Postgraduate Education on-demand videos

Passionate About a Career in Education? video transcript

Okay if you can all just sit up straight please. I've just got to see if I've still got it and the answer is probably not. Welcome everyone, how you all doing and welcome to everyone online as well.

I'm really excited to say to see so many of you and to welcome you to our postgraduate showcase about becoming a teacher either in primary or secondary education. My name's Keith and I'm going to be your MC for the evening and I'll introduce myself in just a little bit and I'm the course coordinator for the Master of Teaching in Secondary Education but if you're interested in primary we're going to talk about that as well. One of the reasons that I became an academic was because I didn't have to wear a suit and tie to work every day and my colleagues have kind of outdressed me so please yeah overlook that.

Before we start what I'd like to do is acknowledge the First Nations peoples of Australia including elders both past, present as well as emerging leaders and I'd extend that respect to the traditional custodians of the land from which we're hosting this event today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I've come this morning from the Darug lands on the banks of the Derebin River. We acknowledge the enduring connection to this land which has always been and always will be Aboriginal land.

So why are you here? Why teaching? Well hopefully over the next little bit we're going to answer some of those questions and to do that you're going to hear from industry experts who are going to share their insights into careers and opportunities that only come from teaching. I think you're going to be inspired by alumni success stories, you're going to discover exciting project opportunities with experts and you're going to learn about our flexible program options and ultimately you'll get answers to the questions that you want to ask all of which will make this package a compelling reason to study education at UTS. So let me introduce you to some of our guests.

So the first person I'd like to introduce you to is Denise Lofts. Denise is a highly respected leader in education with a remarkable career as a visual and creative arts teacher and a school principal. She currently serves as the president of the New South Wales Secondary Principal Council and as the principal of Ulladulla High School, it's a tough life I tell you, where she has a profound influence on the New South Wales public education system.

Denise's work focuses on enhancing the quality and reputation of public education both nationally and internationally. She's known for a dedicated and compassionate style of leadership and is committed to supporting and inspiring school principals. When Denise gets up and shares her insights with you, she's going to talk about her approach to nurturing the next generation of educators, highlighting the crucial role of their well-being and professional development and achieving success in schools.

Please put your hands together to welcome Denise and I'll invite her up to the lectern in just a moment. My next colleague is Dr Don Carter. Don is an associate professor in the School of International Studies and Education here at UTS.

He has extensive experience as an English teacher, a department head, an ESL consultant in southwestern Sydney. He's also served as an English inspector at the New South Wales Educational Standards Authority. His leadership has influenced the English curriculum in New South Wales schools including the development of the current English K-10 syllabus and the creation of the HSE English Studies course for years 11 and 12 students.

I think I've actually taught that course. You might also know Don as one of the co-hosts of the Talking Teachers podcast which is available on all good platforms. Please put your hands together to welcome Don.

Our final colleague is John Bartlett. John Bartlett brings over 20 years of experience in energy and sustainability procurement, consulting, trading and market analysis. After pursuing a career change he became an alumnus of our program and recently has been working as a secondary teacher of business studies and HSE at Morris Catholic College North Shore.

Just a few short months ago I was teaching John in his final subjects and now he's out there as a fully-fledged teacher telling me all kinds of stories about what he's getting up to. John's going to share his unique insights on the student experience and offer guidance to current and future students on their career paths and I think if you want to find out what the program here at UTS is really like, John's the person to talk to. And for me, well I'm the acting director for the Centre for Research on Education in the Digital Society, I'm an Apple Distinguished Educator, I'm a Google Certified Innovator, I'm a Tableau Ambassador, basically if there's a badge out there I've gone and got it.

But I used to be a high school teacher. I taught history, I taught English and I taught whatever else they asked me to teach. I've held leadership positions in government and non-government schools in England and in Australia and currently as I said before I'm the coordinator for the Master of Teaching in Secondary Education at UTS.

So with our introductions complete I am now going to pass the floor over to Denise and we look forward to hearing her overview of the teaching profession in the current landscape, including the required skills to become a teacher in New South Wales. Okay, can you hear me okay? I'm not quite. I too would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people.

60,000 years, this is, was and will always be a First Nations land. I come to you, I live on Murramurrung land of the Yuin Nation on the south coast of a place called Ulladulla. I'm currently the substantive principal of Ulladulla but currently I'm taking on a role as the president of the New South Wales Secondary Principals Council with membership, that's all the public school secondary principals that I look after and make sure that they're getting on with their job.

So I'd like to clarify that I haven't actually, I might have said that I was Dr Denise Loft so I'm actually not. I'm actually hoping to submit my thesis this time next year and I'm actually researching philanthropy and what it should do to improve equity in rural schools. So I've interviewed a whole lot of philanthropists and I've interviewed school leaders so I look forward to finishing that just to say.

So I'm just a learner and that's what every person who works in schools, we're just learners and I just want to kind of bring you into that realm. So I've built my school around the philosophy if you don't feed the teachers they eat the students. So the most important people in my school are my teachers and you know I will talk about also the fact that principal work and how we tell the story and how we lead.

We're the biggest group of secondary principals in the southern hemisphere that are collectively and we do tell our story about the complexity of our work and that's something that you know I will kind of talk to more and it's our stories that we tell. We want young people to be able to read and not because it improves our PISA results but the research tells us then when young people read it builds their empathy and when they read they show a greater sense of understanding other people and as you know you know it seems to be that there is a divisive element out in our you know social media but if you read stories about people then you start to show empathy and I'm kind of getting this going to move toward we want young people so that they have a voice, they can tell stories, they can advocate for a better life. They're the most valuable resource we have.

That's the fiscal answer to where we're up to. We've in secondary schools we've banned mobile phones because we want to influence a generation. So this is where the future of where you as teachers come into the story.

As it's graduation time if you would have might not have noticed and it was quite strange this afternoon as I wandered through the buildings of UTS. Literally one building connects to each other and there's this feeling in the air that graduation's on. With a university as large as this it's quite inspiring.

I was not I didn't know who's graduating but the feeling is the same the camera crews they're lined up there's the photography booths, the graduation merchandise, the briefings, the overhead big screens beaming in the keynote speakers, the deans, the professors and of course the graduating class. The opportunity to graduate what a great thing that is. This is probably only probably one of two or three ceremonies that have happened today.

It's a big deal. Education is a big deal in general. I remember clearly my undergraduate graduation at Newcastle University.

My post-grad was here. I did my master's here at UTS and only quite recently I remember giving the occasional speech to a graduating group of communication and education students. It was in that preparation for that speech that I read back over when I was preparing for today and I led with the heading teachers and school leaders indeed shape the future the hearts and minds of our tomorrow.

So I began to reflect on the incredible educational thinkers such as you know Sir Ken Robinson who challenged us to think differently about education. Professor Yong Zhao who encapsulates the entrepreneurial spirit. Parsi Solberg who would you know who you know who talks about equity and that resonates with me and and to many incredible colleagues and progressive universities like UTS that shape tomorrow.

I told I told the story of one of my students and I'll tell the story says hi miss thank you so much for your support. Jade, Lachlan and I really appreciate it. This is on an email.

This was the end of an email chain from my school captain at the time an incredible young aboriginal woman telling me that I could listen to her speech online given to council about the rescission motion for climate change. Letters to be sent from the council to Parliament House Canberra and how she was representing the youth of the Shoal Haven along with two other students from Ulladulla High School. She said oh do you mind if I wear my school uniform? I said knock yourself out that's great.

The speech was on the back of a change the conversation on climate change at UHS that we'd had just before during a lunch time when student other students were missing school our students clearly articulated their stand not by missing school rather to ensure the focus was clearly on the issues not on the point of missing school. This clear succinct mindful deliberate protest by the students could not be ignored. This type of agency is mirrored across many young people in our schools.

Student agency I believe will continue to be a big influence in the way we do business at school. So we never stop learning and that's you know you join the profession. Classrooms are places where you have the opportunity to not only provide for students to find themselves but it is a place where where teachers actually find themselves as well.

In 1988 that was my first year of teaching. If you wanted a teaching position pretty much pretty much what you had to say times have changed. I had to say I'll go anywhere in the state if you wanted a teaching job with the New South Wales Department of Education who I've served now for 38 years and it makes me sound old but then I really wanted to go rural.

I thought oh you know I was born at Bathurst I'd love to go to the country. So instead I wasn't placed in the country I was placed at Cambridge Park High School. At the time was the biggest school in Western Sydney, a diverse community and off I went with loads of enthusiasm.

I was visual arts was my background. However I knew that it wasn't always about visual arts it was about building the hearts and minds of young people and connecting with them. I've been a teacher, I've been a head teacher, a deputy principal and a principal and now the president of the Secondary Principals Council.

I had no idea that this is where I would end up and the profession has given me such a great career and now I advocate for my colleagues and their students in their schools. Yesterday I'm not sure whether you read the news this is all interesting news for people who want to become teachers. So the Teachers Federation New South Wales signed a three-year agreement with the New South Wales Department of Education which is a history making on the back of the history making deal last year.

Particularly to graduates is it makes us the best paid in Australia and we're aligning with other professionals. However what was really significant about yesterday, so it marked a culture shift towards teaching. So you know you might have people out there telling you don't become a teacher, what are you thinking? We are a gendered profession but yesterday marked the recognition of that and the focus was on flexibility, it was on the idea of part-time, it was about encouraging older teachers to stay around to help the next generation of teachers and I was pretty excited by this.

I was excited that our profession was getting kind of the backing that we need to serve our young people and public education is my at my at the heart. It's a huge system which serves 2,200 diverse schools who educate the bulk of students in New South Wales. We're a vibrant inclusive system and remembering that teaching is about building people that you can take and once you know how to once you become a teacher you take it across the globe.

Many of my teachers have taught in all different places around the world. So I guess what I'm going to finish off with and I could talk underwater basically, principals can but you're you know if you see this as your future you're joining the future teachers club. It's what you know what it means to be a teacher and become a teacher and you know it I can answer any of your questions but it shows that you believe in young people and you believe in the future you know you and you're not really chasing the big money but you're you're really going to live a life of purpose and for me after 38 years in public education every time I walk back into the school after being at principal meetings because previously I was the deputy president and I would be at a meeting but I would still be the principal and I would walk back into the school and I was very much energised by by my students you know they are the future and you know they are hopeful they have dreams and they have so much potential and and and all the teachers in the system believe in their future as well so and it's kind of the purpose of what I do and what I get up and and you know like I said you know we don't we don't make a million dollars but we certainly do make a difference and the work that we do really does matter um so I hope that I welcome you into the future the the the future teachers club all right thank you very much.

Thanks very much Denise I really like the line as a teacher you live a life of purpose that's excellent and it's true and I guess you're here now because you want to get some more insights into the teaching profession and hopefully come to UTS. I want to talk to you about the primary degree this is a brand new degree and we are very excited about it we have a great reputation in teacher education at UTS particularly in the primary sphere and we believe that this degree will strengthen our reputation and we actually have a double vertical stack degree starting next year that's for people who are going to start off as undergraduates but tonight it's about postgrads. Can I ask how many of you are thinking of becoming a primary school teacher? One two three great there could be more you're just a bit shy of putting your hand up all right I'm happy to take questions um over a water or two at the end but let me tell you a bit about the um the degree.

First of all there are some commonwealth supported places available now that is where the government chips in some money plus you chip in some money for your degree information and specific information is on the UTS website it's competitive you have to show that you're interested you have to apply you have to include a personal statement and there are deadlines and I think the first deadline for autumn next year is the 24th of November so please look on the UTS website. So I want to talk now about the degree itself so you do a degree in primary education that qualifies you to teach kindergarten to year six here in New South Wales across Australia and internationally you can teach in government schools or in private schools it's the full qualification the content is largely governed by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority NESA for short and you have to do subjects in what's called the KLAs the key learning areas and you'll see them up on the slide English, Maths, Creative Arts, Human Society and its Environment, Science and Technology and PD Health PE that's mandatory and our subjects are based around those KLAs it also our subjects also include inclusive education, digital learning, working with and for Indigenous Australians and that's part of why we think our course is distinctive those particular subjects but one of the good things about the degree is that you do 60 days professional experience that means a school placement we find a school for you and you go do three 20-day blocks across that school and maybe another one and that's where you get that hands-on experience that's where you get to implement the things that you've been learning in your coursework. The good thing about the way we organise it is that we get our students out in the schools early on in the degree and this allows you to say to yourself is this for me is teaching for me and it has been the case in the past that we've had students who've dropped out they've said no after my prac I realised teaching isn't for me I'm not going to do an education degree.

Some courses it's only in the last year or right towards the end where you go out on a school placement we get you in the schools early so this course is ideal for graduating students career changes people who are looking for something different so you'll see in this slide there's the primary education core there's a subject called digital supported learning resetting the future Indigenous Australian education inclusive education I've mentioned maths teaching EALD and literacy in primary schools professional experience the teacher performance assessment that's at the end of the course professional experience the primary school child and then classroom management. Obviously classroom management is a very important subject and we certainly emphasise that along with the other subjects. One thing that I will mention is that across Australia it's a requirement that every teacher education student has to undertake what's called LANTITE literacy and numeracy test initial teacher education and you have to pass the literacy test and you have to pass the numeracy test so that's integrated into your course it's not run by us it's run federally by the Australian Council of Education Research.

You also do the key learning areas as I mentioned and you'll see there the names of subjects in maths English science and tech creative arts PD health PE and HSIE. It's a mandatory requirement that you have to do more English and maths subjects than some of the other key learning areas so what this does is it gives you the content knowledge of the curriculum but also we teach you how to teach that content it's not like we say okay you're going to go teach you know cloud formations to year six we will show you how to do that different pedagogical models. So I will mention also that this degree is currently with Nessa going through the accreditation process we've been working with Nessa closely they've been giving us input along the way and we're confident that there'll be a favourable decision by the end of the year.

So admission requirements into the degree because it's postgraduate you need a recognised bachelor's degree or an equivalent qualification also you need to in your undergraduate degree have subjects that align with the key learning areas or across a number of key learning areas. You also need to do a personal statement and this is for all universities. You need to and it's on the UTS website there's four questions about what makes you want to become a teacher, your motivations, some examples you can give about how you've managed deadlines, organisational work and so on.

So that is for all of teacher education students around Australia. Okay so I'm really hoping that this has whetted your appetite and the three people who's indicated they want to become primary teachers has now doubled or tripled. All right thanks very much over to you Keith.

Do you know how you tell the difference between a primary school teacher and a secondary school teacher? So when you talk to a secondary school teacher and say oh you know what do you teach? I'll say I teach business studies or I teach mathematics. Talk to a primary school teacher they say I teach children. I'll let you work out which one you think is the best answer for that one.

All right I get to talk to you about the Master of Teaching Secondary which is the course that I'm in charge of and and if you haven't already worked out I'm pretty excited about it because I think it's a fantastic course and I think it offers things that some other courses that are competitors might not. So let's have a look at how it's all structured and of course being a teacher I'm desperate to get out from behind the lectern and walk around the room but then I'll lose the microphone so I won't do that. But this is how it's structured and let me just go through some of this because some of it has got some language that is a little bit complicated and I just want to make sure you all understand what you're possibly signing up for here.

The first thing is that there are seven core subjects. These are the things that teachers across all the KLAs need to know and what I like about this course is that there is no filler okay. It is all stuff that you're going to be putting into practice in your very first day in the classroom.

So we teach you about using digital technologies because that's a central part to being a teacher regardless of what subject you're going to teach you need to know how to use it. We teach you literacy and numeracy because whatever else we all are just like Denise said we are all teachers of reading and writing and also numeracy. What else do we teach you? There's a subject called professional learning that's where you start to understand how schools operate and start working with teachers and things like that.

You'll go out and you'll visit some schools at that point. We've got a subject on inclusive education which is about meeting the needs of students with special needs or additional needs which is a really important subject and of course there's a subject on Indigenous education which is central to the Australian curriculum and the New South Wales version of the Australian curriculum as well. Then we have two options.

So when you come and you study the Masters of Teaching Secondary Education here at UTS you get to choose whether you're going to pursue one core subject or two core subjects or two specialisations. So for example you might be an English teacher and that's it or you might be an English and an EALD teacher or you might be an English and a society and culture teacher or you might be a business studies and an economics teacher. So whether you have one specialist area or two specialist areas means that your subject choices change a little bit.

Ultimately what it means if you do two subject specialist areas you have slightly fewer electives because you need to do some of the other subjects. So let me explain what I mean by that. You'll see that if you're doing a single teaching area you have to do three teaching methods.

So these will be named after your subject teaching area. So if you're going to become a business studies teacher you will do HSE, human society and environments teaching methods one, business studies teaching methods two and business studies teaching methods three. That does not teach you about how to run a business.

We assume that. That's why you've got an undergraduate degree but it does teach you how to teach those subjects. It familiarizes yourselves with the content that's in the New South Wales curriculum or the New South Wales syllabus.

Now this is really really important. When I get on to the next slide you'll see the kinds of subjects and specializations we offer. You won't see ancient history up there or modern history and people always say oh Keith does that mean that I can't come to UTS and not be a history teacher? No.

It means that we don't offer specializations in ancient history and modern history and geography but you can still train and in fact we do train you to be a HSE teacher for stages four and five. So when John gets up in a moment he's going to explain that he's currently teaching stage four history and geography because of how we trained him here okay. But he won't teach those in stage six.

In stage six he'll teach business studies because that's what we train him to do yeah. If you do two subject specializations, so let's say you're going to be a maths and a physics teacher, you need to do the first as your major. So you'll do mathematics teaching methods one two and three and then you'll do physics teaching methods one and two okay.

So you've got to do a few extra methods. Again we're not going to teach you the maths content. We're not going to teach you the physics content.

That's assumed in your undergraduate degree. We're going to teach you how to teach those things the pedagogy of the the idea. And then there is a whole range of electives and we're fortunate to have some really interesting electives.

My current favourite at the moment is called Crunch just because I like the name. It's all about learning analytics for performance improvement. In case you don't know understanding data and making good use of data in schools is becoming increasingly important.

So that's a very popular course at the moment. All right this is what it kind of looks like for a full-time student spread over two years. You can see that there's four subjects in each semester and it's a good mix of when you do your electives and when you spread out.

The important things to keep an eye out there are the subjects called professional experience teaching placements PTP1 and PTP2 because those are when you go out into your schools. You will do 60 days of placements over the course of the two years and that's when you do them. So we throw you into the schools adequately supported and ready for it but we get you into the schools as soon as possible.

And one of the great things that we've discovered and I think this is testament to our course is that our students are ready to teach when they are doing their professional experience teaching placement too. So often they are very much in demand from that point on being asked to come back for casual teaching or being asked to actually you know teach full-time which shows how ready they are. Something else that's worth noting people often say when can I actually start working as a teacher and I think that's important to say because you can actually become what's called provisionally accredited at the start of the second year which means you can start working as a casual teacher and in fact we encourage you to do it as long as it doesn't interfere with your classes because it's a great opportunity to get out there and see what schools are like.

Yeah okay so that's that. This is for somebody with two areas of specialisation you'll see that there's a few less electives available and there's more teaching method subjects but the core subjects remain the same so it's pretty similar. So this would be for example someone doing maths and physics or business and economics or maths and chemistry we've got a whole range of different options.

Let me show you those different options. So we've got English, maths, we've got all the different kinds of sciences up there and we've got lots of different HSEE subjects as well. Just a reminder that you qualify to teach stage four and five HSEE which includes history and geography and commerce as well as society and culture and business studies and economics.

Oh and legal studies. How could I miss legal studies? Okay so this is a really important point and this is something that we are more than willing to help you with but it's often something that's best done on a individual basis. So you might be thinking how do I know if I've got the requisite subject content knowledge to become for example a mathematics teacher? Perhaps you've got a degree in science you know an undergraduate degree in science.

Does that have enough maths to to allow you to become a maths teacher? The best thing we can do is actually sit down with you and look at your transcript and count up the requisite subjects because what NESA does, the New South Wales Educational Standards Authority, they say that you basically need at least six subjects of a certain level and not all of them can be first year and not all of them can be later years and if you've got six subjects that counts as a major and if you've got a major you can teach that subject. So if you your degree has those six subjects that you need then we will be able to offer you a place where we can train you to be in this example a mathematics teacher or a business studies teacher. It gets a little more complicated than that and this is why we we suggest that it's done on a one-to-one basis and we look at your transcript for you and give you that kind of advice because for example in business studies you have to cover certain areas you have to have a management subject you have to have a HR subject in mathematics you have to have at least one statistics subject and so even if you've got a degree in business studies but you don't have what NESA needs you're not actually qualified to become a business studies teacher.

The good news is if there is one or two subjects that you're missing for whatever reason for example you don't have that management subject you can slot them in as your electives and we can offer that so you can still qualify to become a business studies teacher with the requisite subject content knowledge. Remember I said you can do two specialisations well for the first specialisation you need six subjects equivalent to six subjects or a major and for the minor if you were to do a minor the second subject you would only need the equivalent of four subjects and again just to make it complicated NESA says not every subject can be a minor okay so so again that's a good chance for us to have a discussion about what's how it all fits and not every subject can be a major okay so for example if you're going to become a English as an additional language teacher that's always got to be a minor and so normally people become English and then English as additional language teachers. Like I said we are happy to have the conversation and look at your transcript for you.

Okay yeah that's pretty much exactly what I just said. These are the English language and admission requirements you will note that you as as Don said for the Master of Teaching Primary there is a requirement to pass what's called the land type test during your testing this is something that everybody enrolled in initial teacher education program has to complete before they can go out on placement and it's just a literacy and numeracy test. Basically I always call it year nine level all right you're not going to be doing calculus and differential equations but there will be some addition subtraction and that kind of stuff there and don't forget the personal statement like Don said four questions take it seriously.

I read every single one that comes into the Master of Teaching Secondary just because I find it fascinating to see where everyone's coming from and why they want to be teachers and I do reject some of them not all not not a huge amount but if they're not taken seriously I do reject them. All right and there you go so you can see those are the kind of questions that they might ask you what inspired you to become a teacher lots of people talking about their families their grandmothers it's nice to read it really is and then how you've shown a bit of leadership how you manage your time and how you use your problem solving skills nothing there about content knowledge more about the kind of soft skills I don't like that term human centered skills that teachers need to know. All right so why I mean it's a fantastic program but now I really want to give you some some of the hard core statistics about why it's so important to study education at UTS because I think there are some really fantastic statistics to show and this is I'm not going to read everything off something that you learn really quickly as a teacher is if you you put up slides and then you just read off them people quickly zone out so I will not do that but what I do want to share with you are just some of the highlights about teaching at UTS and why I think it's so successful.

All right so and then I'm going to hand over to John who's going to talk about his student experience but one of the things that I think is really important is that our programs allow you to tailor your your approach to what you're interested in you saw the range of different specializations that are available there plus there's the range of electives too. Our program is incredibly inclusive we want people from diverse backgrounds that makes the teaching profession stronger so you know when you are sitting there you will be working with people who are doing their undergraduate degree at the same time as you're doing your postgraduate degree and you're all learning together. Our biggest success and it's the highlight of the course every time we talk to students are our professional experience teaching placements this is your chance to get out there early and see what teaching is like and of course you might be thinking all right it's a long time ago Keith but I can still remember what school was like it's different when you're on the other side of the staff room door and and it's better okay and I enjoyed school as a student but it's much much better as a teacher I think and and we find those placements for you we work with you to make sure that it's a good placement it fits well with you we often have students who say just like Denise was saying I want to go rural we do our best to meet those needs and it's great when we send students out to Cobar or Dubbo or Wee War is another place that we send people to which is great and and to give you an idea of how strong those placements are we have more than 200 formal partnership agreements with schools.

Our teaching programs are informed by the best educational research Don and I and all the other lecturers in the program are practicing a lot of us were teachers but we're also researchers we are deeply involved and committed to the profession and to improving the profession and improving the status of the profession we're ranked within the top 100 universities worldwide in the field of education that's not in Australia that's worldwide we're in the top 100 according to the Times Higher Education Ranking and you know because let's be honest money counts we offer Commonwealth supported places which can significantly reduce the cost of doing an education degree here at UTS. All right so um oh yeah we talked about that I went off track it's a career hazard um all right so I think this is a really important slide because it showcases the starting salaries one of the great things about teaching is that when you graduate you actually earn more than banking graduates you earn more than engineering graduates now it doesn't stay that way I'll be honest with you okay but certainly at the start of your career you earn well and if you move into leadership positions you can you can earn a significant amount of money like Denise said we're not here to be millionaires but you know not it helps to be able to pay your rent. Introduce you John how are you ah there we are okay so what I'd like to do now and it's probably the part you've all been waiting for um I'd like to introduce you to John Bartlett who's one of our alumni uh he'll share his experiences pursuing education as part of his career change his journey into us in our secondary education program and his insights as a secondary teacher at Marist Catholic College.

Please welcome John. Good evening and thank you for having me this evening um as Keith said uh it was my very last subject when I finished the course um was one of Keith's lessons for uh teaching across the curriculum and my very first class two years prior was also one of Keith's class it's the only time we had an 8 a.m uh class in the two years it was the earliest session of all of them but in looking back to that sort of first class now I tried to think about how confident I was going into this career into this career change and just reflecting on the process of applying and stuff I'd actually forgotten about that but when I I can't remember what my confidence was like in how it was going to go but all I can remember is that I was actually quite excited I immediately found every lesson engaging and um embarrassingly I now realized that I was one of these over enthusiastic mature age students that I used to find annoying when I was in my 20s doing my undergrad but nevertheless the study in particular and in particularly assessment tasks were really rewarding during my study there was a real sense of achievement I felt again in meeting deadlines and awaiting for grades to come through and that was really motivating over the two years of the course in my first semester I had a tutor who I found was an extremely hard marker and it wasn't Keith I have tried to hit Keith up for some marks and um he I'll talk to him about that later no just joking um but it wasn't Keith but I had him in the first semester I thought he's such a hard marker and then I had him again in the second semester um and then again in the third semester by the time I got to the third semester however I'd actually built a respect for this person's marking I actually was embracing the challenge and looking forward to the challenge of his marking he held us to a very high standard and I think to want his students to be excellent teachers says something about the degree that you're working towards you want to still try and be the best in your profession and to challenge yourself at that at all times and in saying that I welcome the challenge and when I did complete my degree my master's the sense of reward and achievement felt that much more because it was challenging and um the other thing that I that came with the challenges throughout that I picked up when I did my placements at the schools and when I eventually started teaching the challenges whether you realize it or not can create a confidence in you that you can meet these obstacles you don't know it at the time but the challenges do make you more confident when you do go into the classroom and I'll come back to that shortly I don't want to put anybody off with what I'm about to say teaching can be like getting teenagers to eat vegetables you might have five or six different classes with 20 plus students each of them liking different vegetables or wanting them cooked differently or put on a plate for them differently and you need to be able to find a way to be able to get these children to eat their vegetables they know it's good for them you know it's good and their parents know it's good for them it's the same with the knowledge you need to be able to make it appealing for them but you do have many many different appetites and many fussy eaters in every class so where am I going with this a good teaching degree at the minimum will have you going into a classroom with a recipe book a number of good recipes but a great teaching degree that challenges you will give you the confidence to then start experimenting with that and making these recipes your own and that's one of the key things the first time you step into a classroom on your own is you want to feel confident and that's where you need to challenge yourself when you go when you're working towards a master's to push yourself to achieve a high standard and then just as you feel rewarded with the degree at the end of it you can also make your career as a teacher rewarding by challenging yourself in the classroom when children challenge you how do you manage that and those challenges much like the reward you feel with the degree make your job rewarding at the end of the day you look back and you reflect on the lesson how did I go today did I do a good job what could I have done better and one thing I noticed with a number of the assessment pieces certainly in my last assessment piece in Keith's class is we wrote across a number of subjects we wrote quite a few reflective essays throughout the course and I thought oh this just must be some new trend reflective essay sounds very soft but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I reflect on my school day every day I reflect on my lessons whether it be briefly or in more depth every single day so I look at these reflective essays as being part of a education degree and it actually is quite fitting you do need to be able to self-reflect you do need to be able to see what you can change see how you can challenge yourself and I think that that's when you're choosing a degree and a career that you look at a challenge as being something good because the reward that comes from meeting those challenges is is actually quite satisfying on a day-to-day basis when you take your first step into that classroom for the first time yes you want to have some good recipes and you want to feel confident you need a supportive teaching staff around you to help you build your confidence teach you the skills and in doing so when you first step foot into that classroom you feel prepared to be able to teach and then make that classroom your own and build on your career as a teacher in your new profession and obviously give so much to so many students whether they know whether they like the subject or not or whether they know that you actually do care about their learning you're not going to get a pat on the back from every child at the end of every lesson it's not about that but you know that what you're doing is important and on any given day you might reach a different student but you just keep trying and you never give up and you continue challenging yourself to improve over and over again and with that you'll get the satisfaction from the job and from the degree itself thank you all righty now we hand it over to you it's your chance to ask our panel any kinds of questions that you might like so there's people online who might be putting in questions and they'll feel them through to me but if you've got some questions as well now something that I know as a teacher you've got to give people a little bit of thinking time to work through what kind of questions they might ask so I'll give a starter question and then we'll go to the audience and see how we go so I'm going to throw this over to anybody who wants to answer it why teach why on earth did you decide to enter this profession yeah okay that's actually I was almost going to put that in my speech when I first arrived 1988 rocked in visual arts faculty there were six teachers six women and one of them sidled up to me probably a couple of days after I actually when I arrived at the substitute teacher said here's the keys it's all yours you know and I thought right okay and this other teacher sidled up to me and she said why have you come into teaching what what were you thinking you know what were you thinking and it actually got me thinking I thought oh far out have I made the wrong decision so I went and enrolled in a Bachelor of Legal Studies and I did one semester and as I'm struggling to do that I was still teaching and after after I actually finished that one semester and then I thought to myself actually teaching is my thing I love being with people and I loved being with the students and and just because that was her opinion about her you know what what she was experiencing I actually really loved being around young people and I you know they're not they're not great and I love the vegetable thing like seriously they're not always going to eat their vegetables but but you know really they are tomorrow and I I felt that um once you connect with them you know and I thought that the people the students I loved working with the other teachers we had a lot of fun um and we really did you know it is a fun place to be you know and you actually get to hang out with young people um with all due respects when I'm over here at UTS I'm hanging out with lots of older people except for the students but it's really interesting it's a young people you know you walk in and they are young people and you know if you've worked in an office environment and there's been lots of adults they're pretty hard to work with as well so just comparing fantastic all right um I want to I want to hear from the audience is that all right if we go to the audience so please raise your hand and we've got somebody with a mic who'll come around and uh just just wait for the mic oh thank you so much for presentation it's very informative um I'm currently pursuing my PhD degree in languages and cultures but I'm thinking to um make a transition in my career development because I always have passion in education and teaching but not to college students but to primary or secondary school students so could you please share with me some unexpected moments or some setbacks or challenges that I might face in the future when I'm in the career and also I have a second question that is um like if I if I get a degree here in UTS can I also use this degree in other states in Australia and also I'm not very familiar with being a teacher in a primary or secondary school so could you please visualize what a teacher is in the school like um not just teaching right but like what is the daily routine of being a teacher yeah thank you so much so so just for first question is about setbacks and challenges and second is like um this this degree whether it is uh it is applicable in other states and the sec the third question is about the daily routine thank you I'll I'll do the first or the second question about whether it's applicable in other states um yes is the short answer uh due to mutual recognition which is something that has only come in recently if you become a accredited teacher you'll be able to teach in other states as well yeah and New Zealand I think there you go um who wants to to do the question um setbacks yeah you you'll experience a few as a teacher but you always dust yourself off and get up and get on with it because you have to in order to survive setbacks can come in many shapes or forms usually in the form of classroom management until you assert yourself in the classroom with your classes you will find it difficult because kids are kids they'll test you and um it takes a while but that's why we have you know subjects about classroom management we teach you how to do it and then you go into the classroom other setbacks could be dealing with parents you know parents are very keen for their kids to do well other setbacks could relate to um your lesson planning getting your lessons right getting your units of work right and that takes time and you tailor them not only according to the syllabus and curriculum requirements but to the kids who are sitting in your classroom and every class you go to is different John do you want to do the question about what you do on an average day as a teacher yes so what what is an average day there's nothing average about it the same content the same lesson for two years seven classes presented back to back could be completely different the behavior or the interest or the response in giving a lesson at nine o'clock in the morning versus two o'clock in the afternoon can be completely different so you're oh okay they're the only the only thing that's um consistent is probably the inconsistency itself is that it does change and that you need to adapt i was um very fortunate uh when i did my prac placement and my supervising teacher said oh look don't be hard on yourself if the lesson doesn't go to plan the most experienced teachers have bad lessons and it's true they do and i was talking to one um who's been at the school a very long time and she will say oh i just had a terrible class it just went it went you know terribly um so well i'm not saying that they all go terribly but things don't go to plan is what i'm trying to get across and you need to understand that that they are children and um what you're saying to 20-25 children in the room one day what you're saying might be really interesting to them the next day they might be distracted by their excitement of going to the football the next day or they've had a disagreement with their friends or there's something else going on in their lives you need to understand that just because you're at the front of the room and talking to them what you're saying at that point in time might not be the most important thing to them on that day but of course it's important that you're trying to help them learn it and you adapt around that and you try different skills different recipes as i said to see if you can get them to absorb the information so every day is every day is different which which is good which is good yeah i was just gonna say i love being in the staff room in the morning so basically they come in your backpack on and and what they'll often do is they do huddle around i've got this idea have you tried this here's my kahoot do you want to use that kahoot do you oh this is my you know there is that collaboration and often i find and maybe i've created that environment where where teachers are very collaborative so you know in other words we talk about what's going to happen in the lesson and it's really about i love what don said about what we do is we organize kids around learning so you enter a classroom it's the good teacher line up so my good science teacher who is 70 they all line up and they all line up and walk in and it's a public school comprehensive and they understand that you know rules are set your classroom becomes your learning environment so you know some of our classrooms that look beautiful you know they're well decorated you know because it's you know posters and all of those sorts of things so that's part of the teaching thing you know there is so many aspects that you create the learning around and when you say what do you do that's what you do you prepare the lesson you actually then you work out well what kids have i got in this class you know and you you understand the learning needs of each of those those young people and we have lots of data and i like the data thing you know you know this person hasn't turned up for three days oh i need to ask the question about that what's going on for them and their families and and so that's the people side but there's the kind of the there's the content but the content is quite exciting the way that you can bring it to young people and you know with with the technology which i appreciated as well so you know it's a very collaborative profession you don't get to eat lunch much i've got to say because there's no sitting around you know there are a couple but really often lunch times are oh i need to talk to these kids about their assignment or i want to you know someone's got to stay back because they were talking when i was talking and you know because i went through my whole career with missing lunch pretty much most days so if you're a person who loves their lunch maybe not but you know that's and but that's kind of what you do and you get to the end of the day and that's how it is yeah and you could be on staff duty at lunch that's another thing too but the the people side of it is something i didn't mention and that's a very very important part of the learning experience it goes hand in hand with the content and to how receptive the students are simple things like learning their names and building that relationship with them learning their names starting to show an interest in them individually makes the teaching easier for you as well and i noticed that my first few weeks i was doing substitute teaching before i was given my own classes and i didn't have access to the learning profiles of some of the students so while i pulled up some kids for behavior or i was perhaps teaching a certain way when i was then went full-time and had my own classes i looked at those same students learning profiles and i found out so much more about their backgrounds their learning needs and that changed i would have completely acted differently or taught differently to those students had i known that in the beginning so you learn so much amount so much about the individual students and you care to the point that you want to tailor your lessons to make it more accessible to each of them so the relationship side is very important yeah thanks john um i'm just conscious of time and and we've just run over a little bit but i just want to say i promise no one will leave here with a question unanswered and for the people online i will follow up any unanswered questions that are there as well so i know a few people had their hands up i will come and speak to you i promise um but what i'd like to do is just wrap up with a few quick announcement please put your hands together to thank our guests and our they're very generous coming and sharing um their insights and their expertise i'd like to thank you all online and for those who came to campus for joining us applications are now open for the february 17th intake so when you've made the decision that you're ready to be part of the future teachers club please log on to the uts student portal remember commonwealth student supported places are available