Mr John Joseph, Director, Focus Education

Written Submission Parliamentary inquiry into effective strategies for teacher professional learning Prepared By: Mr. John Joseph M.Ed. Focus Education Australia June 2008 Log on at: www.focuseducation.com.au Parliamentary inquiry into effective strategies for teacher professional learning John Joseph June 2008 Page 1 1: DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK UNDERTAKEN BY JOHN JOSEPH Focus Education provides a professional learning consultancy service for educators across Australia and internationally. Director of Focus Education, Mr. John Joseph is an experienced classroom practitioner, Project Offer with the education department in South Australia, university lecturer in teacher-education and provider of conferences, seminars, workshops and on-line learning methodologies for practicing educators. His prime focus lies in the field of recent brain research and educational practices congruent with this. The mission of Focus Education is to provide the most current information and quality advice possible, to educators and educational administrators, at the most competitive rate achievable. In eleven years of operating, Mr Joseph has presented over 1,400 full days of Professional Learning to over 300,000 educators representing more than 3,500 schools across 18 countries. Additionally, he has provided full day workshops to more than 200,000 students. His websites attract over 1 million visitors and downloads annually. He has written 6 books, published 3 CD Roms, 6 DVDs and published over 100 articles. Mr Joseph has presented over 50 international conference keynote addresses and works in schools across the globe as a visiting scholar, provider of professional learning services for staff, workshops for students and seminars for parents. He has also presented to all of Australia’s Supreme Court and Federal Court Judges on education issues and works regularly with health professionals, corporate organisations, public entities and community groups. Services provided for the education industry by Focus Education include: • Face-to-face keynote and conference addresses • Follow-up longitudinal professional learning initiatives for school staffs • Tailor-made teacher resources for implementation of professional learning initiatives within classrooms • Train-the-trainer programs for individual or cluster sites • On-line professional learning hosted through The Learning Place (Education Queensland) • Video-conferencing • PowerPoint, CDRom or DVD based self-directed professional learning packages • Travelling Scholar Programs (ACEL, NSW Department of Education) • Workshops and seminars for students (all age groups from pre-school to senior secondary) • Seminars for parent groups • Subscription articles for dissemination across staff, student and parent stakeholders Focus Education receives approximately 700 requests for educational services each school year. Mr Joseph is able to service about one-third of these requests and is currently training individuals to use his Intellectual Property and proprietary images and methodologies to supply the demand. Focus Education can provide written referee statements, testimonials and a full outline of the range of services provided to clients (relevant to this submission). Parliamentary inquiry into effective strategies for teacher professional learning John Joseph June 2008 Page 2 2: Which factors will support high quality professional learning for teachers, including learning methods and environments for the development of professional knowledge, and the pedagogy relevant to professional development of teachers 1. clarify the difference between a speaker and a provider of professional development for teachers A speaker is typically contracted to provide an interesting, challenging perspective on issues related to education. Good speakers tend to command high fees and rarely have any accountability to the school(s) or organisation(s) beyond the initial presentation. Delegates are often left enthused but without enough input and processing time to consider the implications of what the speaker addressed. Speakers are often approached for their delivery style or their fame rather than their substance and capacity to inspire teacher learning. A provider of professional development is typically contracted to work with leadership teams in education institutions to develop models and frameworks for consideration and implementation over an extended period. Such projects are usually constructed within the frameworks of the organisation’s needs and the provider’s capacity. Regular audits and modifications are often made within such frameworks. 2. which is better: speaker or provider of professional development? Given that many educators are somewhat cynical of professional learning, the speaker can provide the impetus for teaching staff to want to know more. If the speaker has the substance and style to provide professional learning as well as a motivational and professionally relevant address, then the combination of both is vastly better than either on their own. Unfortunately, many speakers are unable or unwilling to provide sustained, relevant professional development with schools because they lack experience in current classroom environments, they are unwilling to lead by example by using actual classrooms to demonstrate their ideas, or they are more interested in plugging their publications for sale than in demonstrating how their publications could contribute to anticipated outcomes. 3. should teacher professional development be tailored to individual teachers? Yes, although teachers tend to be classified and receive remuneration based on years of experience, vast differences in enthusiasm (willingness) and competencies (knowingness) occur across the spectrum and all education systems seem to carry underperforming teachers. The current professional development environment tends to provide en-masse with a one size fits all approach. The strength of this approach is efficiency. The weakness is that some teachers are unable or unwilling to engage in professional learning that shifts their practise. 4. what evidence supports that claim? During 1996 and 1997 my role was Project officer, Retraining with the Department for Education and Children’s Services (DECS) in South Australia. The Project was a one-person role nestled with the Human Resources group of DECS. Part of my role involved providing professional development to the following groups: • Teachers returning to the workforce after extended absence, such as child raising • Teachers returning to the classroom after extended secondments • Teachers returning to active classroom duty after stress leave • Teachers moving to more complex sites on transfer processes • Underperforming teachers, according to our criteria charts • Teachers from overseas or interstate who required significant induction • Beginning teachers • Underperforming leaders in schools Parliamentary inquiry into effective strategies for teacher professional learning John Joseph June 2008 Page 3 My budget line provided approximately eight teacher release days at each school for each person in the above categories. This enabled teacher release for tailored programs. An independent audit by Ernst and Young demonstrated significant cost savings to DECS through this proactive approach. Stress claims against DECS dropped and wellbeing amongst the participants reportedly increased. A second significant role undertaken through the Retraining Project was for the Project Officer to work at all three South Australian teacher training universities to identify and coach graduates to help staff rural, remote or other difficult to staff schools. Students undertook a credited subject during their final semester at university. Titled, Teaching in Rural and Remote Communities and written by myself, it was a practical subject where groups of identified student teachers undertook an additional non-graded practicum for two weeks in a school such as Coober Pedy, Roxby Downs, Port Lincoln, Port Augusta, Ceduna… During their visit (I drove the bus as well!), I provided professional learning for the student teachers, professional learning for staff at the rural and remote sites, parent seminars and demonstration lessons with children. Student teachers who demonstrated enthusiasm and competency, and who met the expectations of the school communities for the sites they visited were offered permanent placements pending the successful completion of their pre-service course. This significant project enabled DECS to staff numerous difficult sites and provided unparalleled face-to- face professional development for teachers who due to location were often unable to access quality learning for themselves. The beginning teachers had already received induction to their new placements, were confident in the capacity to teach in such locations and received the equivalent of several weeks of high quality professional development before they even began teaching. Many of these graduates still teach in the communities they visited as student teachers and some have won principal positions. Testimony to the success of the Project is that is still operates today, ten years on. 5. how might providers differentiate professional development for teachers? As well as the targeted groups for the Teacher Retraining Project, my work in teacher training as a departmental employee and as a private provider enabled me to categorise teachers according to two main criteria: 1. the degree of willingness that teachers have for their work 2. the degree

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