Australian professional standards for teachers
This section provides advice of how teachers are able to link their teaching of the Asia priority in English and History to the Australian standards. An example is given of a teacher who is at the lead standard reflecting on her teaching of the Asia priority in English to enable teachers to reflect on their own practice.
The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers is comprised of seven Standards which outline what teachers should know and be able to do. The standards are interconnected, interdependent and overlapping.
The focus areas and descriptors identify the components of quality teaching at each career stage. They constitute agreed characteristics of the complex process of teaching. An effective teacher is able to integrate and apply knowledge, practice and professional engagement as outlined in the descriptors to create teaching environments in which learning is valued.
Read the interview with Fiona (DOC 306KB) who provides evidence to support her descriptor as a lead teacher in the area of Asia literacy in English. In the interview Fiona discusses teaching Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress, Wabi Sabi, and demonstrates how teachers can plot themselves on the continuum of the Australian professional standards for teachers through Asia literacy.
Task 1: Linking teaching about Asia to the Australian professional standards for teachers
After reading Fiona's story, interview a colleague using the descriptors in one of the standards below. Ideally, this activity should be completed with a colleague or a mentor, but individual teachers can complete it as well.
Professional knowledge: know the content and how to teach it – standards 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.5
Professional practice: plan for and implement effective teaching and learning – standards 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4
Professional engagement: engage in professional learning – Standard 6
Task 2: Evaluating integration of Asia using the national professional standards for teachers
The Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders: A Shared Responsibility states that professional learning is collaborative and that collaboration 'has a powerful effect in magnifying and spreading the benefits of professional learning dimension to the learning undertaken by individuals'.
As an English–History faculty focus on one of the Standards, for example, Professional knowledge standard 2.1: Know the content and how to teach it – Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area.
- Audit the faculty's knowledge, skills and actions it has undertaken to introduce Asia content in English-History.