A national study has reported that new-style ‘learning managers’ graduating from Central Queensland University 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, 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.

“They were more confident that other graduates in identifying and building on students’ existing levels of understanding and planning and assessing learning activities.

“These professional capabilities appeared to provide BLM graduates with a strong basis for meeting the immediate demands of teaching, the development of pedagogical skill, and the confidence to work collaboratively with colleagues and parents”.

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.

In welcoming release of the ACER report, CQU Dean of Education & Creative Arts Professor Richard Smith said the BLM was strongly focused on instructional skills that research shows produce learning outcomes. It was planned and implemented from the ground up using a strong ‘partnership’ approach. He said it continued to be a collective effort between CQU and the employer schools in each region.

“The BLM was developed by a committee of school teachers, university staff, union members and so on where the academics were outnumbered by people out of the profession... the essential thing is that the partners were in from the moment of conception and helped develop the model and the procedures for implementation,” Professor Smith said.

“We have moved from what in our previous Bachelor of Education was acquisition of knowledge for later application. We say that we have shifted from illumination – learning the knowledge – to ‘performativity’. Our students must be able to demonstrate in real-life settings the conceptual knowledge that they learn on campus.” ENDS For details call Professor Richard Smith on 0417 708 597 or r.smith@cqu.edu.au