Working Towards Proficient Teacher [For My Lifelong Learning Journey]
My Collection - The Various Focus Areas Through Three Domains and Seven Standards for Australian Teachers.
Source: The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership - AITSL
Date accessed: 25 February 2017
Site's address: http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list?c=proficient
Rationale of my collection
For my lifelong learning and working towards proficient teacher accreditation, this collection provides a learning space where my understanding of current teaching standards is stored.
Regarding teaching standards in the Australian schooling context, AITSL (2014) has set various focus areas and clearly indicates that at the proficient level, the teachers are active participants in their profession. They have abilities to create and deliver effective teaching and learning experiences for their students and students' unique backgrounds. The teachers' abilities are to adjust teaching programs to meet the students' individual needs. As such, the designs of effective teaching programs and the development of a comfortable learning environment are required. This quality learning environment and programs approach towards students' collaborative engagement and active participation. Additionally and importantly, to avoid and eliminate the waste of teaching, and improve the quality of both teaching and learning, these mentioned programs need to focus on the contents of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements which are set by the education and standards authorities. Further, for the students' learning first, teachers are asked to quickly response feedback and analyse collective data and relevant information to driving learning results. These results are used to adjust and support students' learning towards the students' academic achievements.
Regarding teaching standards in the Australian schooling context, AITSL (2014) has set various focus areas and clearly indicates that at the proficient level, the teachers are active participants in their profession. They have abilities to create and deliver effective teaching and learning experiences for their students and students' unique backgrounds. The teachers' abilities are to adjust teaching programs to meet the students' individual needs. As such, the designs of effective teaching programs and the development of a comfortable learning environment are required. This quality learning environment and programs approach towards students' collaborative engagement and active participation. Additionally and importantly, to avoid and eliminate the waste of teaching, and improve the quality of both teaching and learning, these mentioned programs need to focus on the contents of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements which are set by the education and standards authorities. Further, for the students' learning first, teachers are asked to quickly response feedback and analyse collective data and relevant information to driving learning results. These results are used to adjust and support students' learning towards the students' academic achievements.
In order to achieve the above requirements, I believe that a deep understanding of the focus areas of the standards for teachers at the proficient level is crucial. In my separate website of "Working Towards Proficient Teacher Accreditation", all details will be illustrated (1).
Mainly, this page is to collect all focus areas set in the Australian Professional Standards for proficient teachers in Australia.
Mainly, this page is to collect all focus areas set in the Australian Professional Standards for proficient teachers in Australia.
My Collection
Proficient Teaching and 37 Various Focus Areas
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers by AITSL
Background
As mentioned, with aims of working towards the requirements of getting Proficient Teacher accreditation, this page collects all the focus areas for the proficient stage applying in the Australian schooling context. As a result, I believe that the collection will become a powerful guide-map providing the various focus areas that a teacher needs to achieve in order to gain full registration at the proficient level. These focus areas are listed in the Australian Teaching Standards for the Proficient stage set by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). The original information of these areas can be viewed on the AITSL’s web page at http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list?c=proficient
Working on and Findings from my Collections
The collected information shows that:
As mentioned, with aims of working towards the requirements of getting Proficient Teacher accreditation, this page collects all the focus areas for the proficient stage applying in the Australian schooling context. As a result, I believe that the collection will become a powerful guide-map providing the various focus areas that a teacher needs to achieve in order to gain full registration at the proficient level. These focus areas are listed in the Australian Teaching Standards for the Proficient stage set by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). The original information of these areas can be viewed on the AITSL’s web page at http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list?c=proficient
Working on and Findings from my Collections
The collected information shows that:
- In the first domain of the Professional Knowledge, for both standards 1 and 2, there are Six different Focus Areas arranging from 1.1 to 1.6, and 2.1 to 2.6 required respectively .
- In the second domain of the Professional Practice, whilst the standard 3 has Seven Focus Areas, the standards 4 and 5 have Five Focus Areas only - they are arranged from 3.1 to 3.7, 4.1 to 4.5 and 5.1 to 5.5 respectively.
- In the third (also the final) domain of the Professional Engagement, both standards 6 and 7 have only Four Focus Areas - they are arranged from 6.1 to 6.4 and 7.1 to 7.4 respectively.
On this blog page, all Various Focus Areas for the Proficient career stage will be labelled with the letter P ( P for Proficient) next to their Focus Areas. The Standards are also identified from the Separation ['dot' .] of the Focus Areas. For example, 1.1P, 1.2P, ..., 2.1P, 2.2P,..., 3.1P, 3.2P,..., etcetera, etcetera. This explanation can be illustrated in an example as below.
The above explanation and Various Focus Areas requiring for the Proficient Teaching are collected and displayed in the matrix1 of 7 standards at Proficient stage and the complex Table 1 as below.
Matrix 1 (where P = 2 - it is the stage 2 in the AITSL Teacher Standards)
7Standards / Proficient stage
|
1P
|
2P
|
3P
|
4P
|
5P
|
6P
|
7P
|
1
|
1.1P
|
1.2P
|
1.3P
|
1.4P
|
1.5P
|
1.6P
|
|
2
|
2.1P
|
2.2P
|
2.3P
|
2.4P
|
2.5P
|
2.6P
|
|
3
|
3.1P
|
3.2P
|
3.3P
|
3.4P
|
3.5P
|
3.6P
|
3.7P
|
4
|
4.1P
|
4.2P
|
4.3P
|
4.4P
|
4.5P
|
||
5
|
5.1P
|
5.2P
|
5.3P
|
5.4P
|
5.5P
|
||
6
|
6.1P
|
6.2P
|
6.3P
|
6.4P
|
|||
7
|
7.1P
|
7.2P
|
7.3P
|
7.4P
|
Table 1 - The Various Focus Areas required at the Proficient level in the Australian schooling context.
In summary, regarding the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, the above table shows that there are 37 Focus Areas in total. They include 12 Focus Areas in the first domain of the Professional Knowledge standards, 17 Focus Areas in the second domain of the Professional Practice standards, and only 8 Focus Areas in the Professional Engagement standards. See Table 2 below.
Table 2-Numbers of various focus areas in the three domains of Australian Teaching Standards for Teachers
| # Focus Areas | % | |
| Domain 1-Professional Knowledge | 12 | 32% |
| Domain 2-Professional Practice | 17 | 46% |
| Domain 3-Professional Engagement | 8 | 22% |
| Total | 37 | 100% |
These figures could be viewed in a Pie chart (see Figure 1) or a Column chart (see Figure 2) below.
Figure 1 - A Pie chart of the numbers of various Focus Areas in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
Figure 2 - A Bar or Column chart of the numbers of various Focus Areas in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
As seen obviously, the above information indicates that the first domain of Professional Knowledge has 12 focus areas - it is the average figure. The second domain of Professional Practice has the highest figure of 17 focus areas. The lowest figure of 8 focus areas belongs to the third domain of Professional Engagement. Therefore, in order to achieve the proficient teacher level, it is necessary to produce, provide and collect a broad range of actual activities and evidence showing all 37 mentioned focus areas at the proficient career stage; particularly, more actual teaching and learning activities focusing on the Professional Practice domain need to be created, practised and collected.
Importantly, in the workforce market - regarding the NSW (New South Wales) schooling context, by law, teaching employees should be aware of 'all teachers must meet the Department’s requirements for employment and approval to teach in order to be employed in NSW government schools' (NSW Department of Education, n.d.).
In addition, a reminder is that teachers working to fully achieve this stage have to follow a set timeframe which is required by NESA (the NSW Education Standards Authority). Within that accreditation timeframe - for the Provisionally Accredited teachers working towards their Proficient Teacher Accreditation, NESA permits 3 years for full-time teachers, and 5 years for casual or part-time teachers (NESA, 2017). Full information of the accreditation timeframe can be viewed on the NESA' web page at http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/teacher-accreditation/proficient-teacher/how-it-works/timeframes
In addition, a reminder is that teachers working to fully achieve this stage have to follow a set timeframe which is required by NESA (the NSW Education Standards Authority). Within that accreditation timeframe - for the Provisionally Accredited teachers working towards their Proficient Teacher Accreditation, NESA permits 3 years for full-time teachers, and 5 years for casual or part-time teachers (NESA, 2017). Full information of the accreditation timeframe can be viewed on the NESA' web page at http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/teacher-accreditation/proficient-teacher/how-it-works/timeframes
In practice, collecting evidence for the accreditation is a first step that I would like to know and understand. Making easier to understand what evidence should be collected, the following gathers a range of documents listing in the Evidence Guide for the Proficient Teacher Standards that are suggested by NESA. These suggested evidence and documents could be selected and chosen by referring to the closed groups that are categorized or classified, such as a)Curriculum planing documents, b)Assessment and evidence of student learning, c)Observations and discussions, d)Feedback received and given, e)Teacher reflections, and f)Collaboration and professional learning, as below.
[Please refer to the NESA's Evidence Guide for the Proficient Teacher Standards pages 7-9]
| a)Curriculum planning documents | b)Assessment and evidence of student learning | c) Observations and discussions | d)Feedback received and given | e)Teacher reflections |
f)Collaboration and professional learning | |||||||
| 1 | § individual learning plans | § student conference outcomes | § supervisor’s notes of lesson observation, with teacher reflection | § student conference outcomes | § analysis and evaluation of teaching and learning plans and/or unit/lesson plans | § team teaching planning | ||||||
| 2 | § term, semester or year curriculum programs | § teacher records of student data | § post-observation meeting and discussion record | § annotated record of feedback given to students | § analysis of effectiveness of assessment tools/strategies | § resource sharing and collaboration records | ||||||
| 3 | § lesson plans/lesson sequences | § assessment plan demonstrating linkages to curriculum | § documented observations of specific teacher practice/requirements | § teacher records of feedback for specific students over time | § audit of the physical classroom environment/classroom layout modification | § collaborative planning and preparation | ||||||
| 4 | § across year level subject planning documents | § assessment schedule | § documentation of observed student classroom behaviours/ expectations | § parent/teacher interview plans and records | § professional reading log and reflection | § participation in assessment moderation activities | ||||||
| 5 | § resources, tasks and activities developed and used | § assessment tools/ tests/ strategies | § observation notes on range of strategies to manage classroom behaviour | § meeting logs | § reflection of student learning and needs | § professional learning plan | ||||||
| 6 | § homework tasks set | § student work samples demonstrating learning over time | § teacher’s notes from observation of a modelled lesson | § notes of formal and informal communication with parents/carers | § professional learning journal | |||||||
| 7 | § use of models of learning to develop teaching and learning programs and activities | § student work samples related to lesson | § documentation of parent/carer feedback | § review and reflection of professional learning undertaken | ||||||||
| 8 | § annotated adjustments of plan for differentiated learning | § documentation of observed student learning | § student survey data | § action research project plans or outcomes | ||||||||
| 9 | § data demonstrating value adding to student(s) learning | § student reflections and feedback | § contribution to professional association activities | |||||||||
| 10 | § student directed learning goals | § presentations prepared and delivered for colleagues | ||||||||||
| 11 | § mapping of student learning | § under graduate and post graduate studies | ||||||||||
| 12 | § involvement in school policy development | |||||||||||
| 13 | § evidence of community contact and involvement |
Please refer directly to the NESA and AITSL sites for the current information.
References
AITSL (2014). Proficient teachers. Retrieved from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/career-stage/proficientNESA (2017). Timeframes. Retrieved from http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/teacher-accreditation/proficient-teacher/how-it-works/timeframes
NSW Department of Education (n.d.). Policy Library: Accreditation at Proficient Teacher in NSW Government Schools Policy. Retrieved from https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/accreditation-at-proficient-teacher-in-nsw-government-schools-policy
Useful & relevant links and resources
Documentary evidence examples Evidence mapping document Classroom Practice Continuum Classroom Observation Strategies: Peer Observation
NESA registered professional development: The three different types of NESA professional development:
1)Teacher identified professional development (TIPD),
2)NESA registered professional development,
3)NESA school-based registered professional development
NSW Government: Professional Learning Evidence mapping document
