Students completing their studies from one of the nation’s leading teacher education programs, CQU’s Bachelor of Learning Management, participated in a Day of Celebration at Rockhampton's Riverside Park this week.

The students celebrated the completion of their degrees with a sausage sizzle, speeches and presentations.

A national study has reported that these new-style ‘learning managers’ graduating from CQU are well prepared to meet the demands of first-year teaching when compared to graduates of more traditional education degrees.

The Federal Government has just approved the release of an evaluation of the Bachelor of Learning Management at CQU (including Rockhampton Campus), prepared for the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

ACER reports that teachers from the BLM reported greater levels of preparedness across almost all areas of teaching compared with graduates from other programs.

“The BLM course appeared to provide them with a strong capability to teach, with good knowledge of curriculum content and pedagogy,” ACER said.

ACER reports that the BLM course gave student teachers greater opportunities to learn content, to see how students learned the content, to see models of expert teachers, to learn how to assess student progress, and to receive feedback: “They had greater opportunities to develop clear links between theoretical and practical aspects of the course and to receive quality supervision. Their tutors and lecturers were more likely to have had recent school experience,” ACER reports.

Photo above: Carmel Roberts and Krystal Sainsbury celebrated the culmination of their Bachelol of Learning Management studies at a ceremony in Rockhampton this week.

Photo left: Nathan Doyle and Marc McGrath get excited about the prospects of achieving their career goals as teachers.