What to do when our schools run out of the teachers they urgently need

Linda Hobbs, Russell Tytler, Peta White and Jill Brown

By Linda Hobbs, Russell Tytler, Peta White and Jill Brown
Community contribution / May 6, 2021

When faced with a teacher shortage, often schools need to ‘make do’ and ask teachers to teach away from their area of expertise in order to staff classes.

That’s called teaching out-of-field and sometimes teachers, put in that position, can feel unsupported and overwhelmed.

The issue of teaching ...

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By Linda Hobbs, Russell Tytler, Peta White and Jill Brown

Community

Associate Professor Linda Hobbs is a Science and STEM educator and has researched in the area of out-of-field teaching for over 12 years. Professor Russell Tytler is Alfred Deakin Professor of Science Education at Deakin University, and has published widely on student and teacher learning, and interdisciplinarity in STEM. Dr Peta White is a science and environmental education senior lecturer at Deakin University with research interests including science and biology education; sustainability, climate change, and environmental education; and collaborative/activist research. Dr Jill Brown is a mathematics educator and researcher and Course Director of the Graduate Certificate Secondary Mathematics.

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