Review of the ITE requirements and processes

Consultation Document on the Approvals and Monitoring Processes for Initial Teacher Education

Background

1. In 2007 the New Zealand Teachers Council (the Council) developed, through a consultative process with the teaching community, a set of Graduating Teacher Standards (GTS) which are now embedded in the framework for the approval and reapproval of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes. It is expected that all applications for approval or reapproval of programmes will be aligned to the GTS. The GTS are appended to this document.

2. The current Guidelines for the Approval of Teacher Education Programmes were reviewed in 2005. At that time the review did not involve consultation with the full teaching sector.

3. The purpose of the present review, which commenced in 2007, is to establish a process for the approval, continuing approval and monitoring of ITE programmes which is fair, transparent, research informed and sector acceptable. The process needs to take account of the involvement of other quality assurance bodies in the tertiary sector involved with accreditation and approval of ITE programmes, namely:

• CUAP (Committee on University Academic Programmes) for programmes in universities
• NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications Authority) for programmes in Wānanga and Private Training Establishments
• ITPQ (Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics Quality) for programmes in Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics

The Council’s current mandate to approve ITE programmes is outlined in section 139AE of the Education Act 1989. The overall aims of the review are to increase the effectiveness of the approval and monitoring processes and to strengthen the quality of graduates entering the profession.

The present process used by the Council is a peer review panel process. Sector members of the teaching profession are involved in the NZQA and ITPQ panels. The costs of the panel peer review process are met by the ITE provider.

4. The review is also charged with the establishment of a set of requirements for all programmes of ITE, across all sectors, in New Zealand.

5. The review is being carried out in two stages:

As some questions are sector specific, you may decide to only respond to some aspects of this survey.

It is not necessary to write in the comments boxes. Please use these if you wish to clarify your answer.

All responses will be treated as confidential. No publication of data will identify any person or organisation. The information obtained from this survey will be used to guide the Reference Group in the setting of requirements and processes for the approval of ITE programmes. These requirements and processes will be published in early 2010.

Please complete the following contact details:

Is your feedback on behalf of an organisation? (please circle) Yes / No

If yes, please write the name of the organisation here:

How many staff contributed to this survey?

What sector are you currently involved in within the education system?

Please tick all relevant boxes below.

Please outline briefly the nature of your professional involvement working with student teachers.

Please outline briefly the nature of your professional involvement working with recently graduated teachers.

Consultation

Requirements for ITE Programmes

A. Requirements for entry into programmes [STD 1,3,4,6,7]

ITE is the period where a student teacher begins to learn how to teach and how to be a teacher. This may be through a 3 or 4 year bachelor or diploma programme or a 1 year graduate diploma programme. All ITE programmes, which lead to teacher registration, are registered at level 7 on The Register ¹ . Following graduation with a teaching qualification the graduate has a minimum of two years as a provisionally registered teacher involved in a programme of induction and mentoring to advance their professional learning and practice. Upon successful completion of these two years then the teacher is eligible to apply for full registration.

Presently over 92% of all graduates from ITE programmes in Primary and Secondary teacher education are from university programmes. In Early Childhood ITE programmes 52% of all graduates are from university programmes. The entry requirement for those applicants under 20 years of age is University Entrance. http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/for-students/ue/litreqs.html

For your information, there are entry requirements for all applicants into ITE programmes which are set by the Council on Good Character and Fit to be a Teacher. The requirements and policies on these are on the Council website at http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/policy/goodcharacter2007.stm

The Council also has requirements that all applicants are police vetted before gaining a confirmed place in an ITE programme.

Presently the entry levels for all applicants (irrespective of age on entry) for levels of literacy, numeracy and information technology are either:

• linked to level 2 NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) standards, or
• are set by the ITE provider internally, or
• are not set at all

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

Graduate Diploma programmes are offered in ITE for each sector and are for those candidates with a completed first degree. This is usually a subject degree and in the case of Primary and Secondary ITE it has content related to subject/s in the school curriculum. A GPA (Grade Point Average) is calculated by weighting the grades (A to E) for each paper/course in the degree, averaging across them to indicate the academic achievement level of the graduate.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

For international students studying in New Zealand ITE programmes there has been an English language requirement. This has presently been set to be reached upon graduation at 7.0 in each of the four bands (speaking, listening, reading and writing) of the academic version of IELTS (International English Language Testing System). This is an internationally accredited and standardised assessment of the ability to communicate in English for academic purposes.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

14. International students for whom English is an additional language who are required to meet the IELTS English language requirement should be required to do so.

Please select one of the above options.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

B. Selection into programmes [GTS 1,3,4,6,7]

Selection processes should be transparent and rigorous, identifying candidates with a disposition for teaching. They should have the ability to communicate well, to form effective relationships, and be able to sustain working in a robust environment. They should demonstrate a genuine commitment to teaching.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

C. Length of teaching practicum [GTS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

In New Zealand ITE programmes are of varying length:

• Three year diploma programmes for Early Childhood teaching
• Three or four year teaching degree programmes for Early Childhood and Primary teaching
• Four or five year conjoint programmes for all three sectors enabling graduates to complete a teaching degree alongside another subject degree eg. BA, BSc or BCom
• One year Graduate Diploma programmes for all three sectors to enable graduates with a subject degree (eg. BFA /MusB/ LLB/ BA) to teach in one of the three sectors

Practicum is a cornerstone experience in the complex process of learning how to teach. Quality placements provide the contextual experience for the learning which occurs in the campus based component of programmes. This establishes the partnership between the centre/school, the student teacher and the ITE provider in the process of learning how to teach. The student teacher is both formatively and summatively assessed in the practicum component of the ITE programme.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following three statements about current requirements for ITE programmes.

• For one year Graduate Diploma (Early Childhood and Primary) programmes the academic year is now commonly from the last week in January to the first week in December.
• For one year Graduate Diploma (Secondary) programmes the academic year is now commonly from the first week in March to the first week in November.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement. It is a possible addition to the current requirements for ITE programmes.

There are programmes of ITE for Early Childhood teaching which are field or centre-based, which require the student teacher to be in a centre as a volunteer or employee for a number of hours per week and the remainder of the week is for study purposes. These programmes require the student to have practicum weeks in a centre other than the one where they are a volunteer or employee.

Please answer the following question.

In the Kindergarten (FKA), primary and secondary schooling sectors people who do not meet the requirements for teacher registration, may be able to be employed on a Limited Authority to Teach which enables them to be employed in a teaching position. If they are enrolled in an ITE programme they are able to complete some of the practicum requirements in their employed Kindergarten or school.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

The following four statements are possible variations on the current requirements for ITE programmes.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

D. Practicum visiting/assessment [GTS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

The research informs us that there is an important triadic relationship between the student teacher, the staff who teach them in the programme (who have a full understanding of the conceptual framework and aims of the programme) and the associate teacher for the practicum.

When student teachers are on practicum in schools/centres they are currently visited by an ITE academic staff member who mentors and assesses their practice. The focus of the next set of questions is who from the ITE academic staff should carry out these tasks.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

33. Who should do the visiting to students on practicum?

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

Frequency of practicum visiting

When you answer the following questions please define what you mean by a visit (as this will differ across sectors).

(a) My definition of a visit is when

(b) I am in the following sector

34. Visiting for 3 and 4 year programmes (where 1 year of 4 year programmes often does not include a practicum).

What should be the minimum number of total visits?

Please circle your response for each year of the programme

Year 1       more than 5     5   4   3   2   1

Year 2       more than 5     5   4   3   2   1

Year 3     more than 5     5   4   3   2   1

Comments

35. Visiting for 1 year programmes for graduates (where presently there is a minimum requirement for 14 weeks of practicum).

What should be the minimum total number of visits across the academic year of two or three blocks of practicum?

more than 5    5    4    3    2    1

Comments

Please answer the following question.

37. If you answered Yes, then how often should they be visited?

Times

Please insert a number into the box.

It is recognised that the relationship with the practicum provision connecting practice and theory in an ITE programme is a highly valued and significant part of ITE programmes.

The following six statements are about the relationship between the ITE provider, the programme and the school/centre, associate teacher relationship.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with each of the following statements.

44. What other aspects of practicum should the Council set requirements for?

Comments

E. ITE programme design [GTS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

Many ITE programmes are designed around a base structure of 120 point/credits for a full time year of study (making a total of 360/480 in 3 and 4 year programmes). Papers/courses of 15 – 20 credits/points maximum are spread across the academic year, often within strands dependent upon their focus.

• Education papers/courses are about aspects of Education and learning eg human development, learning theories, research methodologies, diversity, research findings and applications. This is the body of knowledge that underpins the other components of the programme.
• Curriculum papers/courses are where student teachers learn how to plan, teach and assess particular subjects in the curriculum (pedagogy).
• Professional Studies papers/courses are where student teachers learn about the behaviours expected of them as members of the teaching profession eg effective learning and behaviour management of learners individually/ in groups /whole classes, and appropriate teacher behaviours. This is where student teachers learn how to apply learning and teaching theory.
• Practicum is a cornerstone experience in the complex process of learning how to teach. Quality placements provide the contextual experience for the learning which occurs in the campus based/on-line component of programmes. Here students learn how to establish and manage effective learning environments.

45. What do you consider appropriate for the points/ credits distribution across each of these strands in 1, 3 and 4 year programmes?

Please write the points/credits for each strand into the boxes of each table.

Early Childhood programmes

Comments

Primary programmes

Comments

Secondary programmes

Comments

The next two questions are about pedagogical requirements for programmes (ie. how ITE is taught).

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

47. If you agree with question 46 how would you see this delivered?

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

The following five questions are about programmes which are taught substantially by distance and mainly ‘on-line’.

49. What is your experience of teaching in an on-line programme?

Please answer the following question.

51. If there was a compulsory face to face component for learning over each academic year of the programme, how long should it be? Please select one option below.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

53. What would you suggest could be done to strengthen the relationship between the lecturer and the student teachers studying on-line?

Comments

Approval of ITE Programmes

Approval and monitoring processes

The quality assurance processes for ITE have involved the use of peer review panels for the purposes of approval. Annual monitoring and moderation cycles with reporting to the quality assurance body is done annually through a report from an external peer review monitor following a visit to the institution and the programme staff, associate teachers, students and recent graduates.

Every five years there has been a peer review panel for the reapproval of a programme.

 The Council approves programmes of ITE for non-university providers in conjunction with either NZQA or ITPQ (the quality assurance body for the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics) through a joint approval panel process. For university providers there is no representative of the quality assurance body (CUAP) represented on the Council approval panel.

In the tertiary sector the quality assurance processes are moving to a focus on outputs (the quality of the graduates and how ‘fit for purpose’ they are), self- review and self-improvement.

Presently there are requirements for representatives from the teaching sector (teachers/ professional leaders) to be members of panels which are held jointly by the Council with NZQA and ITPQ (for providers from the non-university sector).

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

Presently ITE providers nominate ITE academic peer representatives for panel membership. In the non-university sector this must include ITE academic educator peers from universities; in addition there are also ITE academic educators from other non-university institutions on the panel.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

To align the work of the Council with the shift in focus to a system involving self-review and self-reporting there has been the suggestion that we need more self-reporting by the ITE providers to the Council with a particular focus on self-review and self-improvement. There are two proposed models for the future for such a process.

Comments

57. If, as in Proposal B, there was a reduced panel review (of say three members) to maintain continuing approval, how frequently would this need to occur?

Comments

Presently monitoring of programmes by an ITE peer reviewer (the external monitor) occurs annually.

58. What role do you think external monitors should play in the quality assurance process?

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

60. For ITE programmes which have held approval for at least three years, programme monitoring should occur every

A focus of both of the proposed models A and B is that ITE providers will self-report and self-review annually. This would include reporting on the ‘fit for purpose’ graduate outcomes, as viewed by the graduates themselves and their employers, sometime in the graduate’s first two years of teaching.

Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statement.

63. If you have any additional comment/s to make regarding ITE or related issues please write your comments here.

Further work will be done to manage the transition for existing approved ITE programmes as the new requirements and processes are established.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey on ITE requirements and processes for approval of programmes for the NZ Teachers Council. We appreciate your feedback.

Please return this survey by emailing it to zenetta.ganic@teacherscouncil.govt.nz

Or post it to

Zenetta Ganic
New Zealand Teachers Council
Te Pouherenga Kaiako o Aotearoa
PO Box 5326
Wellington 6145 

Or fax it to Zenetta Ganic

Appendix 1

Professional Knowledge

Standard One: Graduating Teachers know what to teach

a. have content knowledge appropriate to the learners and learning areas of their programme.

Standard Two: Graduating Teachers know about learners and how they learn

a. have knowledge of a range of relevant theories and research about pedagogy, human development and learning.

Standard Three: Graduating Teachers understand how contextual factors influence teaching and learning

a. have an understanding of the complex influences that personal, social, and cultural factors may have on teachers and learners.

Professional Practice

Standard Four: Graduating Teachers use professional knowledge to plan for a safe, high quality teaching and learning environment

a. draw upon content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge when planning, teaching and evaluating.

Standard Five: Graduating Teachers use evidence to promote learning

a. systematically and critically engage with evidence to reflect on and refine their practice.

Professional Values & Relationships

Standard Six: Graduating Teachers develop positive relationships with learners and the members of learning communities

a. recognise how differing values and beliefs may impact on learners and their learning.

Standard Seven: Graduating Teachers are committed members of the profession

a. uphold the New Zealand Teachers Council Code of Ethics/Ngā Tikanga Matatika.

1 New Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications

---

About Us || Registration || Conduct & Competence || Teacher Education || Non Teacher Police Vetting || Policy
Communication || Home || Accessibility