An edited version of the letter below was published in The Australian on Thursday 8 September 2016. It had been submitted in response to an opinion piece by Jennifer Buckingham in the previous day's edition.
The paper used the heading "Teaching directions" and edited the submitted version by deleting the underlined words and adding those shown in brackets.
Explicit instruction in teacher preparation
Jennifer Buckingham implies that explicit instruction is not taught in education faculties in Australia's universities ("The case for education based on what works", 7 Sep).
She (Dr Buckingham) doesn't explain what data she bases this generalization on, but it doesn't gel with my recent lived experience. I am a retired high school English teacher and department head who now works part-time as a sessional tutor in the School of Education at The University of Queensland (University).
Explicit teaching/instruction is certainly stressed in the courses for prospective secondary English teachers in which I have taught for the last (past) few years. I also appreciate the potential of inquiry learning in appropriate situations, but have never been given any direction that it has to be favoured.
Garry Collins
Tags:Teacher education |
Understanding ShakespeareRob Pensalfini will present this workshop via zoom on Saturday 15 October from 9am till 11 am. For further information download the flyer . Details for joining the zoom meeting will be sent on Wednesday 12 October. As this message will be sent to the email address in the registration it is important that you use your own address, rath... | |||||||||||||||
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Early Career Conference 2022: Writing our future?Writing our future? - a conference presented by and for early career teachers on Saturday 22 October at Wynnum SHS (tbc) | ||||||||||||
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External Examination PreparationRegistration Scroll down to register - but please do read this information Schools should register each teacher who will be using the materials. Acting on feedback from last year, we will be making the materials available earlier this year. We will be running the External Examination Preparation as one package with more fl... | ||||||||||||||||||
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Writing our future in Essential English 2022Writing our future in Essential English - a community of practice especially for teachers of Essential English on Saturday 5 November. | ||||||||||||
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Indigenous Perspectives in the Junior CurriculumAfter a work program review Town High explored ways to better embed indigenous perspectives in the year 7 program through a novella study of Black Cockatoo. The unit became our first taste of analytical essay writing in year 7, in preparation for subsequent years. We found greater engagement from students across the board. ... | |||||||||||||||
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This is the first time I have been to an ETAQ conference and it was really sensational to get so much at all of the sessions.
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