The Master of Teaching program

All core courses in the Master of Teaching (Secondary) program and a number of Specialist Teaching Areas are taught in school contexts.  A formal partnership with diverse regional and rural schools enables us to construct learning experiences for PSTs that carefully connect to the rich contextualised nature of teaching and learning. 

The partnership includes two primary schools, a P-12 rural school, an applied learning centre, a specialist school, a large regional mainstream secondary college and a community college which also includes an alternative program for disengaged youth. 

Federation University Master of Teaching (Secondary) students learning in partnership schools

Through a focus on strong relationships and attending to diversity PSTs are not only confronted by their personal beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning but by the complexity of schooling.

Cochrane-Smith (2003)^[1] suggests that teaching is “unforgivably complex” (p. 5), she argues that in the face of simplistic accountability measures and narrow definitions of teacher quality, we must preserve and honour complexity.  This view is a central tenet in our program and enables us to connect practice to theory in regular, meaningful ways that we hope can be transferred to ongoing work in the profession.

1. ^Cochrane-Smith, M. (2003). The unforgiving complexity of teaching: Avoiding simplicity in the age of accountability. Journal of Teacher Education. 54(1), 3-5.