Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2013

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TEACHING TOMORROW’S TEACHERS

ARTICLE

MS MICHELLE JAMES, PUBLICATIONS OFFICER

AUTHOR

A GREAT TEACHER CAN INSPIRE a life-long, and life- wide, passion for a particular subject area — whether it is astronomy, Japanese culture, or literature. When Dr Anita Jetnikoff, Senior Lecturer in English Curriculum Studies at the Queensland University of Technology, needed an exceptional educator to demonstrate best practice in English teaching for students at her university, she chose Brisbane Girls Grammar’s Miss Rachael Christopherson. QUT’s Embracing Curriculum Change project involves filming an expert English teacher in the classroom to create digital resources for university students undertaking their teaching degrees. The lessons are edited into teaching episodes, focusing on the content and pedagogy of the new Australian Curriculum for English, and viewed by these pre-service teachers. Miss Christopherson has been working with QUT since 2006 when she, along with her Year 10 English class, participated in a similar project. The filming of her 2013 Year 9 English class — while they study Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners The Importance of Being Ernest — is a follow-up to the initial project, linking to the introduction of the Australian Curriculum and the emphasis on multimodal texts. Dr Jetnikoff says that the videos are invaluable learning resources for our future teachers. ‘Rachael Christopherson is an inspiring educator. We worked together some years ago and the resulting videos of her excellent teaching have been viewed

positively by hundreds of QUT students. It was time to make some new videos for the new Australian Curriculum and Rachael extended her generosity again, so that a new generation of student teachers can see how a brilliant teacher works in the classroom.’ Demonstrating ‘teaching’ encompasses much more than ensuring students understand the subject matter says Miss Christopherson. ‘It ranges from demonstrating pedagogical practice, to managing students with special learning needs, to encouraging quieter students to interact, and even to showing how to get students to settle when they arrive for class.’ The recipient of the English Teachers Association of Queensland’s Peter Botsman Award for excellence in English education in 2005, Miss Christopherson is an acknowledged expert in her field. Even so, she says that the project has provided her with a wonderful opportunity for reflection. ‘It makes me stand back and look at the way I teach, and think about what I can do to enhance the learning experience for our girls.’ This collaboration with QUT epitomises Girls Grammar’s aspiration ‘to be a leader in exceptional scholarship’. Through observing Miss Christopherson teaching our Year 9 girls, pre-service teachers will be able to apply educational theories in context, contributing to their skill development in the craft of teaching. In this way, Miss Christopherson is inspiring the teachers of tomorrow — as well as her students.

Brisbane Girls Grammar School’s Centre for Professional Practice (CPP) — and its programmes linking pre-service, beginning and experienced teachers in a seamless collaborative learning environment — has placed Girls Grammar at the forefront of providing mentoring and quality professional development since 2005. In partnering with QUT in the Embracing Curriculum Change project, Girls Grammar is able to extend our mentoring expertise beyond the campus, broadening the commitment of our academic staff to encourage and support fledgling teachers to become the very best educators of the next generation that they can be.

SPRING ISSUE / 2013