The Role of Standards ... presented to PPTA Conference 2006
Introduction
The history and purpose of standards developed by the Teachers Council
The place of standards in the role of the Teachers Council
What is the nature of the registration standards?
The positioning of the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions in schools and early childhood centres
The critical learning period of provisionally registered teachers.
How can standards contribute to the professional learning of experienced teachers?
Conclusion
Appendix I - The New Zealand Teachers Council Standards for Registration as a Teacher: The Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions
What are the satisfactory teacher requirements?
Introductory Statement
Professional Knowledge
Professional Practice
Professional Relationships
Professional Leadership
The Role of Standards in the professional learning of teachers and in setting benchmarks for registered teacher status in New Zealand.
Cynthia Shaw
Dr Peter Lind
Jenny Thomas
New Zealand Teachers Council
Paper presented to the NZPPTA Professional Conference: Quality Teaching, Leading the Way, Wellington, 19 April 2006. This paper describes the purposes and nature of the standards developed or under development by the New Zealand Teachers Council, and the processes used for their development. It distinguishes between the standards developed by the Council, and other standards in New Zealand, such as those agreed by the teacher unions with the Ministry of Education (MoE) and called the Professional Standards (MoE, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2004a). The paper explores some of the issues in standards setting and their use from the points of view of the profession, as a whole, and for the Council itself. Above all, the paper raises the issue of how teaching standards can contribute to the professional learning of teachers at various stages in their careers. These are issues needing debate within the profession to maximise the opportunities and minimise the risks of the current and potential use of standards by the profession.
The Teacher Registration Board developed a set of standards, published in 1996, for the purpose of setting a benchmark for who could legally become and remain a teacher in a New Zealand school or early childhood service (i.e. free kindergarten at that stage). These standards are known as the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions. They constitute the 'satisfactory teacher' criteria alongside the other requirements set for becoming and remaining a registered teacher in New Zealand. They serve the same purpose as benchmarks used in other professions to decide who can and cannot legally call himself or herself a nurse, doctor, dentist, social worker, accountant or lawyer. One of the hallmarks of a profession is the ability to set its own criteria and standards for legally belonging to the profession.
Teacher registration in New Zealand has long been supported by the profession as an important means of guaranteeing an appropriately educated and qualified national teaching service for all learners. The Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions were developed and agreed to in close consultation with the sector, particularly the two major teacher unions, the New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) and the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA), arguably representatives of the profession.
Established in 1924, the teacher register was for many years just a list of people actually employed as teachers, but over the decades, within a highly centralised education system, various criteria and classifications were added. Some of these criteria were retained in new policies established by the TRB and they remain today in requirements for registration such as the 'Good Character' and 'Fitness to Teach' criteria.
One interesting feature of this history, bearing on the current debates around standards, is the strong stand taken by the teacher unions, particularly the PPTA, to preserve these national criteria and standards when they have come under attack from the 'new right' in the market forces era of the late 1980s and the 1990s 2 .
Two competing discourses followed the ascendancy of 'Rogernomics' after 1984. One discourse was derived from the 'New Public Management' themes of public choice theory (supported especially by the State Services Commission), and of market forces (supported by Treasury). Within this framework there was no need to regulate standards for teachers because employer prerogative and the market would ensure that only good teachers were employed and remained in employment. The competing discourse from the Department (later the Ministry) of Education, advocated control of teaching quality through criteria and procedures for assessment - a discourse of accountability (Scott, 1986). Perhaps caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, the unions felt bound to support the latter as a means of resisting unrestrained hiring and firing of teachers by principals. The PPTA even went on strike during their contract round of 1989 in defence of preserving the old classification criteria and gained agreement for a clause in the State Sector Act that the Secretary of Education could set standards for teachers. These are the 'Professional Standards' subsequently developed by the Ministry and agreed to by the unions for the mandatory performance management of teachers (MoE, 1997) from 1999 onwards (MoE 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2004). These are the standards developed as requirements for teachers to be attested to move up the salary scale. Written in levels for 'beginning', 'classroom' and 'experienced' teachers, they are the standards teachers are most familiar with through their school or kindergarten's attestation and appraisal processes. While they may be useful for those purposes, they have nothing to do with the standards set by the Teachers Council. 3
National criteria, or standards, for deciding who should become and remain a teacher in New Zealand have a history of strong support from the profession. It is the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions which are the Teachers Council standards for registration. They are the benchmarks for deciding who should become and remain a teacher. They are not to be confused with the Professional Standards developed by the Ministry and the unions – though clearly many people do have that confusion. When the National Governments of the early 1990s strongly favoured the public choice and market forces approach to teacher accountability, and abolished the compulsory registration of teachers, the unions exerted a great deal of pressure on employers to employ only registered teachers.
The statutory purpose of the Teachers Council is to "provide professional leadership in teaching, enhance the professional status of teachers in schools and early childhood education, and contribute to a safe and high quality teaching and learning environment for children and other learners." The various legislated functions relate to that purpose and include the setting of standards for teacher registration and the (ongoing) issue of practising certificates, and to establish and maintain standards for qualifications that lead to teacher registration. The Council also has a role in approving programmes for initial teacher education on the basis of those standards. Teachers who fall short of the standards can be dealt with through the Council's competence and discipline functions. Through its professional leadership function, the Council also has the role to promote good teaching practice, effective strategies for teacher development and effective approaches for leadership of learning in the profession.
Thus, from selection into initial teacher education programmes through to the continuing professional learning of experienced teachers, the Council seeks to provide some assurance of 'standards' (used here in the everyday sense) of professional quality and public standing.
Or in other words, the Teachers Council provides for the profession and the public, some answers to these critical questions:
Who can enter into the teaching profession?
On what grounds?
Who decides?
Who can stay in the profession?
Under what circumstances? and
Who decides?
The registration standards (Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions) along with other criteria (Good Character etc) have been central to determining what happens at a number of gateway or transition points in a teacher's career.
Firstly, they provide the main criteria by which initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are approved, and selection into those programmes is on the basis of candidates being likely to meet those standards. Then, ITE providers assess and graduate students and recommend them for provisional registration, if they deem them likely to meet those standards to become fully registered teachers. Next, professional leaders assess provisionally registered teachers, usually after two years, to determine if they meet the standards for full registration. Finally, every three years, fully registered teachers are required to be appraised to determine if they still meet the standards in order to maintain a practising certificate.
It will be noted that at each of these points, the assessment against the standards is actually in the hands of people who do not represent the profession as a whole but who operate in very local sites. There is, therefore, an important structural limitation on the degree to which the standards, set in consultation with the profession, are in fact within the control of the profession. This raises some issues, namely: Who is (or represents) the profession? Who should determine who enters, becomes qualified and remains in the teaching profession? How can the profession ensure that decisions about these matters are effectively moderated to provide some consistency across all the sites where these decisions are made?
The foregoing sections have outlined the purposes of the standards developed so far by the Council. What are these standards and what are they based on?
The Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions were developed in 1995-1996 to encapsulate the professional consensus of that time 4 of what a good teacher, teaching in any sector, should know and understand, and have the skills and professional beliefs or values in order to apply that knowledge in their practice as a teacher (see Appendix I). The standards are grouped under the categories of professional knowledge, professional practice (learning environment and teaching), professional relationships and professional leadership.
These are similar to groupings used in other countries and jurisdictions and reflect a very broad understanding of what teaching is about. However, they were referred to as 'dimensions' of teaching rather than 'standards' and the information with them states that "individual learning centres will establish their own specific standards to determine whether a teacher meets the above dimensions" (TRB, 1996). Unstated, but of course entailed in that statement, is the fact that individual learning centres will also determine the specific criteria and conditions for the assessment of whether teachers 'perform' satisfactorily within these dimensions. At the point of registration or renewal of practising certificates, it is entirely the judgement of locally based professional leaders as to whether the teacher is satisfactory in each dimension or not.
It is perhaps necessary to say what these standards are not, as well as what they are. They do not prescribe teaching styles. They do not prescribe what a teacher must teach, except it is within the New Zealand curricular statements. They do not set up a particular model of what is a good or desirable teacher. What they do say, however, is that a good teacher needs to know certain things such as their subject matter, their particular students, theories of learning, pedagogical knowledge and that they need to use that knowledge in deliberate skilful acts of teaching, moment by moment, in the interests of all their students. This is not about performativity for the sake of extrinsic rewards or avoidance of negative consequences. This is about describing what we mean, as closely as we can describe it, of what is the art of teaching.
The Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions, then, theoretically serve at least two overarching purposes. One is a public statement of the complex knowledge, skills and dispositions the teaching profession require of an individual who claims to be a teacher. It is an important safeguard against the claim that "anyone can teach".
The second overarching purpose is as a device to assess whether or not a person should be given the professional status of teacher or indeed retain that status. In this respect, you could say that the dimensions are similar devices to the achievement standards with which secondary teachers are now very familiar. They are not a curriculum statement, but they frame the significant knowledge, understandings, skills and professional values expected to be demonstrated. The issues here are:
Who decides what the significant knowledge and values should be?
What should inform the thinking about this?
How should such decisions be made?
The Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions, therefore, exist for credentialing teachers as fully qualified members of the profession, and to help guide the professional learning of provisionally registered teachers towards that goal. As they are currently positioned, however, there are important constraints on how well those purposes can be achieved.
The first constraint is, although the Dimensions are meant to be a national credentialing device, their assessment is left to several thousand individual professional leaders. There are few processes in place to seek to gain consistency of judgements. When the Dimensions were established in the 1990s, this situation was a compromise between central regulation and the market ideology (Barlow, 1996, p.4) that had driven the abandonment of compulsory registration for some years. This constraint remains a significant issue and will have to be addressed in the review of the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions.
Secondly, and related to the first, the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions are not, in practice, used by schools and centres to appraise and assess teachers, whether as provisionally registered and on their way to full registration, or as experienced teachers renewing their Practising Certificates. Instead, the performance standards, agreed to by the unions for attestation for pay and career progression purposes, and developed by the Ministry (and NZSTA) from 1997 onwards, are the default standards used in schools and many early childhood centres for performance accountabilities of teachers and professional leaders. It is understandable that schools would not wish to use two sets of standards, and understandable they give precedence to the Ministry's standards which are linked to pay and career progression. This means, however, that the profession is left with a dilemma. It has set up the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions as benchmarks for belonging to the profession, but allows a different set of standards, albeit similar in some respects, with different purposes and arguably arising from a different discursive regime, to frame the assessment goals, the assessment context and the assessment outcomes.
The profession surely guards jealously its reputation as a body of highly knowledgeable, skilled practitioners, committed to deepening their professional learning within communities of practice in the interests of diverse learners in New Zealand. It would follow; perhaps, that the standards set by the profession to safeguard the gateways to this profession should have paramount status, particularly at the final point of entry – from provisional to fully registered teacher status.
The Teachers Council sees the induction period of newly qualified teachers as absolutely critical in embedding initial professional learning into teaching practice in the many different contexts these teachers begin their careers. The research evidence is mounting that in New Zealand, this induction or early professional learning of our teachers is patchy to say the least (Education Review Office, 2004, 2005; Kane, 2005; Kane & Mallon 2006; NZCER, 2005). In particular, current research findings indicate that teachers who do not have good learning and support experiences when they begin teaching, are often lost to the profession even when they were highly promising graduates (NZCER, 2005). For these reasons, the Council plans to commission research that will survey in all sectors what the experiences are for provisionally registered teachers, and through case studies, identify good practices in different contexts which we can recommend as exemplars to the profession.
An extremely influential writer in the field of this early practice based learning of teachers, Sharon Feiman-Nemser (2001), has stressed the importance of the learner having a vision of good teaching and educative mentoring from a highly skilled colleague. Such a mentor has a shared understanding with the mentoree of what effective teaching practices are, of theory based on quality research that helps them reflect together on situated practice and to frame their questions about 'what is going on here'.
As with achievement standards that frame students' learning, teaching standards provide not only a basis for benchmarking assessment, but also for showing learners what they are striving to achieve. In both cases, to be effective for the assessor and the learner, more is needed than the general statements which are the standards themselves. Exemplars are needed for what the learner is ideally striving to achieve. Clear and transparent indicators are required for how both the learner and assessor will know the standard has been reached, or reached very well, or not yet reached. There needs to be much, and safe opportunity for formative feedback and feed forward to the learner. Indicators need to validly reflect the standard and not merely trivial aspects that are easy to identify. This not only involves a high level of trust, but insight into the individual needs and knowledge of the context in which the learner is working 5 .
At this point, there are two key issues for the profession. Firstly, what should those standards or descriptions of good teaching practice be like? How should they be positioned and assessed to serve as a guide for a provisionally registered teacher to safely learn and receive advice within the context in which she or he is working? How can we ensure that standards of good teaching and learning derive from a consensus within communities of researchers, teacher educators and practitioners? These are central concerns for the review of the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions.
Secondly, how will these standards be assessed, by whom and using what criteria? Given that current appraisal processes are dubious from several points of view (Kane & Mallon, 2006, p. 101-102, Sinnema, 2006), we need to come up with something that can both support teachers' learning and serve the purpose of summative assessment for credentialing a teacher as fully registered. Arguably, this is at least as important, if not more so, than the establishment of the standards themselves.
Related, is the issue of who are the mentors? How do we ensure we, as a national teaching service, have people with adequate knowledge, understanding and skills to undertake this extremely responsible role? Can we leave the appointment of such people up to individual professional leaders? In a secondary school, who needs these skills, given that the Heads of Department, for example have such an important role in the education and continuing development of the provisionally registered teachers in their care, as well as other experienced staff? In a small primary school, how would such a role be achieved? In early childhood education settings, what are the issues for the coaching of other teachers?
There is a school of thought that for standards to help teachers reflect systematically on their practice, they need to be written in very context specific terms (Kleinhenz & Ingvarson, 2005). For example, standards have been and could be written for early childhood education teachers engaged with 0-2 or 3-5 year olds, using Te Whāriki as the embracing curriculum. Or there could be standards for senior mathematics teachers or for middle school generalist primary teachers. What teachers would be expected to demonstrate in each case would naturally be specific to their specialty. In a study in Denmark (Andresen, 2005), secondary science teachers talked about the 'essences' of their science teaching and developed descriptive statements that became 'standards' statements. A number of subject associations in Australia have gone through a similar process (Kleinhenz & Ingvarson, 2005, pp 61-62).
Even these so-called specific standards still have to be unpacked by teachers within their teaching contexts. 6 It is precisely this 'unpacking' that can serve as such a useful framework for reflective dialogue, especially when combined with other forms of support for professional learning. For example, teachers are now realising how powerful it can be to focus on the learning outcomes of each of their students, as well as on aggregated trends. Research syntheses such as the Ministry's BES projects will increasingly support the reflective learning of teachers (Ministry of Education, 2006). The professional development contracts, such as Assess to Learn and the Literacy and Numeracy contracts, can and do transform teachers' practice, especially when driven within professional learning communities, such as in Wainuiomata. 7 Professor Helen Timperley is arguing that teachers learn and transform practice only when confronted by cognitive dissonance – when the data in front of them contradicts currently held beliefs and shifts them from a comfort zone or complacency about 'what works' (Timperley, in progress).
Teaching standards should be part of that mix where teachers engage in critical conversations about their practice and what is working for the diverse learners they teach. Because they make explicit some agreed characteristics of effective teaching practice, a set of standards provides a common framework for such professional dialogue. To really support teachers' learning in this way, however, the standards need to be constructed in such a way that they do, in fact, provide useful 'beacons' of good practice
To some, standards as 'beacons of good practice' is both semantically and conceptually problematic and it is argued that professional standards attempt to 'standardise' teaching and are difficult to reconcile with the concept of teaching as a holistic, multidimensional, complex and ethical activity. 8 Similarly, some argue against the use of standards to describe good teaching practice on the grounds that they degenerate into simple checklists of items that are easily identifiable and demonstrable, and as such lack construct validity. They then become very superficial mechanisms for teacher accountability rather than a framework for deep, reflective learning and development.
It is, furthermore, one thing to describe currently agreed characteristics of effective (and ethical) teaching practice, and quite another thing to use those descriptors as a framework for both summative and formative assessment of teachers' professional learning, whether in initial education, provisionally registered or experienced teacher situations. This tension between formative and summative purposes of assessment is well known to teachers, particularly secondary teachers, in relation to assessment of their students' learning (e.g. Popham, 1988, Crooks, 2004). None the less, provided the tensions and caveats are well understood, the process is not necessarily unmanageable or necessarily invalid (Crooks, 2004, pp 5-6). Besides, this tension relates more to the purposes of assessment events rather than to the criteria being used in those events.
All these issues need to be thoroughly understood and debated, if standards are to be developed that are useful to the profession, both as benchmarks for becoming or remaining a registered teacher, and as guidelines for on-going professional learning.
Ten years ago, the profession did a good job of creating a set of standards, the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions, that the profession accepted as representing the current consensus of what every teacher should know, be able to do and value as a professional teacher. Ten years later, with so much rich research - especially New Zealand based research to be drawn on - it is timely to revise these standards. At the same time, we need to position them in such a way that the profession is satisfied it can answer the questions posed near the beginning of this paper.
In discussing how standards can best support teacher learning, the thinking of key academic writers in such fields as teacher education, critical philosophies and policy analyses of education and of teachers' work, in standards setting and in assessment and accountability will need to be canvassed. In terms of this last, Professor Terry Crooks is a leader the field both internationally and in New Zealand. In his writing about assessment and the links with deep rather than superficial learning, he has developed some principles that are applicable both to student and adult professional learning. For example, in his recent addresses to the Quality Teacher seminars organised by NZEI, he ended a disquisition on 'guiding student learning effectively' with this list of criteria (Crooks, 2006):
Does it help make (the learner) more enthusiastic about learning?
Does it help them build upon their strengths?
Does it help them to correct common errors and overcome weaknesses?
Does it help make them more open to guidance (e.g. voluntarily to seek it)?
Does it make them more perceptive about the strengths and weaknesses of their work?
Does it help to build a learning community atmosphere? 9
To go back to Feiman Nemser (2001), only when the learner has a clear vision of the ideal, can really effective critical conversations take place. Well developed teaching standards should provide for the profession such a vision of good professional practice. Rather than providing student, novice or even experienced teachers with 'idiosyncratic advice', standards can provide a powerful language based in an agreed body of professional knowledge, to guide a teacher towards good teaching practice (Yinger & Hendricks-Lee, 2000). Not with standing the caveats around the tensions between formative and summative assessment, discussed earlier in the paper, there are strong arguments, based in the discourse of teacher professionalization, for the use of teaching standards as a framework for teacher professional learning (e.g. Hawley & Valli, 1999). 10
Clearly, the profession needs to sort out the current confusions many people have about the standards used by teachers, where they came from, why they exist and how useful they are.
Arguably the profession needs high stakes standards because it should be a high stakes issue to answer those questions:
Who can enter the profession?
On what grounds?
Who says so?
Who can remain a teacher?
On what grounds?
Who says so?
The Council's registration standards, the Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions, exist to help answer those high stakes questions. But there are structural problems with how they are currently positioned and assessed that reduce their effectiveness as entry points to and on behalf of the profession.
This issue is compounded by the existence of the Professional Standards that are embedded in the unions' collective contracts, linked to pay progression and which form the centre piece of appraisal and performance management, often through check list styles of assessment.
Finally, the learning of provisionally registered teachers in their induction period into the profession needs to be treated much more seriously than it currently is. Mounting research evidence tells us a sorry story about too many new teachers missing out on access to really effective coaching from skilled colleagues. To achieve fully registered teacher status, to be assessed as competent in the Dimensions of a Satisfactory practitioner, these teachers are entitled to better support. The profession is entitled to an assurance that the potential talent and enrichment of these graduate teachers is not wasted for lack of that support. For this reason, the Teachers Council has committed substantial resources to this issue over the next two years. We look forward to engaging with many groups in the process, including the teacher unions, NZEI and the PPTA.
References
Alton-Lee, A. (2004). Improving Educational Policy and Practice through an Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis Programme. Paper prepared for the April 2004 Joint OECD US Evidence Based Policy Research in Education Conference. Washington DC.
Andresen, M. (2003). Teachers Certification – teachers in motion. Evaluation report of a pilot. Learning Lab Denmark, Danish University of Education, Copenhagen.
Aikin, S. (2006). Personal communication April 24 and documents from files held by New Zealand Education Institute Te Riu Roa.
Barlow, P. (1996). 'Teacher Licensing: Compulsory or Voluntary?' Paper to the International Bureau of Education 45th International Conference on Education: "Strengthening the Role of Teachers in a Changing World."
Bunker, K. (2005). Personal communication with author.
Crooks, T. (2002). 'Assessment, Accountability and Achievement – Principles, Possibilities and Pitfalls', Keynote address presented at the twenty-fourth annual conference for the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Palmerston North, 5-8 December 2002.
Crooks, T. (2004). 'Tensions between assessment for learning and assessment for qualifications', Paper Presented athe Third conference of the Association of Commonwealth Examinations and Accreditation Bodies (ACEAB). Nadi, Fiji, 8-12 March 2004.
Crooks, T. (2006). 'Some Principles for Guiding Student Learning Effectively'. NZEI Seminars on Guiding Student Learning Effectively, March, Wellington.
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Education Review Office. (2005). Voices: Beginning teachers' experiences
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Ingvarson, L. & Kleinhenz, E. (2006 in draft). Standards for Advanced Teaching: A review of National and International Developments. Melbourne: ACER.
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Kane, R. & Mallon, M. (2006). Perceptions of Teachers and Teaching. Wellington: Ministry of Education, New Zealand Teachers Council.
Kleinhenz, E. & Ingvarson, L. (2005). Standards for Teaching: Theoretical Underpinnings and Application. Unpublished paper. Wellington: New Zealand Teachers Council.
Ministry of Education. (1997). Performance Management Systems: PMS 1 February, PMS 2 February, PMS 3 May, PMS 4 July, PMS 5 November. Wellington: Author.
Ministry of Education. (1999a). Professional standards: Criteria for quality teaching – Area school teachers and unit holders. Wellington: Author.
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Ministry of Education. (2004). Professional standards for Kindergarten Teachers Wellington: Author.
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New Zealand Council for Educational Research. (2005). Teachers of Promise Project. Newsletter Issue No. 1. October.
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Sinnema, C. (2006). 'Teacher Appraisal: Missed Opportunities for Learning'. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education, The University of Auckland, 2005.
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Timperley, H. Best Evidence Synthesis (in progress). 'Teachers' Professional Learning and Development'. Best Evidence Synthesis. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Vandervoort, L., et al (2004). 'National Board Certified Teachers and Their Students' Achievement', Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol 12 Number 46, September, pp17-19.
www.minedu.govt.nz/goto/bestevidencesynthesis. Accessed April 2006.
Yinger, R. & Hendricks-Lee, M. (2000). 'The Language of Standards and Teacher Education Reform'. Educational Policy, Vol.14, No.1, January and March 2000 pp94-106.
The Council in this policy lists the 'dimensions' of teaching. Satisfactory performance in each of these dimensions (a minimum level of acceptability) is all that the Council requires for its purposes under the Education Act. However learning centres may use these dimensions in a variety of ways to help them reflect the special character of their centre and the standards they desire from teachers.
Any teacher must show that acceptable learning occurs for all learners under their responsibility, within an environment that affirms the bicultural and multicultural nature of New Zealand. This is most likely to happen if the teacher:
- demonstrates knowledge of teaching and learning (including Maori and tauiwi values), based on teacher education programmes and ongoing study, research, reflection and practice; and
- promotes learning through good practice; and
- works by maintaining relationships of trust, co-operation and respect for learners, whanau, parents and colleagues; and
- demonstrates educational leadership relevant to the level of experience or responsibility being carried as a teacher or professional leader.
The dimensions derived from this are generic so they can be applied to teachers in a variety of teaching settings ranging from kura kaupapa schools and immersion classes to private church schools and community learning centres, and at levels in the general education system ranging from early childhood centres to universities and wananga. It is the responsibility of individual learning centres, to specify skills, understandings, behaviours and curriculum knowledge, relevant to the particular teaching position.
Interwoven with the dimensions of teaching in New Zealand is a fundamental requirement for the profession to respond to the increasing drive for quality Maori education. This involves affirmation of te reo me ona tikanga Maori within a holistic learning environment; empowering Maori to participate in the education of their whanau; and providing all Maori with access to quality learning.
The Dimensions of Being a Teacher in New Zealand
Note: Normally a teacher must demonstrate satisfactory achievement of the dimensions through the medium of an official language of New Zealand (Maori or English). There will be some multicultural or language teaching situations where some of the dimensions will be demonstrated in other languages.
This is evident in the planning and preparation that goes into the teaching/learning programme and the willingness and commitment of the teacher to extend knowledge of content and theory throughout his or her career to provide quality activities and programmes.
A satisfactory teacher demonstrates knowledge of:
- Current curricula the subjects being taught and current learning theory.
- The Treaty of Waitangi, te reo and tikanga Maori.
- The characteristics and progress of their students.
- Appropriate teaching objectives.
- Appropriate technology and resources.
- Appropriate learning activities, programmes and assessment.
(* In state schools this will be the N.Z. Curriculum requirements; in early childhood centres -Te Whariki and Desirable Objectives and Practices)
This is demonstrated by the environment for learning established and maintained by the teacher and the actual teaching processes used every day.
The Learning Environment
A satisfactory teacher in practice:
- Creates an environment of respect and understanding.
- Establishes high expectations which value and promote learning,
- Manages student learning processes.
- Manages student behaviour positively.
- Establishes a safe physical and emotional environment.
Teaching
A satisfactory teacher in practice:
- Communicates clearly and accurately in either or both of the official languages of N.Z..
- Uses a range of teaching approaches.
- Engages students in learning.
- Provides feedback to students and assesses learning.
- Demonstrates flexibility and responsiveness.
These are demonstrated by the positive way in which the teacher sees his or her co-operative role in the learning centre, shares information with colleagues, families, whanau and caregivers, and respects the position of trust and confidentiality he or she has.
A satisfactory teacher in developing relationships:
- Reflects on teaching with a view to improvement.
- Maintains accurate records.
- Communicates with families, whanau and caregivers.
- Contributes to the life of the learning centre.
- Maintains confidentiality, trust and respect.
All teachers display leadership in some aspects of their work. The context in which leadership is displayed will vary according to the position. A teacher with senior responsibilities will have developed all the dimensions of being a teacher to high levels and will be respected for his or her educational expertise and innovation.
A satisfactory teacher in showing leadership:
- Demonstrates flexibility and adaptability.
- Focuses on teaching and learning.
- Leads and supports other teachers.
- Displays ethical behaviour and responsibility.
- Recognises and supports diversity among groups and individuals.
- Encourages others and participates in professional development.
- Manages resources safely and effectively.
(* Ethical behaviour may be determined by a specific code covering teachers in the learning centre)
Individual learning centres will establish their own specific standards to determine whether a teacher meets the above dimensions.
1 When referring to the Teachers Council, I am also referring to its predecessor, the Teachers Registration Board (TRB) (1989 – 2001). The Teachers Council took over the operations of the TRB, with expanded responsibilities, in February 2002.
2 It is of interest that elements in the Bush administration in the U.S.A. reflect those same beliefs and advocate minimal qualifications, training and standards setting for teachers. See Vandervoort, L., et al (2004) pp17-19.
3 The Registration Standards (STDs) were included in the Ministry's original set of guidelines for performance management (MoE, 1997, PMS 4 July), which set out the new requirements for renewal of practising certificates and the TRB's newly developed Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions. They were not, however, referred to in the context of "performance appraisal" which was conceived more broadly and, arguably, 'peformatively'. By 1999, when the Ministry had developed their own sets of Professional Standards, the TRB requirements were given minimal importance (see e.g. MoE, 1999c p.6).
4 This 'consensus' was arrived at through a two step consultation with stakeholder organisations and a group nominated by the fledgling Teachers' Council of Aotearoa (Aikin, April, 2006). Personal communication and documents provided in support.
5 This list is largely based on Professor Terry Crooks' presentation to the NZEI quality teaching seminars March 2006: Some Principles for Guiding Student Learning Effectively.
6 It should be noted that specific standards have only been developed for either subjects and/or age levels. Whether one agrees with this enterprise or not, it is not helpful to the debate to suggest, as some have done at this conference, that the development of specific standards means writing different standards for the decile or location of a learning site. Specific standards have been written, e.g. in the USA and Australia, to take into account the particular content pedagogical knowledge required of a teacher. Generic standards, in contrast, refer only broadly to content pedagogical knowledge, on the assumption that this will differ perhaps from year to year for some teachers, according to the teaching context they currently work within.
7 The professional learning community developing amongst schools in the Wainuiomata valley, near Wellington, is just one example of such communities of professional learning developing in New Zealand. It is highlighted in this paper because they presented to an earlier Quality Teaching seminar of which this Conference is a continuing 'chapter'.
8 E.g. submission from a group of educators at the School of Education, University of Waikato, to New Zealand Teachers Council draft Graduating standards for teacher education qualifications that lead to provisional registration as a teacher in Aotearoa/New Zealand, May 2006.
9 In another useful paper, Crooks (2002) outlines six criteria for 'intelligent accountability', one of which warns of "the severe limitations of our ability to capture educational quality in performance indicators".
10 Kleinhenz & Ingvarson (in progress) believe the NBPTS standards in the USA fulfil the nine principles for professional learning set out by Hawley & Valli.
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