Efficacy and research

Abstract

In order for teachers to go forward successfully with the middle years reframing of teacher practice in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, and to stay organised in the process, they need a workable way of acting in the middle years site for educational reform. In Chapter 1, Pendergast muses about a shift to a new kind of teacher identity to accompany Australia's growing acceptance of middle schooling and Australian universities' increasing investment in a specialist area of middle years teacher education. She argues that a new way of doing classroom practice would shape this changing teacher identity. Teachers need to believe that they can engage middle years students in learning and improve their learning outcomes. They need to be hopeful and satisfied about their work and future in a way that restores the stressed out, emotionally and physically exhausted, and cynical teachers found in middle years by Pendergast (Chapter 1). Middle years students need teachers who are sturdy in their everyday identity, efficacy, and resilience, not ones who are burned out heroes of reform. Because teachers are the focal point of the classroom innovations discussed in later sections, they need to be competent, enthusiastic, and confident that they can continue to grow into effective middle years practitioners.