RELACIONES EXTERNAS

Through the completion of a nationally accredited teaching program, it is expected that graduate teachers will be able to demonstrate key knowledge and skills required for teaching in Australian schools (O’Meara, 2011). The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers articulate what teachers should know and be able to do at various career stages, with the aim for enhancing the professionalism and status of teaching in Australia (AITSL, 2011b). Whilst written in general terms, these standards give guidance of expectations of early career teachers. One key expectation is that “graduate teachers have an understanding of their subject/s, curriculum content and teaching strategies” (AITSL, 2011b, p. 5).

Accompanying the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers is the document Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education Programs in Australia, which describes the characteristics of teacher education programs that are necessary for preservice teachers to meet the graduate standards (AITSL, 2011a). In relation to early childhood and primary education, teacher education programs need to prepare preservice teachers for all of the learning areas in the school curriculum in various contexts (AITSL, 2011a). However, the document also establishes the requirements for the science learning area. Initial primary teacher education programs need to contain “at least one-eighth of a year of full-time equivalent study of discipline-specific curriculum and pedagogical studies in science” (AITSL, 2011a, p. 13), equivalent to two science units within an undergraduate education degree and one unit for a two-year graduate entry program. Tertiary providers are able to respond to their own context when organising course structure (AITSL, 2011a). Universities are also able to make the decision to have purely science discipline units or science pedagogy units, or they are able to integrate them (AITSL, 2011a). While this allows universities to cater for the specific needs of their context, this also leads to inconsistencies between states and universities (Treagust, Won, Petersen & Wynne, 2015).

Another necessary element of initial teacher education programs in Australia is practical experience which provide important learning opportunities for preservice teachers by allowing them to connect theory with practice (Onnismaa, Tahkokallio & Kalliala, 2015). In Australia, preservice teachers must be involved in a minimum of 80 days of practical experience for undergraduate degrees, or 60 days for postgraduate programs (AITSL, 2011a). No specific requirement is included within the AITSL document to indicate whether science needs to be taught during practical experiences (Treagust et al., 2015). A report by Rowley, Kos, Raban, Fleer, Cullen & Elliot (2011) emphasised that there is significant variance between tertiary teacher education providers in terms of how practical experience is provided and the length of time of such experiences. There is also a lack of commonality in terms of teaching requirements and how preservice teachers are assessed within these practical experiences (Rowley et al., 2011).

A recent initiative in Australia is for teacher education programs offering early childhood degrees to have their courses approved by Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA). This has implications for the structure of courses, units and practical experience offered within early childhood degrees in Australia. Early childhood initial teacher programs need to include a mix of learning theories, pedagogy, professional studies, practical experiences, cultural studies and curriculum studies, including science (ACECQA, 2013). Again, the structure of early childhood degrees varies considerably across the country. There have been concerns raised about how much early childhood pedagogy and curriculum are embedded within these courses, particularly within learning area units that combine early childhood and primary preservice teachers (Rowley et al., 2011).

Like the AITSL (2011b) requirements, preservice early childhood degrees need to provide 80 days of practical experience, but ACECQA (2013) stipulates that of this experience, 10 days must be with children from birth to age two, a significant number of days allocated to working with children between the ages of two and five, and the remaining with children over age five. In research conducted by Garvis, Lemon, Pendergast and Yim (2013), Australian universities are in their infancy in terms of providing quality practical experience for children from birth to age three. In a recent study, preservice teachers expressed high levels of dissatisfaction with practical experiences with this age group (Rouse, Morrissey & Rahimi, 2012). However, benefits of high quality experiences with this age of students has benefits for preservice early childhood teachers including connecting their knowledge of how young children learn in different environments (Garvis et al., 2013).

In 2014, an Australian report was released that examined features of high quality teacher education programs (Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, 2014). This report highlighted several recommendations including primary teachers specialising in mathematics, science or a language, having structured and integrated practical experiences, and the importance of rigorous induction in schools (Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, 2014). Other key recommendations were the importance of using research-based approaches with preservice teachers, and the balance of teaching content knowledge and pedagogy (Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, 2014).

There are renewed calls for ongoing changes for science in initial education programs. There are calls for universities to train more science specialists for Australian primary schools (Prinsley & Johnston, 2015; Treagust, Won, Petersen & Wynne, 2015). Some universities are creating specialisation pathways for primary preservice teachers in science, which is delivered through collaboration between education and science faculties (Dinham, 2014; Pesina & Carroll, 2014). There have also been calls to ensure that universities employ discipline experts to teach discipline areas and pedagogical experts to teach pedagogy to preservice teachers (Prinsley & Johnston, 2015).

The next sections of this chapter will explore in detail how aspects of teacher education programs can affect the science teaching efficacy beliefs of preservice teachers. These aspects are science education units, science teacher educators and practical experiences.