The MTeach - So Far In The Journey

I am finishing up my first semester of the Master of Teaching course at the University of Melbourne and what an experience it has been!

I have undertaken subjects such as Social and Professional Contexts - which examines the social aspects of teaching, and has covered topics such as indigenous education, the inclusive classroom, sexuality, gender, exploring disadvantage, culturally diverse classrooms, wellbeing and bullying, and post-compulsory pathways. It has been such a fantastic subject, and what I love about the MTeach course is how we are expected to be active with our learning. It is all very experiential and centres heavily around Paulo Freire’s “praxis” - ie. the process of active and continuous reflection governed by theory

I have just recently completed my Clinical Praxis Exam (CPE), which was a presentation detailing my experiences on placement, in which I applied pedagogical theories to my teaching methodologies in order to address the learning needs of a focus student. I found the whole experience unbelievably beneficial. This course has really turned us all (the teacher candidates) into pedagogical geeks! We walk around casually slipping terms like “disequilibrium”, “scaffolding” and “MKO’s” into our everyday lingo, and trust me, it’s hard to switch off when you get home. However within the four walls of a classroom, having so much knowledge and theory as a foundation is invaluable. A strong pedagogical framework, from which to draw upon, shape and alter depending on the unique context and culture of my class - and then to watch it begin to take shape and to yield results - there’s really nothing like it.

My favourite subject (did I mention I was a bit of a geek?) has been Learners, Teachers and Pedagogy - “the teaching subject” where we have been exploring a range of learning theories and concepts such as, Behaviourism, Developmentalism, Social Constructivism, Experiential Learning, Visible Learning, Connectavism, Critical Pedagogy and Cognitive Theories.

My favourites have been Social Constructivism (Vygotsky), Experiential Learning (Dewey & Kolb), Visible Learning (we had the man John Hattie himself come in and give us a controversial lecture), oh, and of course Connectavism which is the not yet learning theory around digital natives and the involvement and integration of technology and students’ “e-lives” into the learning space.

Other subjects have been Language and Teaching, which focuses solely on literacy in the classroom - and I don’t mean just reading and writing, but all multi-modal text types. This again is a subject based on Constructivist approaches (such as Scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development), however it also takes into account the role of the teacher to scaffold students through various roles of code breaking, meaning making, building knowledge and transformation. For me, the most interesting and beneficial aspect of this subject has been the study of oral language - it’s various components, techniques and how we apply them as educators in the classroom. We had an assignment in which we recorded our oral interactions with a group of students and then did a close analysis of our language - it was just fascinating, especially when taking into account all the theory on gender and language around (for example).

Last but not least has been the placement subject itself, in which I have spent six weeks at Melbourne Girls College in Richmond putting theory into practice. The forming of relationships with students and teachers, and finally having the competency and autonomy to take on a teacher workload and creating and designing lessons and assessment tasks has really been a second to none experience.  I found the staff and students at MGC lovely - the school itself is progressive, (there is a copy of Hattie’s, Visible Learning in the staffroom) and teachers peer assess and have a range of PD’s on things we cover in university such as Differentiation. Seeing high schools pairing up with universities and acknowledging/taking onboard new educational research as it arises is really awesome. It reminds me of the schooling system in Finland.

The Master of Teaching at Melbourne has been ranked number 2 in the world in the discipline of education in the QS World Ranking by Subjects 2014 and it’s easy to see why.

There has been nothing better for me than getting up each day and learning from such incredible and knowledgeable people. The experience has been very unexpectedly humbling. To my surprise, my lecturers and teachers weren’t all aging, academic snobs, yet experienced, caring, and realistic educators, most of whom started out and are still teaching and participating/running programs in low SES, culturally diverse and rural schools. Growing up myself in Melbourne’s Western Suburbs, I have a personal affiliation with the underfunded, slightly rough around the edges type schools. Exploring education is thrilling and endless, what a world I have stepped into!

I read this article in The Guardian today about critical pedagogy, that although set in England, it makes some very valid points that can be directly translated to an Australian context (especially as education begins to head down this economic route as prescribed by our current government).

Many lines struck out to, but what I really want to end on is this description of critical pedagogy which draws on the likes of Freire, Giroux, McLaren, Focault, and Simon. It reads:

“Critical pedagogy isn't a prescriptive set of practices – it's a continuous moral project that enables young people to develop a social awareness of freedom. This pedagogy connects classroom learning with the experiences, histories and resources that every student brings to their school. It allows students to understand that with knowledge comes power; the power that can enable young people to do something differently in their moment in time and take positive and constructive action.”