Chad Morrison PhD

The Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report, Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers, (2015) identified professional experience as one of the five keys areas for reform of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) as this is where pre-service teachers to learn to integrate theoretical knowledge of teaching with their practice. Recommendations in the report are intended to lead to improvements in the structure and delivery of professional experience in ITE.

The Australian Council of Deans of Education established the Network of Associate Deans of Professional Experience (NADPE) in 2016 to develop a national forum for ITE providers to collectively discuss and review the provision of professional experience in ITE. Initial discussions by members of the NADPE have highlighted the breadth of issues that influence the delivery of professional experience in ITE programs. These are:

• accreditation requirements;
• teaching learning and assessment practices;
• higher education funding;
• university-school partnerships and staffing agreements,
• and teaching and work practices in schools and higher education settings.

National course accreditation standards, determined by the Australian Institute for Teaching and Learning Leadership (AITSL 2015) and state registration authorities, require ITE providers to negotiate with schools for a minimum of 60 days of supervised professional experience for graduate programs and 80 days for undergraduate programs for each pre-service teacher. These requirements represent a major investment in time and effort from providers and schools alike. In 2016 for example, school placements were required in metropolitan, regional and remote locations across Australia for over 81,000 pre-service teachers in 375 ITE programs offered by 48 accredited providers.

This report on Professional experience in initial teacher education: A review of current practices in Australian ITE, presents data that were collected in 2017 and reflects changes in that are in progress in response to the TEMAG report. The series of five studies that are reported here provide an account of current developments in ITE, their impact on the delivery and quality of professional experience, and issues that need to be addressed to support further improvements.

The purpose of this 2015 research project was to gain a better understanding of the experiences of early career teachers (ECTs) in Lutheran schools. We could then understand how to better support early career teachers to experience success at their entry into the profession and also throughout their career trajectories. The project was a partnership between Lutheran Education Queensland (LEQ) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to

1. Work with beginning teachers in their first six months of professional practice to investigate their transition experiences, and

2. Work with mentor teachers/leaders to analyse the data about the beginning teacher experiences, to then make recommendations for further support of beginning teacher transitions to LEQ.