UNE > News and Events > Browse by article > UNE helps new teachers 'move into the unknown'

Next New building to be the focus of Indigenous education strategy April 20, 2006  

Previous Passionate graduation address gets standing ovation April 13, 2006 

UNE helps new teachers 'move into the unknown'

April 19, 2006

TomMaxwell.thumb.JPG
A project at The University of New England has shown that online mentoring and peer support can be a lifeline for newly-graduated teachers learning to cope with the realities of the classroom.

"Beginning teachers, when they go into a classroom for the first time with full responsibility, are moving into the unknown," explained the project leader, Associate Professor Tom Maxwell. "This can sometimes be very challenging."

The "Educational Alumni Support Project", funded by a competitive Commonwealth Government grant of more than $29,000, ran through 2005. It allowed UNE teaching graduates, throughout their first year of service, to access a Web site where they could share experiences and tackle problems by "talking" online to each other and UNE mentors. Dr Maxwell and his team have just submitted their final report to the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). It is located on the Internet at:
http://fehps.une.edu.au/Education/EdASP_Final_Rpt.pdf

The participants were UNE graduates of 2004 who took up their first teaching positions at the beginning of 2005. About 50 of them chose to contribute to the online forums, while many more logged on as observers.

Dr Maxwell (pictured here), together with his UNE colleague Howard Smith, applied for the government funding. Once that was granted, other academics from UNE's School of Education joined the team to act as mentors. It was the first time such support had been offered to beginning teachers on so large a scale. Although funding for the one-year project has ended, novice teachers (i.e., those who started work in 2006) and UNE mentors still "talk" to each other via the Web site.

Two discussion forums were established: one for primary and one for secondary teachers. Two-thirds of the active participants were secondary teachers. The report suggests that, among the reasons for this imbalance, could be that there are fewer "team approaches" to teaching - and therefore greater potential for a sense of isolation - among secondary teachers.

"One of our major findings was that Term One is crucial," Dr Maxwell said. "It's the initial crossing of the line into the unknown." (He added, however, that " some of the teachers wanted - or needed - support throughout the year".)

Discussion subjects ranged from immediate problems of behaviour management to more general questions of teaching strategies and curriculum content. "The concerns of the participants tended to change over time," Dr Maxwell said. "At first they centred on behaviour management, but eventually moved more towards aspects of learning and teaching."

Another important finding was that casual teachers, who experience a greater range of problems than most permanent teachers, can need even more support than their permanent colleagues. The report to DEST says that some people beginning work as casual teachers, with "demands varying from day to day and across schools", were "clearly at risk" of leaving the profession.

"Teachers are in short supply," Dr Maxwell said. "Our hope is that people joining the profession will be more likely to remain in it if they can successfully negotiate the first term or two, which can sometimes be most traumatic. At UNE we've shown that, together with the teachers themselves, we can provide an online support network that can help some people through that period."

The report says that most of the participants felt the project had helped them to minimise feelings of "professional isolation", and that several of them believed it had played a significant role in their decision to continue working as teachers.


Click on photograph to enlarge.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at April 19, 2006 10:33 AM