Secondary Beginning Teacher's Preparedness to Teach Literacy and Numeracy: A Survey

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of an Australia-wide survey conducted as part of a national teacher education research project that explored the preparation of teachers to teach literacy and numeracy in Australian schools (Louden, Rohl, Gore, Greaves, McIntosh, Wright, Siemon & House, 2005) 1 . The project included various phases of inquiry, beginning with a desk audit of teacher education program characteristics and an international literature review (Gore & Griffiths, 2002) , that drew on literature published in English in the last few decades. The issues identified in the literature review guided the construction of a set of national focus groups that targeted early years, primary and secondary teachers and teacher educators. Data from the focus groups informed three nationally representative questionnaire surveys, the purpose of which was to determine the preparedness of new graduates to teach literacy and numeracy to a range of school students. A survey was designed for each of the following three groups: senior school staff, primary beginning teachers and secondary beginning teachers.The focus of this paper is the survey designed for teachers working with secondary aged students. (Other aspects of the study have been published elsewhere, for example Louden & Rohl, 2006;. The secondary survey adds further insights to the recently released report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (Rowe, 2005) which found that the preparation of teachers to teach literacy was 'uneven across universities' (Rowe, 2005, p.12), and recommended that 'literacy teaching within subject areas be included in the coursework of secondary teachers' (Rowe, 2005, Recommendation 12, p.20). There has been much concern in recent years about the requirements for teacher education courses. Over the past 20 years there has been an average of one national or state inquiry into teacher education each year and in 2005 there were two national inquiries: a national parliamentary inquiry into teacher education and a national inquiry into the teaching of literacy that included preservice education for literacy teaching (Rowe, 2005). Some have pointed to the need to develop national standards (for example Louden, 2000;Rowe, 2005) and within the standards debate there are calls for graduating teachers to have adequate understandings of literacy and numeracy (Ministerial Advisory Committee on the Quality of Teaching, 1998) and a knowledge of 'what and how to teach literacy' (Rowe, 2005, p.12 ). At the secondary level, literacy and numeracy are embedded across the curriculum and teachers need to be able to foster those skills within their subject areas. There is some question as to whether beginning teachers achieve 'adequate' understandings and know how to incorporate literacy and numeracy instruction into their teaching when and where necessary. Changes to pre-service preparation for teaching are often suggested. 38Many secondary teachers undertake one-or two-year graduate diploma courses, following first degrees. Some educa...

Improving the Computational Thinking Pedagogical Capabilities of School Teachers

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I Know What Literacy Means: Student Teacher Accounts

“…Studies on the status of higher education student literacy based on students' own responses such as Milton, Rohl, and House (2007) and Krause, Hartley, James, and McInnis (2005) tend to be quantitative using a Likert scale to establish student perceptions.…”

The Competencies of an English Teacher: Beginning Student Teachers’ Perceptions

“…In particular there is concern over beginning teachers' "levels of competence and confidence in literacy skills" (Masters, 2009, p. ix). Milton et al (2007) found in an Australia-wide survey that only half of the 303 teacher respondents felt that their pre-service courses had adequately developed their understandings and skills in spelling and grammar, but were more positive (70-75%) about other areas such as reading, genre knowledge and critical literacy (p. 6).…”

“…Studies exploring the topic of teacher competencies have been carried out with secondary teachers -beginning and senior - (Louden et al, 2005;Milton et al, 2007) and primary teachers (Hammond & Macken-Horarik, 2001). The personal skills of final year preservice teachers (So, Cheng, & Tsang, 1996) have also been researched and the development of literacy levels of student teachers has been assessed over their degree program (Devereaux & Wilson, 2008).…”