Veronica Gardiner PhD

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) is characterized by rapidly changing technologies and workforce demands. Educational systems seek to respond to these changes. Little is known about ways in which Teacher Training Institutions (TTI) are preparing preservice teachers to address these educational demands. This scoping review examines the high-quality literature with respect to initial teacher training activities and challenges, specifically focusing on 21st century skills and technology integration in the context of IR 4.0. The results show TTI requires coherence throughout the organization to effectively respond to shifting needs and contexts. The development of IR 4.0 technologies move swiftly, providing new opportunities for developing preservice teachers' 21st century skills. Such technologies could reframe the role of TTIs and teacher educators. Contrastingly, the pressure for TTI and teacher educators to maintain required skills increases alongside technologies. This scoping review concludes that research on this topic remains valuable and critical to further inform initial teacher training in IR 4.0 to facilitate the development of preservice teachers’ 21st century skills.

The Australian Curriculum positions literacy as a general capability to be taught across all subject areas. While schools may design agreements and policies to formalise the position of literacy as a whole-school priority, there is relatively limited research guiding the structure and content of these planning documents. We contend that reading engagement should have an important place in such planning documentation, despite the Australian Curriculum's relative silence on this aspect of literacy learning, as it is a valuable facet of literacy promotion, with research strongly supportive of the relationship between reading skills and will. We conducted a content analysis to determine if available whole-school literacy policy plans, agreements and policies were supportive of fostering reading engagement at school, and the extent to which they fostered home and school partnerships around reading engagement. Mirroring absences in the curriculum, we found that few schools promoted reading engagement strategies as a whole-school priority, and where strategies did feature, these varied widely.

Current policies guiding literacy and teacher professional learning in Australia, tend to foreground the importance of standardised practice and assessment in classrooms and schools. However, enactments of print-oriented literacy and professional learning in alignment with this emphasis stand in contradiction with contemporary approaches, which implicate consideration of diversity and contextual relevance. This paper positions teacher problematisation and negotiation of this contradiction as key for broadening literacy learning horizons. Incorporating multiliteracies, Cultural Historical Activity Theory and sociocritical perspectives on policy and professional learning, the authors propose a multidimensional framework for exploring and supporting dynamic and conflictually sensitive teacher learning processes. Such visioning is important if teachers, school leaders, pre-service educators and researchers are to enable learners with adaptable literacy repertoires with relevance to rapidly evolving twenty first century communications and social interactions.

Although the status of human rights with respect to diversity in gender and sexuality has improved over the past two decades, discrimination against LGBTQI individuals in Australia remains unacceptable in terms of social attitudes, policies and practices (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2015). Young LGBTQI people, in particular, face discrimination in many aspects of their daily lives. Educational experiences can be especially negative, with schools identified as sites where students are often at risk of bullying, harassment and other forms of violence in relation to their diverse or perceived diverse genders or sexualities (Greytak, Kosciw & Diaz, 2009; Hillier, Jones, Monagle, Overton, Gahan, Blackman & Mitchell, 2010; Kosciw, Greytak, Boesen, Bartkiewicz & Palmer, 2011; Robinson, Bansel, Denson, Ovendon & Davies; Taylor et al., 2014). When LGBTQI identifying young people or those from LGBTQI families feel unsafe in schools or unrepresented by the curriculum, the Australian education system’s capacity to promote mental health, well-being and academic outcome s for all students is compromised. Given legislative requirements, human rights are the business of all educational stakeholders, with teachers playing a key role in making a positive difference to young people’s lives. Supporting gender and sexual diversity in high schools: Building conversations for LGBTQI human rights in the English classroom is based on a Young and Well CRC research project that examines the perceptions and practices of a group of high school English teachers who were exploring ways to work in this area. The discussion that follows is informed by the words and experiences of the teachers interviewed for this project.

The need to diversify digital communications for a global twenty-first century has prompted many theorists to reimagine literacy teaching and learning. Although the new Australian curriculum acknowledges multimodality and multimodal texts, professional learning continues to privilege print-focused literacy. Utilizing a multiliteracies' and community of practice framework, this study scaffolded seven primary school teachers in critical and collaborative professional learning. A case study explored the teachers' evolving perspectives and knowledge work during monthly meetings in a multiliteracies book club. Drawing on a qualitative approach, this paper focuses on how the teachers, who were based in regional Western Australia, problematized conceptual and contextual issues. More broadly, the discussion highlights how the teachers perceived and (re)negotiated contradictory constructions of literacy and professional learning. Findings suggest that generating scaffolded spaces for-and-with teachers is important for innovation in professional literacy learning.

In response to rapidly changing communication practices in an increasingly technological world, evolving literacy concepts such as multimodality, are now acknowledged in the new Australian Curriculum. Ironically, primary school teacher professional development in Western Australia remains closely tied to a mono-modal, print focussed paradigm. This study integrated the multiliteracies and communities of practice frameworks, aiming to generate participatory professional learning about new literacy concepts. This qualitative case study explored how one group of seven public primary schoolteachers from outer metropolitan WA, collaboratively transformed their literacy learning during a scaffolded 'multiliteracies book club'. Spanning six months and including five book club meetings and two focus groups, teachers collaborated with the researcher-facilitator (first author) in multimodal practices using diverse text formats and resources. This paper presents early thematic analysis of book club discussions, finding evidence for teachers' shift towards multiliteracies' perspectives, within a community of practice. The study highlights how the participative features of a multiliteracies book club model can support literacy transformation.