Living in a rural area with limited access to resources can be difficult for anyone trying to do their job. For educators, a lack of resources can be particularly devastating because of what's at stake—a child's education. In Australia, with its vast, sparsely populated landscape, educators face obstacles getting proper resources, such as professional development (PD). Many of Australia's rural areas are low on the economic ladder, making teacher development even more difficult, but the Australian government and its various state governments have taken measures to help provide teachers with PD tools and other necessary resources.
"The federal and state governments do have initiatives in place to support teachers and students in struggling communities, and rural Australia typically fits into this category," says Ian Hardy, a professor at Charles Stuart University in New South Wales.
Hardy has conducted numerous research projects on PD, looking at programs and initiatives that help support teacher development. Hardy has interviewed educators, collected data, and analyzed policy from around the world. Using this research, he can see the complexity of implementing PD in the field.
Hardy mentions New South Wales's County Areas Program (CAP) as an innovative resource for schools. CAP, which serves 241 schools in isolated areas, provides resources for educators to maximize student learning and improve teaching quality. The program's Web site offers tools, strategies, and tips for educators on how to better serve their schools. It also promotes connected learning using the Internet, which is incredibly important in areas that are geographically isolated.
The Quality Teacher Programme (QTP), a federally funded PD initiative, and the Queensland State Education 2010 (QSE2010), a state-based program, were the subjects of one of Hardy's studies on PD: The Impact of Policy Upon Practice: An Australian Study of Teachers' Professional Development. QTP's objective is to develop quality teaching practices in the classroom, while QSE2010's main focus is school reform, including improving teaching practices and strategies.
Hardy looked at a cluster of schools that were affected by both policies and examined how well they worked in providing PD for educators.
"They were seeking to improve curriculum, but also to foster improved and ongoing collaboration between teachers at each of the sites, and to support one another in this work," Hardy says about the schools he studied. Under these policies PD was influenced by a managerial and a democratic approach.
"Managerial approaches involve the external orchestration of teachers' work—with an emphasis upon managing and administering this work," says Hardy. "A more democratic conception of PD requires teachers to take a lead in facilitating their own learning and development. This is necessary because it is they who are responsible for enacting improved educational practice in their respective schools. However, they also need to be supported to engage in this work."
These differing policy approaches are needed, yet are complex and can be conflicting at times. Hardy saw this complexity in his research as these policies both benefited and, at times, frustrated teachers. While educators learned from the PD and worked on reforming curriculum, many challenges they faced need to be addressed for them to provide students with the best possible education.
