Teaching the teachers
Nobody forgets a good teacher. The Sydney Theatre Company and the University of Sydney have launched a program that aims to promote drama as a powerful medium for literacy in young learners, while providing innovative learning opportunities for teachers.
Teachers act
School Drama: Sydney Theatre Company and the University of Sydney's literacy project. Photographer: Tracey Schramm.
When Oscar-winning actor Cate Blanchett and her playwright husband Andrew Upton returned to Australia to head the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) at the beginning of 2008, the move attracted plenty of media attention. Away from the stage they were busy too. Concerned about the lack of drama in Australian schools, they found the perfect partner to collaborate with in the University of Sydney.
"Performance and enactment and role-playing are some of the core things that humans do. Making that apparent – bringing it to life as part of the function of teaching – is really fundamental to successful education," says Upton, who is also a screenwriter and director.
Long before Blanchett and Upton's return to Australia, Helen Hristofski, Education Manager at the Sydney Theatre Company, had developed a strong relationship with Professor Robyn Ewing, a former primary school teacher with an international research reputation in several areas – including the role of the arts, particularly drama, in enhancing student learning through developing pupils' imaginations, and thereby improving their literacy outcomes.
That relationship provided the foundation for closer ties between the STC and the University's Faculty of Education and Social Work, where Ewing is Acting Dean.
"Really we haven't invested enough in continuing to enhance the quality of the teaching profession," Ewing says. "Focusing on the professional learning of teachers over a period of time is one of the single most decisive change factors in delivering improved learning outcomes for students across the board, particularly in English and literacy."
During 2008 the faculty and the STC launched a program, built on their shared belief that drama is one of the most powerful teaching and learning strategies. The project, School Drama, will start as a pilot in five inner city schools with STC actors working alongside teachers for six or seven weeks, helping them to develop their professional skills as they teach English and literacy. Faculty of Education and Social Work staff will monitor progress and assess the outcomes with a final report due in late 2009.
Changes in science
The STC initiative is just one way in which the University is working to raise the quality of teaching. In the Faculty of Science, a group of physicists with a common interest in teaching and student learning are researching how different people go about understanding physics.
Other programs in the Faculty of Science are helping to change the University's own teaching. The School of Chemistry has run a program for five years that has transformed the experience of first-year students and educators by employing new PhD students as 'teaching fellows' for the first three years of their doctorate. They are employed for a fifth of their time, take four tutorials each week, mark exams and help develop effective teaching strategies.
"Put starkly, before the introduction of teaching fellows, we offered impersonal, poorly attended and often ineffective tutorial classes," says Professor Scott Kable, one of the team that devised the program. "We now offer highly popular classes of 30 or fewer students. The teaching fellows are enthusiastic and are able to empathise with and relate to students."
The success of the School of Chemistry program has led to similar schemes being rolled out elsewhere in the University.
There are many programs where Sydney academics are looking at how to raise the skills of teachers – both within the University and outside.
During 2008, the University was commended by the federal government on its very high standard of performance across all discipline groups. The University received $8.7 million in funding from the government's Learning and Teaching Performance Fund, the third-largest amount of funding among Australian universities.