Accountability in australian schools: past, present, and future
TL;DR: In Australia, accountability is defined in terms of the monitoring of the rights and duties of teachers, which are themselves always open for negotiation and therefore change through time as in consequence must the mechanisms for monitoring them as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Accountability is defined in terms of the monitoring of the rights and duties of teachers, which are themselves always open for negotiation and, therefore, change through time as in consequence must the mechanisms for monitoring them. In Australia accountability has grown less centralised and less bureaucratised as teachers have become more knowledgeable and better trained until to‐day the situation may be seen as one where educational aims are uncertain and monitoring, except of academic knowledge at Year Twelve, is vestigial. Economic factors and the tradition of Australian administration are currently forcing a reconsideration of this position, but ideologies, held both internationally and within the Australian teaching force, operating particularly through teachers' unions, oppose great redefinition. In as multidimensional an administrative field as Australian schooling accountability can not be rendered through one mechanism, but, taking into consideration the varying expertise of all involved, the definition of what is on the educational agenda, and the distinction between consultation and making decisions, a complex, constantly changing system of monitoring must inevitably evolve.
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TL;DR: Gonzaga University's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Initiative as mentioned in this paper is a powerful counter force to the erosion of higher education culture, which is the most serious challenge facing higher education today.
Abstract: One of the most serious challenges facing higher education today is the erosion of academic culture—a declining sense that faculty form a community whose members reflect, deliberate, and make decisions together in the name of a shared educational vision. Our experience with Gonzaga University’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Initiative suggests that SoTL can be a powerful counter force to this erosion. What became increasingly evident as the initiative unfolded was that its most important result was the creation of a kind of alternative academic community that stands in opposition to many of the dis-integrative, disempowering forces at work in higher education. The scholarly examination of practice, done in a collaborative context, changed participants’ perceptions of learning, of themselves as teachers, and of the larger endeavor of which they are a part. Thus, we came to see the SoTL initiative as a subversive activity in the sense used by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in their 1969 book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity: one that invites critical questions about education’s purposes, practices, and underlying assumptions, and in so doing reanimates core values.
20 citations
Cites background from "Accountability in australian school..."
...Calls for accountability—quality assurance and improvement schemes in the UK (Clark, 2009), Canada (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, 2007; Nicholsen, 2011) and Australia (Baird, 2011), for instance, and the assessment movement in the US (Ewell, 2009)—ask, appropriately, for evidence of student learning....
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...…assurance and improvement schemes in the UK (Clark, 2009), Canada (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, 2007; Nicholsen, 2011) and Australia (Baird, 2011), for instance, and the assessment movement in the US (Ewell, 2009)—ask, appropriately, for evidence of student learning....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that accountability can contribute to what is, or should be, the central goal of accountability: ensuring and improving the quality of student learning, and provide a new context for integrating and valuing SoTL as a force for positive change on campuses and beyond.
Abstract: In recent years, as pressures for accountability have increased in higher education, some members of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community may worry that the inquiry-based, improvement-focused practices they advocate could be put at risk by easy-to-administer, one-size-fits-all forms of assessment, quality assurance, and administrative control. But while acknowledging both real and perceived tensions between these two movements, we also examine some of the ways and settings in which they are converging, featuring a number of international examples in which external quality and assessment mandates have been employed to support SoTL-like work. We look, too, at the roles that scholars of teaching and learning can play as mediators and brokers between the two movements, helping to translate accountability requirements into opportunities for improvement. In short we argue that these two movements present opportunities for each other. SoTL can contribute to what is, or should be, the central goal of accountability: ensuring and improving the quality of student learning. The accountability movement, for its part, can provide a new context for integrating and valuing SoTL as a force for positive change on campuses and beyond. Taken together, the two approaches can make meaningful contributions to higher learning today. The paper concludes with recommendations to the SoTL community for building bridges between the two movements.
19 citations
Cites background from "Accountability in australian school..."
...Various forms of performance funding were instituted in the UK (Clark, 2009), in some US states (Banta, 2010), and in Australia (Baird, 2011)....
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...The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)—now recast as a component part of the OLT—initiated a project to determine Learning and Teaching Academic Standards....
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...This framing clearly contributed to the attraction that SoTL has had for many academics, who connect through it, across national borders, both as committed teachers and as professional scholars (see for instance, Connected Science, Ferrett, Geelan, Schlegel, & Stewart, 2013, a collection of studies by science faculty from the US, Ireland, and Australia)....
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...In Australia, the Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) is responsible for promoting and supporting “change in higher education institutions for the enhancement of learning and teaching” (Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching, n.d.a)....
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...The US, UK, Canada, and Australia are now approaching, if not exceeding, the 50% postsec ondary participation rate....
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TL;DR: In this article, a case study of accountability for state school curriculum in South Australia has been presented, where accountability for such curriculum may be judged democratic or non-democratic, and against which accountability for curriculum in SA state schools will be gauged.
Abstract: This normative-descriptive case study of accountability for state school curriculum in South Australia has the following objectives. First, to seek to draw a distinction betweenaccountability andresponsibility: terms which have been confused by two South Australian Directors-General of Education (position akin to C.E.O. in the U.K. and Superintendent in the U.S.A.) with important consequences. Second, to present a model of accountability for state school curriculum, by which accountability for such curriculum may be judged democratic or non-democratic, and against which accountability for curriculum in South Australian state schools will be gauged. Third, to show that whilst the South Australian school system exhibits a large measure of bureaucratic or technocratic accountability for curriculum, there is no effective democratic accountability for curriculum, and to indicate a remedy for this situation. Finally, to point out the wider significance of the South Australian case study, and suggest that democracies currently re-structuring their educational systems would do well to keep the need fordemocratic accountability foremost in mind.
5 citations
01 Jan 2008
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make the argument against a backdrop of increasing incidents of abuse of students by teachers that there is a need to again place greater emphasis on the moral development of teachers.
Abstract: In previous eras, teacher training institutions included programs designed to enhance the moral qualities of prospective teachers. With the exception of programs offered in denominational teacher training colleges, such programs have largely ceased to exist. This article advances the argument against a backdrop of increasing incidents of abuse of students by teachers that there is a need to again place greater emphasis on the moral development of teachers.
4 citations