Remote Teaching Service

The Remote Teaching Service is made up of a dedicated group of more than 200 teachers living and working in 38 remote communities in Western Australia. They deliver flexible and innovative education programs to ensure students in remote areas are not disadvantaged by their location and have access to high quality learning programs.
The Remote Teaching Service offers a range of professional opportunities for people who are creative and resilient. If you are flexible and like working as part of a team you have the opportunity to be part of this innovative learning community. Skills and interests in literacy, numeracy and English as an additional language/dialect (ESL/D) are highly valued.
Working in a remote community offers some challenges which include isolation, cultural differences, varied accommodation and occasionally unreliable power and water. However, there is great potential to thrive both personally and professionally while experiencing a unique lifestyle.
Having a positive attitude that makes the most of the diversity of the schools and communities ensures you have an enjoyable and successful experience.
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Making the most of your remote experience

Living in a remote community

Living in a remote Aboriginal community may be very different to anything you have experienced before. You are embarking on a unique and challenging journey that many teachers have considered as ‘the time of their life’.
You have the opportunity to:

• create and implement targeted education strategies
• become an important and highly regarded member of an Aboriginal community
• learn another language or dialect
• gain a better understanding of the customs and traditions of another culture
• experience living in the Australian outback.

You also have spare time at weekends to try a few different things such as camping, painting, photography, gardening and growing your own vegetables, reading, watching DVDs and playing computer games. All Remote Teaching Service communities have satellite and internet access. You may like to consider buying a telescope and gazing into the magnificent night sky.
In short, you will be immersed in a diversity of language, landscape, culture and community.

Teaching in a remote community

Teaching in a remote community offers you a wealth of opportunities. Many teachers who have worked in the Remote Teaching Service say it is the highlight of their teaching careers.
You are part of creative and innovative practices every day and work in environments where flexibility is paramount. No two days are ever the same.
As a member of a smaller team, you may be involved in whole school planning and decision making, participate in school based leadership roles, share personal interests and talents in specialist programs as well as learn about new subject areas.
Generally a class size in a remote school is smaller than traditional metropolitan classrooms. This enables you to develop deeper relationships with students and families. There are opportunities to teach multi-aged groups and, in many schools, you remain with that class for two or more years.
Employment in the Remote Teaching Service is predominantly through merit selection and a typical contract in the Remote Teaching Service is for three years. During that time you may be offered the opportunity to advance your career by acting in higher positions. This is a great way to extend your knowledge and skills, and develop a better understanding of what it takes to be a leader in a public school.

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CULTURE INDONESIA

Identification. The Republic of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has 203 million people living on nearly one thousand permanently settled islands. Some two-to-three hundred ethnic groups with their own languages and dialects range in population from the Javanese (about 70 million) and Sundanese (about 30 million) on Java, to peoples numbering in the thousands on remote islands. The nature of Indonesian national culture is somewhat analogous to that of India—multicultural, rooted in older societies and interethnic relations, and developed in twentieth century nationalist struggles against a European imperialism that nonetheless forged that nation and many of its institutions. The national culture is most easily observed in cities but aspects of it now reach into the countryside as well. Indonesia's borders are those of the Netherlands East Indies, which was fully formed at the beginning of the twentieth century, though Dutch imperialism began early in the seventeenth century. Indonesian culture has historical roots, institutions, customs, values, and beliefs that many of its people share, but it is also a work in progress that is undergoing particular stresses at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The name Indonesia, meaning Indian Islands, was coined by an Englishman, J. R. Logan, in Malaya in 1850. Derived from the Greek, Indos (India) and nesos (island), it has parallels in Melanesia, "black islands"; Micronesia, "small islands"; and Polynesia, "many islands." A German geographer, Adolf Bastian, used it in the title of his book, Indonesien , in 1884, and in 1928 nationalists adopted it as the name of their hoped-for nation.

Pendidikan di daerah Terpencil

JAKARTA - Pendidikan di Indonesia belum merata. Kesenjangan kualitas pendidikan antara di kota dengan di daerah terpencil masih tinggi. Padahal, Indonesia membutuhkan SDM bermutu untuk mengelola kekayaan alam yang berlimpah ruah. Support Coordinator Sekolah Anak Indonesia dari Yayasan Alirena, Yuni Chairani mengatakan, kinerja dan profesionalitas tenaga pendidik di daerah terpencil masih rendah.
"Masalah pendidikan di daerah tertinggal itu cukup luas. Selain masalah guru, kesadaran orangtua akan pendidikan masih rendah, fasilitas jauh berbeda dengan di kota," ujarnya di sebuah seminar dalam Pameran dan Konferensi Pendidikan GESS 2015 belum lama ini.
Selain itu, lanjut dia, masalah yang dihadapi, yakni pola pembelajaran anak yang masih konvensional. Sebab, guru hanya menerangkan secara ceramah, tanpa ada inovasi atau modifikasi sistem pembelajaran.
"Untuk itu kami mencoba mengubah sistem pembelajaran di sekolah-sekolah pedalaman," imbuhnya.
Sebaga percontohan, Yuni dan timnya mengambil daerah Kabupaten Lanny Jaya, Papua Tengah. Yuni menjelaskan, mulai kelas 4 SD, para siswa akan masuk asrama. Sekolah unggulan tersebut, kata Yuni, diharapkan dapat mencetak calon generasi yang dapat meneruskan pembangunan di Papua. Oleh karena itu, meski gratis, siswa yang ingin masuk asrama harus sudah bisa membaca.
"Ada seleksinya, sambil mengajarkan mereka profesional juga," ucapnya.
Untuk menghasilkan mutu pendidikan yang baik, para guru pun dikirim khusus ke daerah pedalaman. Hal ini juga dinilai sebagai tantangan lantaran sulit mencari guru yang mau dikirim ke sana.
"Inginnya cari guru dari Papua juga, tapi mereka tidak bisa instan, harus dibimbing dulu. Mungkin tahun depan baru ada rencana. Sementara guru yang dikirim ke sana juga harus dikontrol," tukasnya.

(rfa)

CLR – A Powerful Form of Lesson Study

This article was adapted from Takahashi, A., & McDougal, T. (2016). Collaborative lesson research: maximizing the impact of lesson study. ZDM, 1-14. doi:10.1007/s11858-015-0752-x, which may be accessed for free by clicking on the link.
“Lesson Study” is a translation of the Japanese phrase jugyou kenkyuu, which refers to a set of practices that have been used in Japan to improve teaching and learning for over 100 years. Lesson Study is credited with enabling profound changes in math and science instruction in Japan in recent decades.
Many educators outside of Japan have tried to use Lesson Study in the hope of effecting similar changes in their locales. Lacking first-hand experience with Japanese Lesson Study, and lacking some of the structural supports enjoyed by Japanese teachers, they have implemented lesson study in ways that sometimes varied significantly from how it is practiced in Japan. It should not be surprising that the impact of lesson study on teaching and learning in these circumstances has been uneven.
Dr. Akihiko Takahashi has 19 years of personal experience with Lesson Study as a teacher in Japan. Tom McDougal, who has been working with Dr. Takahashi since 2008, has traveled twice to Japan to observe Lesson Study there first-hand. But we, too, have had a lot to learn about how to effectively translate the practice into the U.S. context. This article summarizes what we have learned.

War denying millions of children an education

Almost 50 million children and young people in conflict areas out of school, says report, with Syrian civil war worsening problem

Almost 50 million children and young people living in conflict areas are out of school, more than half of them primary age, and reports of attacks on education are rising, according to figures published on Friday.

Civil war in Syria has contributed to the sharp increase in reported incidents of children being stopped from accessing education, physically attacked for trying to go to school or having their school bombed, or recruited by armed groups, found Unesco's Education for All global monitoring report (pdf) and the NGO Save the Children. Of more than 3,600 incidents recorded last year, more than 70% occurred in Syria.
The report comes as the Pakistani schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai, 16, addresses the UN general assembly in her first public speech since she was shot in the head by gunmen on her way to school in Pakistan last October.
Two other secondary school girls, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, suffered serious injuries in the attack. The Pakistani Taliban behind the attack threatened further attacks if Malala continued her public outreach, and issued warnings against anyone seen to support her or the principle she stands for: ensuring every girl in Pakistan can access education.
The report found that 48.5 million children between the ages of six and 15 living in conflict areas are out of school. Of that number, 28.5 million are aged between six and 11 and more than half of them are girls.
According to the Unesco report, globally, 57 million children are out of primary school.
One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools, said the report, as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.