The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers contains three domains. These are broad descriptions of what teachers do all across Australia.
The second of these domains is Professional Practice.
See more: Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Terminology Explained
What is the Professional Practice domain?
The Professional Practice domain covers the things that teachers do as a part of their teaching. It might seem like this should be what all of the teaching standards are about, but it is specific to interacting with students and delivering learning programs. As any teacher knows, there is a lot more to the profession than that.
See more: Why Teachers Don’t Talk to their Families about Teaching.
Professional practice includes:
- Planning lessons and units.
- Using teaching strategies to deliver and improve their learning programs.
- Creating and selecting resources for their students.
- Managing challenging behaviour.
- Building relationships with their students.
- Building an environment and atmosphere that supports learning.
- Communicating in a way that all students can understand.
- Differentiating for the range of students that they teach, including providing an intellectual challenge for gifted students.
- Creating assessments for students to demonstrate their learning.
- Giving feedback to their students on their progress and goals.
- Working with parents and carers to support their students.
See more: 8 Simple Strategies for Effective Classroom Communication
What does Professional Practice look like?
Professional Practice is not just what happens in the classroom. It is how teachers plan their lessons, evaluate their effectiveness, and support student learning.
It could look like a teacher catching a student in the yard to praise them for the work that they’ve done. It could be a phone call to a student’s parents after school to raise their concerns about their child.
Professional Practice is about everything that teachers do to support their students. The other domains describe knowing how to support students and keeping up with best practice, but the Professional Practice domain is actually implementing this practice.
What can teachers do to build their Professional Practice?
Professional Practice is a huge part of teaching. A few strategies that you can use to build and improve your Professional Practice are:
- Engage with professional learning opportunities.
- Have your lessons observed to get feedback.
- Observe other teachers’ lessons to get tips and ideas.
- Moderate with other teachers to build your confidence in giving grades and feedback.
- Work with other teachers to evaluate and create learning programs.
The key to improving your Professional Practice is that you’re going to have to try something new. Whether it’s a new teaching strategy, a new way of using technology, or a new way of giving feedback.
