Our research priorities
Teachers work and lives
Whilst schools are clearly sites of learning, they are also workplaces. There are multiple issues related to teachers’ work and lives that are addressed through projects in the TTRG. These include those related to teacher retention, especially in marginalised communities (including rural areas). This is clearly of significant concern to governments in Queensland and Australia as well as internationally. As such, matters being investigated encompass, ‘job satisfaction’, ‘teacher well-being’, school factors that contribute to high levels of retention in (or departure from) the teaching profession, early career teachers, union activity, marginalised teacher identities, subject and sector differences and specifics, and educational policy.
Teaching (curriculum, pedagogy and assessment)
The TTRG is concerned with the forms of teaching practice that work to support students’ development as informed and active citizens and members of the communities in which they live, work and socialise.
The research group focuses on projects related to the characteristics of good teaching in marginalised communities (including sector and subject specific teaching), the supports teachers need to enhance their pedagogical practices, the types of professional learning communities that support high quality pedagogies and assessment practices and how these communities can be developed, and key curriculum debates, such as those centred on the role of ‘powerful knowledges’ and ‘funds of knowledge’, related to socially just schooling practices.
Teacher education
The TTRG is committed to teacher education as a field that is inextricably linked to issues of teachers’ work and lives and the quality of teaching in schools (and other educational institutions). The TTRG engages in research projects that, for example, question and interrogate existing practices and teacher education policies, that seek to determine the capacities, knowledges and practices pre-service teachers need to develop and acquire in order to prepare them for working in diverse and marginalised communities; that consider what on-going education practising teachers require in order to meet the changing demands of the profession; and issues impacting upon teacher educators, their practice and identities.