Educating Future Teachers Innovative Perspectives In Professional Experience

This book describes, problematises and theorises professional practice research in a range of Australian settings to provide evidence of robust, wide-ranging and contemporary approaches to professional experience in initial teacher education. It presents the latest research and evidence from those currently involved in innovative programmes designed to provide alternatives to meet local challenges during professional experience in teacher education. As the professional experience process is framed quite differently across Australian teacher education programmes, these cross-institutional accounts of collaboration, innovation and success make a major contribution to the field, both nationally and internationally. The book was developed from a research workshop funded by an Australian Association for Research in Education grant and organised by the Teacher Education Research and Innovation Special Interest Group.

This book takes a fresh look at 'professional experience' in initial teacher education in Australia. Using collaborative narrative methodologies, the authors critically explore the ways in which one faculty of education engages with schools, industry, the teaching profession and government policy to deliver an innovative professional experience program. It includes chapters offering new perspectives on more traditional practicums in schools, as well as those reporting on exciting partnership initiatives where pre-service teachers, teacher educators and practitioners work together to teach and learn in new and mutually beneficial ways. There is a particular focus on the professional learning of all stakeholders from across the professional experience program. The book allows readers to gain a new understanding of the experiences and learning opportunities available to all stakeholders when a professional experience program makes a priority of boundary work, relational work and identity work. With the critical and creative power of narrative to convey what other research methodologies cannot, it shows how one institution has developed a variety of innovative approaches and structures in response to on-going debates on quality in teacher education, the role of educational partnerships in teacher preparation and the personal and professional insights gained from such opportunities.

This book explores how educators are proactively working to reclaim teacher professionalism by engaging in exemplary practice and promoting quality education for all. It examines voices in contemporary Australian teacher education and how professionalism can contribute to achieving the multiplicity of purposes in education. The work of contemporary teachers and teacher educators, and perceptions about this work, have changed significantly. In recent times, governments have identified key issues linked to the quality of teachers, as presented in multiple inquiries, creating shifts in public policy and increasing regulation. Educators must work towards improving public and policy maker perceptions of teaching as a profession. Teacher educators make an important contribution in engaging in ongoing scholarship and debate that examine research and practice and speak back to managerial discourses on professionalism. It is through this work that educators shape and re-shape understanding of what it means to be a professional.

This book examines agentic approaches by which teacher educators navigate a highly regulated environment. It investigates how teacher educators are responding to such regulation by employing approaches such as exploratory and case study research designs. This book analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to understand the diverse, innovative and critical perspectives of teacher educators who are guided by state and federal level initiatives to enhance the quality Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. Prominent educational theoretical perspectives are also used in this book to inform data analysis and to illuminate the empirically based findings. This book showcases research-informed insights for the global education community from leading researchers from across a number of teacher education institutions, locally and otherwise. By adopting an ‘activist’ approach, this book positions teacher educators’ research and contribution to the field as agentive and pro-active.

This book showcases models of Australian school–university partnerships which, in their development, respond to, and aim to move beyond the principles and practices of current partnership mandates in initial teacher education. Supported by government policy, these partnerships reveal innovative ways of working across multiple stakeholder groups within a range of unique school-university partnership contexts. Each of the examples of school-university partnerships within this edited collection provide insights into the power and potential of cross-sectoral vision, collaboration and growth, drawing upon research evidence and impact data that points to the mutual benefits experienced by all stakeholders. Across its ten chapters, this book explores various examples of partnerships, and forms an important reference for all initial teacher education providers, schools, and educational stakeholders; as school–university partnerships necessitate the way these sectors connect, learn from one another, and inform future practice.

This book shares exemplary teaching and learning practices from the tertiary sector, and addresses important issues concerning quality, scholarship and innovation in teaching and learning in tertiary settings. It takes on classic issues regarding curricula, technologies and assessment, but approaches them from novel perspectives and using a variety of methodological approaches. Its chapters explore innovative and cutting-edge ideas in tertiary education. Readers will be both challenged and inspired to investigate the ideas discussed further.

This book presents a duoethnographic exploration and narrative account of what it means to be a teacher educator today. Adopting a narrative approach, the book presents different personal, political and institutional perspectives to interrogate common challenges facing teacher education and teacher educators today. In addition, the book compares and contrasts the teacher education landscapes in Australia and the UK and addresses a broad range of topics, including the autobiographical nature of teacher educators’ work, the value of learning from experience, the importance of collegiality and collaboration in learning to become a teacher educator, and the intersection of the personal, professional and political in the development of teacher educator pedagogies and research agendas. Each chapter combines personal narratives and research-based perspectives on the key dimensions of teacher educators’ work that can be found in the literature, including self-study research. Readers will gain a better understanding of the processes, influences and relationships that make being a teacher educator both a challenging and rewarding career. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable asset for university leaders, experienced and beginning teacher educators, and researchers interested in the professional learning and development of teacher educators.

This book, an inaugural publication from the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), Teacher Education: Innovation, Intervention and Impact is both a product of, and seeks to contribute to, the changing global and political times in teacher education research. This book marks an historically significant shift in the collective work and outreach of the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) as it endeavours to become an even more active contributor to a research-rich foundation for initial teacher education and to a research-informed teaching profession. The book showcases teacher education research and scholarship from a wide range of institutional collaborations across Australia. Studies highlight the multiple ways in which teacher education researchers are engaging with students, teachers, schools and communities to best prepare future teachers. It informs both teacher education policy and practice and is ‘a must read’ for those engaged in the education community. Above all it marks a shift for teacher educators to build a research rich teaching profession.