Quality Teaching

The notion of a quality teacher has changed over history. There is an ongoing debate based on moral character of staff verses pedagogical skills. Exactly how does a teacher teach, do they preach knowledge or construct knowledge? The quality teaching model was designed to improve the learning outcomes of students from kindergarten to year 12 across all subjects. It is based on the best current national and international research into quality teaching. It also builds, most importantly, on what teachers know and value and many already do in terms of quality teaching practice, (Department of Education and Training, 2004).
  Teachers are using the model outlined above as a way of thinking about what they do in the classroom and how they can improve what they do to achieve better learning outcomes for their students. A quality teacher has the right pedagogy to teaching. Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching. “It’s more about how teaching is done rather then what is taught”, although the two are connected, (Department of Education and Training, 2003).
  A quality teacher should have professional knowledge, professional practice, i.e. developing skills and a professional commitment i.e. an ongoing commitment to teaching, (Department of Education and Training, 2004). A quality teacher is someone who interacts with their students, they know when a student isn’t feeling their best and they are able to help them. Finally they teach in a variety of different ways to make it easier for each and every student to understand lessons, they change their teaching style to suit everybody.
  The quality teacher model helps us focus our understanding of quality teaching. It examines or reflects our own teaching aiming to improve our pedagogy. It is an experience of a recently constructed professional approach to teaching. The research into quality teaching has shown that there are three main features of classroom practice that are linked to improved students learning outcomes,...