Chad Morrison PhD

Professional experience represents a critical intersection between the academic programme and practice contexts as key elements within initial teacher education. It allows preservice teachers to engage in the roles and responsibilities of teaching while significantly enhancing their perspectives, knowledge and practices. These experiences represent sites of critical boundary crossings, where stakeholders associated with initial teacher education often pursue disparate priorities, perspectives and practices. Because of this, effective boundary crossings are critical to this work, but are also inherently challenging. This chapter reports on the redefining of boundaries between one university and its stakeholders for the purpose of developing a collective vision and common objectives. The introduction of a teaching performance assessment within Australian initial teacher education provided the impetus for reform. In response, a strategic, relational approach was developed to redefine how stakeholders reimagined shared practices. Importantly, this approach was strengthened through membership to what was referred to as the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA) Collective. The consequences of this included enhanced relationships, informed perspectives, new and shared language and practices and more regular and productive boundary crossings for those associated with this work.

Higher education is increasingly responding to the need for flexible, accessible study options for diverse student cohorts. This includes offering courses available in fully online mode that incorporate work integrated learning (WIL) which contribute to preparing work-ready graduates. This chapter presents one university’s approach to delivering fully online initial teacher education (ITE), its embedded WIL components and innovative approaches for support and supervision. Survey responses from 56 online ITE graduates showed that participants were predominantly mature-aged females transitioning from other careers and who juggled multiple responsibilities during the final WIL. Overall, graduates were satisfied with their WIL and intended to stay in teaching for their whole career. Most were employed as teachers, with approximately one-quarter employed at their final WIL placement school. Insights gained about this component of fully online ITE are of global significance given the sustained interest in the capacity and retention of teachers in Australia and across the world.

"Opportunities and Challenges in Teacher Recruitment and Retention serves as a comprehensive resource for understanding teachers' careers across the professional lifespan. Grounded in the notion that teachers' voices are essential for understanding teachers' lives, this edited volume contains chapters that privilege the voices of teachers above all. Book sections look closely at the particular issues that arise when recruiting an effective, committed, and diverse workforce, as well as the challenges that arise once teachers are immersed in the classroom setting. Promising directions are also included for particularly high-need areas such as early childhood teachers, Black male teachers, STEM teachers, and urban teachers. The book concludes with a call for self-care in teachers' lives"--

Chapter contributions come from a variety of contexts across the United States and around the world. However, regardless of context or methodology, these chapters point to the importance of valuing and respecting teachers’ lives and work. Moreover, they demonstrate that teacher recruitment and retention is a complex and multifaceted issue that cannot be addressed through simplistic policy changes. Rather, attending to and appreciating the web of influences on teachers lives and careers is the only way to support their work and the impact they have on our next generation of students.

This chapter explores the plotlines of resilience as narrated by three early career teachers (ECTs) in rural schools and the deliberation process they undertook in response to their key challenges. Regular online reflections about their transition into rural teaching were collected through www.goingok.org, a digital tool (see Gibson A, Willis J, Morrison C, Crosswell L, Not losing the plot: creating, collecting and curating qualitative data through a web-based application. In The Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) 2013 Conference, July 2013, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD. (Unpublished), 2013). Drawing on a transactional-ecological theory of resilience, the qualitative analysis was informed by current literature (see Day C, Gu Q, Resilient teachers, resilient schools: Building and sustaining quality in testing times. Routledge, Oxon, 2014; Mansfield CF, Beltman S, Broadley T, Weatherby-Fell N. Teach Teach Educ 54:77–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.11.016, 2016) that highlights the dynamic and ongoing process of interaction between the contextual and personal factors. The analysis was also informed by Archer’s (2000) theories of social realism that enables the interplay between the personal powers of humans to act (PEPs), the affordances and constraints of the structural-material (SEPs) and cultural-discursive systems (CEPs). Rather than focusing solely on the capacities of individual ECTs, or structural and cultural conditions, together the transactional-ecological theories of resilience and Archer’s theoretical concepts enable a more nuanced analysis of the transition experiences for these rural ECTs. The data suggest the ECTs relied heavily on their available personal resources (PEPs) to maintain their resilience; however in doing so, they experienced strong fluctuations as they navigated the constant uncertainty inherent in the first year of teaching as well as the tensions of settling into a small rural community. Furthermore, the researchers recognised that these highly agentic early career teachers were seeking greater access to structural and cultural opportunities (SEPs and CEPs) within their resilience ecologies to affirm their own experiences, expectations and practice with colleagues and school leaders. The findings have implications for initial teacher preparation programs, school leadership and policy development in regard to retaining quality teachers in rural and remote schools.

This chapter reflects on my professional identity workProfessional identity workWork/life balance as a teacher educator, shaped by mindful practiceMindful practice and explained using Goffman’s dramaturgical framework (1959). As a teacher educator, I have experienced regular transitions between settings (Higher EducationHigher education Institutions) with each setting requiring unique performances (roles and functions performed) within initial teacher educationInitial Teacher Education (ITE). During this time, there has also been significant and rapid reform within Australian ITE, with particularly focus within my area of expertise, Professional ExperienceProfessional experience. As a result of my constant grappling with new settings, roles and expectationsExpectations, my manner and appearance as a teacher educator has often been the source of great tension for me. Often what has been scripted for these performances demonstrates a difference of what has been required front of stage and what has been in contrast to what has been required backstage or off stage. This has impacted on the ways in which I have understood my roles but also how I have understood myself and my motivations for this work. The performances of my workWork/life balance have therefore produced feelings of ongoing transitionTransition and perpetual identityIdentity work, scripted amongst changing sets, for diverse audiences and alongside a cast also grappling with the same inconsistencies between their required appearances and the manner by which they have sought to perform. This complexityComplexity has emphasised the importance of key members of the cast (fellow teacher educatorsTeacher educators) as communityCommunity in shaping my evolving professional identityProfessional identity. This professional identity workProfessional identity work as mindful performance (practice), co-scripted and co-directed by others, has enabled me to navigate trying conditions and wrestle with the manner by which this performance occurs and why.