Universities create new test to prepare teachers for rowdy students, disruptive classes

Two leading Victorian universities have established programs to better prepare those pursing a career in teaching for disruptive students and life in the classroom.

Teaching students need to spend more time learning to manage rowdy classrooms and deal with the fallout from schoolyard bullying, two top Victorian universities believe.

Some prospective La Trobe University teaching students will sit a newly-developed test that focuses on real world scenarios rather than academic performance.

The Aptitude for Teaching Assessment will see would-be teaching students asked how they would respond to 15 real-world scenarios, including how they would stop a disruptive student from interrupting a class.

The applicants will also be asked how they would support a victim of bullying, and how they would teach a class with limited resources.

Associate Professor Melissa Barnes and her colleague Dr Kate Lafferty are behind the new test.

The new test will ask would-be teaching students how they’d manage rowdy classes and teach a class with little resources.

Prof Barnes said people wanting to enrol in a teaching degree should understand what it’s like to be in a classroom.

“My hope is the test will provide participants with a greater sense of what the profession is, what kind of skill sets they need, what they will be required to do, and the competencies they need to develop or strengthen,” she said.

Prof Barnes said the university aimed to educate “the best teachers we can” and that she and her colleagues wanted to better understand the kinds of people who had the potential to become good classroom teachers.

For La Trobe applicants, the new test is an alternative to an existing pre-entry test, the Casper test, which many Victorian universities use to screen applicants for teaching degrees.

The Casper test also assesses interpersonal skills, and is used by some universities in the United States, especially for applicants for medical and nursing degrees.

The Casper test has been the subject of criticism, including that the scenarios it uses are not related to teaching, and that its rationale for scoring students is unclear.

Prof Barnes said she hopes the new test would soon be an option at all universities.

Current primary and secondary school teachers will soon have access to a new course that will offer support with managing difficult students.

Monash University is separately developing training courses for the Victorian Education Department to help teachers and teacher aides to better manage misbehaving students.

Behaviour Assessment and Supports in Schools project co-lead Umesh Sharma said the program aimed to help teachers deal with disruptive students effectively, whether they were teaching primary school, high school or special school students.

Prof Sharma’s colleague, Dr Erin Leif, said the training revolved around real-life scenarios of misbehaving students with different needs, including students suffering from trauma and students from multicultural backgrounds.

The training course will be available to all school staff and will be rolled out every three months from the start of term one next year.