally literate students and thus an environmentally literate citizenry are to be achieved within schools. We conclude that the introduction of environmental literacy in educational policy would advance the goals of environmental education, namely the production of an informed, committed and active citizenry.

A fundamental partnership: the experiences of practising teachers as lecturers in a pre-service teacher education programme

Abstract: This paper reports an evaluation of an innovative university-school partnership in which teacher practitioners work as university lecturers in a regional Australian pre-service teacher education programme. The philosophy of this programme encompasses authentic partnerships between universities, schools and other industry employers. The study was motivated by an interest inunderstanding the experiences and outcomes for the teacher practitioners and in documenting their experiences. Staff members who are currently on contract as university lecturers as well as teachers who have completed secondments and returned to school settings are surveyed. This paper focuses on suggestions to improve the partnership and discusses future directions for the partnership.

Improving teaching capacity to increase student achievement: The key role of data interpretation by school leaders

Abstract: Purpose – This paper argues that in a well-organised school with strong leadership and vision coupled with a concerted effort to improve the teaching performance of each teacher, student achievement can be enhanced. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that while macro-effect sizes such as “whole of school” metrics are useful for school leaders in their professional development roles, there are important micro-conditions that can be uncovered in a more detailed analysis of student achievement data. Design/methodology/approach – Evidence of student achievement in a variety of standardised and non-standardised assessment tasks was subjected to examination in a post hoc, case study design. The assessment tasks were the South Australian Spelling Test Waddington Reading Test, a school-wide diagnostic writing task, teacher running records and National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy. Performance in selected classrooms was compared on these tests utilising a variety of parametric quantitative...

School leadership and school improvement: an examination of school readiness factors

Abstract: This article reports on an investigation into the influence stemming from school leadership as an important consideration in relation to school improvement. School readiness, based on [Schiemann, W...

Using Mead's Theory of Emergence as a Framework for Sociological Inquiry into Pre-Service Teacher Education:

Abstract: In this paper we take up Chang's (2004) challenge to apply Mead's theory of emergence in sociological inquiry. Largely overlooked by scholars, this theory is shown to prove explanatory in one field where limited solutions have been found to date. Specifically, the theory sheds light on how the theory-practice gap is created and sustained in pre-service teacher education. The argument is that under current institutional arrangements the trainee/beginning teacher encounters different and oft-times conflicting environmental, social and cultural conditions in the two 'fields of interaction' (Mead, 1934: 249) of their training program, namely, the on-campus pre-service program and the school. The argument draws on interview and focus group data collected via a study of first-year graduate teachers of an Australian pre-service teacher education program. We conclude that the Meadian mechanisms of role taking and self-regulated behaviour within the two environmental fields of interaction inhibit the trainee/beginning teacher from exercising the power of agency to implement theory learned at university in practice in the classroom. In this sense Mead's theory of emergence predicts the obduracy of the gap between theory and practice in teacher education.

The Education Debate

Abstract: THE chorus of approval with which Mr. Mundella's report on the progress of elementary education was received on Monday cannot but be gratifying to all who have at heart the highest welfare of the country. With one or two unimportant exceptions—members whose vision is so bizarre as to discern communism in the education of the children of the working classes, and who connect the increase of weeds with the spread of education'what criticism there was referred to details of method. All the members whose opinions are of any weight agreed that vast good had resulted to the country by the working of the Code. As to the special subjects, among which science is included, the weight of opinion was decidedly in favour of their retention. The greatest friends of the Fourth Schedule will admit that there is still much room for improvement in the teaching of these subjects; it cannot be expected that so great a novelty in the system of elementary education in the country can all at once be taught to perfection. About the success of the compulsory system of education it may be said that the House was all but unanimous. The analogy between the treatment of paupers and the free education of the children of the working classes will not hold water. In the one case we are simply keeping from starvation people whose improvidence or misfortune have made them a dead burden on their fellows; in the other case we are feeding the minds of those who one day will have to bear the brunt of the work of the nation; The better these future workers are educated, the more intelligently and the more effectively are they likely to do their work, and the less likely are they to become inmates of our workhouses and prisons. As Serjeant Simon testified, even already is there a marked decrease of embryo criminals in our streets. The conclusion come to by Mr. Mimdella and those who,like him, have the interests of education at heart, is not that we have gone too far, but that we have not gone far enough; not that we have reached finality, but that we have only made a good beginning. The figures he adduced to prove the success of the existing Education Act were practically admitted to be irrefutable; and we only trust the progress in the next ten years will be at an equal ratio to that achieved during the past decade. “Many of us,” he truly said, “would pass away without seeing the full effect of the work we are doing.” As to the propriety of encouraging the retention of exceptionally clever boys in elementary schools beyond the regulation age, the figures showed that it would be cruel and unjust to forbid this. Until we have a State system of secondary education in England similar to that about to be sanctioned in Scotland, until air equally decisive step is taken with regard to educational endowments in the one country as in the other, the nation would be doing a gross injustice to force exceptionally clever boys to leave school just when their intellects were beginning to shoot into full vigour. Mr. Mundella showed by his figures that Scotland is still ahead of England in the matter of education; that extra or special subjects are more widely sought after and with greater success, and that a larger percentage of children in elementary schools proceed to secondary education. But it should be remembered that this is the result of many generations of universal education, and that in Scotland it has long been considered as great a disgrace to be uneducated as in England it is considered to be immoral. There among the great majority of the working classes compulsory education was scarcely needed, and this will no doubt be the case in England in the course of a century or so, when education will have become as great a necessity as decent clothing. Again during the debate was it shown by those who have the best means of knowing that where science is properly taught there the children are as a rule more intelligent and bright, and better up in the ordinary subjects than in schools where science is neglected. Sir John Lubbock gave a remarkable instance of the favour with which properly conducted science-teaching is received by the children themselves:—

Environmental Literacy in Teacher Training: Attitudes, Knowledge, and Environmental Behavior of Beginning Students

Abstract: The authors report the environmental attitudes and knowledge of 765 1st-year students in 3 teacher-training colleges in Israel and examine the relationship between these variables and background factors and their relationship to environmental behavior. Although the students' environmental knowledge was limited, their overall attitudes toward the environment were positive. The authors found a positive relationship between the environmental knowledge and environmental attitudes of the students and the level of their mothers' education. Students majoring in fields related to the environment were more knowledgeable and had more environment-oriented attitudes in comparison with other students. The authors discuss the relationship between knowledge, attitudes, and behavior and the influence of background factors on the students' environmental literacy.

Ecological literacy: the ‘missing paradigm’ in environmental education (part one)

Abstract: Environmental educators often maintain that primary school education should endeavour to improve and protect the environment through producing an ‘environmentally informed, committed and active citizenry’, yet existing research shows that the implementation of environmental education in primary schools is problematic and has had limited success. The reasons for these shortcomings are far from clear, with present research merely speculating about barriers to effective implementation. To this extent, there is a dearth of empirical research about primary school teachers' knowledge of environmental education and the degree to which teachers' knowledge inhibits environmental education practice. As such, this article investigates Australian primary school teachers' knowledge about environmental education, and in so doing utilises a combined-methods approach and the theoretical concept of ‘ecological literacy’ (eco-literacy) to assess primary school teachers' knowledge (and beliefs) about environmental education...

Environmental literacy of pre‐service teachers in Israel: a comparison between students at the onset and end of their studies

Abstract: The adequate preparation of teacher education students in environmental education is a prerequisite for their future ability to design and implement effective environmental education. This longitudinal study compared the environmental literacy of 214 students at the onset and towards the end of their studies, in three academic colleges of education in Israel. A questionnaire and a paired pre‐test–post‐test design were used to explore environmental literacy variables and their perceptions regarding the contribution of their college studies to their environmental literacy and worldviews. Students towards the end of their studies reported increased involvement in most of the study’s environmental behaviour categories as compared to the beginning. Despite this, the pattern characterizing their environmental behaviour did not change: a negative relationship was found between the frequency at which they engaged in different behaviour categories and the environmental‐commitment‐level of the corresponding categor...

Environmental Literacy in Teacher Training in Israel: Environmental Behavior of New Students

Abstract: The authors measured the level of environmental behavior of new students in 3 major teacher-training colleges in Israel and investigated the relationship between behavior and background factors. Factor analysis of students' responses resulted in grouping of environmental behavior items into 6 categories that represent increasing levels of environmental commitment. Findings indicated that graduates of the educational system who chose to prepare themselves to be teachers were characterized by a low level of environmental literacy, as reflected in their environmental behavior: Students demonstrated limited performance of behaviors that require a high level of commitment, and hence, reflect a high level of environmental literacy, and visa versa. The authors discuss the influence of background factors on environmental behavior and its implications for environmental education in teacher training. Analysis of responsible environmental behavior from the viewpoint of environmental commitment may provide an alterna...