Background

Changes in policy directives in teacher education and, in particular, professional experience have been frequent, often political and framed differently across Australian teacher education programs. Since the 1970s teacher education has been the focus of intense public scrutiny in Australia, with more than 100 reviews conducted into a variety of program components (Mayer et al., 2015). Consistent with this sustained ‘improvement agenda’, in February 2015 the Commonwealth Government released another report, Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers, developed by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG); this was followed by the government’s response to the report. The TEMAG (2015) report made 38 recommendations designed to improve initial teacher education in Australia and better prepare teachers for the profession. The professional experience component of teacher preparation featured prominently in these recommendations.

These recent policy directions in teacher education, and teacher educators’ responses to each wave of reviews, proposals, funding offers and incentives, inform this edited volume. Our focus is on innovative perspectives in professional experience. The promising accounts outlined here of initiatives that enhance professional experience make a contribution to the field to better inform scholars, teacher educators and policy makers. It is our intention that the narratives, comparisons, tentative theories, arrangements and arguments in the chapters will provide evidence of robust, broad and contemporary perspectives of professional experience practice. Through this opportunity to collaborate, problematise and critique, both established and emerging researchers across a range of institutions have uncovered new understandings of their own and others’ perspectives.

The origin of this volume was an initiative that was funded by an Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) competitive grant awarded to the Teacher Education Research and Innovation (TERI) Special Interest Group in 2015. Teacher educators throughout Australia and New Zealand were invited to share their innovative professional experience practices and perspectives. Participants were selected and grouped through themes that emerged in their application narratives, and they were invited to attend a working conference at Central Queensland University, Noosa Campus, on 27–28 January 2016. After sharing their ‘stories’ and research in progress, writing teams with a similar focus or supporting interests were arranged. Their distinct and unifying ideas were then consolidated through open and critical discussion convened by the conference leaders, resulting in a framework for this edited volume. Through the alignment of disparate university initiatives and by bringing together teacher educators across all levels of experience, a diverse range of current perspectives are shared and analysed in this volume. As Allard, Mayer, and Moss (2014) assert, sharing experiences is critical if ‘teacher educators [are] to reinsert themselves as key players in the debates around quality beginning teaching, rather than being viewed as a source of the problem’ (p. 425).

Aims

Professional experience (previously and elsewhere known as practicum, student teaching, practice teaching, internship, teaching rounds, clinical practice, work-integrated learning, field experience and school-based experience) remains a foundational component of all preservice teacher education programs and is one that is highly valued by preservice teachers, educators, administrators and schools alike (Le Cornu, 2016). Although the nomenclature carries with it a ‘host of assumptions and expectations about the place, purpose and nature of practice within initial teacher education programs’ (White & Forgasz, 2016, p. 231), to the uncritical eye, the professional experience component of most preservice teacher education programs in Australia appears to be similar in design, requirements and structure (Goodnough, Galway, Badenhorst, & Kelly, 2013; Mattsson, Eilertsen, & Rorrison, 2011). However, as co-convenors of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) special interest group focusing on ‘teacher education research and innovation’ (TERI), we discovered through reviewing hundreds of conference presentation submissions from 2012 to 2015 that there was evidence of many innovative ideas embedded within professional experience. The majority had been developed to meet specific challenges and contexts but, due to their local nature and reliance on the goodwill and commitment of participants, were seldom shared or published. We contend that the process of collaboratively negotiating these differences in innovation and perspective, rather than managing mandated policies and imposed frameworks, is the key to ensuring future generations of teachers develop the skills and knowledge that will be needed to effectively manage teaching and learning in their local contexts during times of rapid policy and social change. Edwards, Tsui, and Stimpson (2009) remind us of the limited agreement of conceptual frameworks for professional experience and note that ‘until recently very little of the research on school university partnership has utilised explicit theoretical frameworks’ (p. 9), while White (2016) also reflects our view of the importance of context observing that it is important:

to align strategically smaller-scale studies that when analysed and viewed together will highlight common themes, as well as shine a light on diversity and context relevant matters. (p. vi)

Most of the chapters in this edition were written collaboratively to present a multilayered understanding of a particular perspective or theme across a range of settings, and most will additionally present clear examples from current practice. Established and experienced lead authors guided and supported the writing process. As editors we challenged authors to position each chapter within the extant literature as well as theorise and deeply critique their contribution to both interrogate and celebrate current practices to encourage further innovation. The diverse backgrounds and expertise of the collaborating authors is a distinctive feature of this volume, and the blend of early career and experienced writers and researchers promotes a balance between the new and the reimagined, which as editors we have nurtured and supported.

This edition makes a significant contribution by going beyond describing initiatives to reconceptualise theoretical frameworks. It also aligns the locally focussed research to build and develop theories that have wider relevance, illuminating concepts beyond a sum of the individual innovations. Furthermore, this volume is informed by collaborative international research in Malta, Sweden, Australia and the Netherlands that also expands boundaries to reconceptualise the place of context in school-based practice for preservice teachers. As our international colleagues suggest:

[W]e are aware that practicum arrangements are developed incorporating several models and consequently we are suggesting a move from a descriptive view based on ‘models’ to a process-oriented view based on ‘arrangements’. We see this as a natural evolution, as what is actually happening in different contexts is that those responsible for professional learning are creating their own arrangements to meet the needs or constraints of their context. (Rorrison, Hennissen, Bonanno, & Männikkö Barbutiu, 2016, p. 125)

It appears to us that a more nuanced view of professional experience is implicated. The focus is changing through partnerships, local initiatives, government directives and most importantly a renewed call to open the debates around teaching and teacher education and share more comprehensively our experiences. The following chapters have provided broad evidence of successful and disparate innovations.

Positioning

In the introduction of the thirteenth volume in the Springer series, Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education, edited by Christopher Day and Judyth Sachs, the volume editors call for a shift in paradigms of learning and teaching and new ways of confronting the many challenges (Lee & Day, 2016, p. 12). Bringing together many of the leaders in the field of research into teacher education across Western and Chinese perspectives, they stress the difficulties and complexities of harnessing and explaining current reforms and initiatives due to the sheer enormity and diversity of contextual influences, as well as the limited attention given to an agreed ‘knowledge base of teaching and teacher education’ (p. 12). Despite an analysis of rigorous research into the changes and initiatives led by both teacher educators and governments across the globe, these authors still find that ‘no one approach or combination of approaches appears to satisfy the aspirations for high-quality teachers and teaching’ (p. 13) that is clearly expected by school communities and governments. Indeed they call for new mindsets and present teacher educators with the challenge to equip teachers with ‘qualities, values, knowledge and practical classroom skills’ (p. 13) to respond to all circumstances.

Zeichner, Payne, and Brayko (2015) also point out the labour intensity of cross-institutional collaborations and the extant international literature (see, for example Hennissen, Beckers, & Moerkerke, 2017) makes it clear that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to teacher education, just as there cannot be a uniform approach to classroom teaching. Issues of equity and justice and diversity and humanness are always going to confound those who try to enforce rigorously controlled rules and regulations (and accreditation requirements). It is important for governments to have confidence in the quality and consistency of teacher preparation and graduates across a range of different programs, but local knowledge, conditions and contexts should still be seen as the drivers for effective practice.

Through clear presentation of different perspectives and programs, we demonstrate how commitment, research and analysis can transform action and ultimately help teachers teach more effectively. We wish to unsettle and contradict the neoliberal focus on mandate and sameness through the potential of collaborative action to interrogate the field and to inform and strengthen the political debates. In Chap. 4 the authors write, ‘[f]rom our conversation, we developed solidarity and gained reassurance that we were not alone in striving for innovation in professional experience’, and as editors we are committed to expanding the knowledge base of teacher education referred to by Lee and Day (above) in our quest to open up the field. We also provide local evidence to conclusively contradict the focus on testing and economic imperatives (Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013, p. 553) that has gained strength both here and overseas. We heed Lingard and colleagues’ warning to circumvent the ‘strengthening of technologies of governance in education … and a weakening of political debates’ through providing evidence of how to avoid the inherent dangers of policy borrowing from the United States and the United Kingdom (Lingard, 2010). We offer a broad range of Australian research and innovation to support our claim.

Right from the start, we avoided stereotypes, starting our working conference with Moku-chi (ink-splash with energy) presented by its designer Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen (2015). Through using particular strategies from the ‘Chinese Four Treasures: stone, ink-stick, water and paper’ (Wade-Leeuwen, private conversation, January 27, 2016), the group was provided with opportunities to open different dimensional levels of creative thinking and collaborative action, resulting in a collective vision of what the working conference might achieve. The cover photo for this edition presents one of the unique creations depicting the release of inhibitions and the garnering of creativity.

Synopsis of Chapters

This edited volume is divided into four sections based on the themes that first evolved at the working conference. Although each chapter is constructed to stand alone, concepts are aligned and developed in the chapters within each section. Due to the vicissitudes in ideas over the 18 months of development, and the expansion of initial findings through deep analysis in the iterative writing phases, the section headings could now be considered as an orienting feature rather than a descriptive title.

Chapter 2 is authored by Simone White, Sharon Tindall-Ford, Debbie Heck and Susan Ledger – a mix of experienced and early career researchers from four different universities. The chapter focuses on school–university partnerships in Australia and positions the current situation within the policy changes over the last 20 years. Using illustrative cases from four different settings, the authors analyse the opportunities and challenges for future partnerships and provide recommendations for teacher educators working to sustain such partnerships. They identify that a reculturation of the ways schools and universities view partnerships is necessary and stress the importance of allowing for flexibility and diversity of partnership types if true equity is to be achieved.

Chapter 3 critiques the spatial metaphor of ‘third space’ and its use and misuse in the extant literature. Through a thorough and scholarly analysis of the seminal works of Bhabba and Soja, and contrasting the quite different view of Gutiérrez, who challenges the policy neutralising of the transformative potential of the ‘third space’, the authors unravel the genealogy of the concept beyond its relationship to Zeichner’s hybrid third space. From four different institutions and across two state jurisdictions, practicing teacher educators Debbie Heck, Judy Williams, Angelina Ambrosetti and Linda Willis are led by Rachel Forgasz to review the literature around ‘third space theory’ and how it has been used to frame partnership models, explore preservice teacher identity and conceptualise tensions in the theory–practice ‘gap’.

Chapter 4 introduces the term ‘cogenerativity’ to reimagine and realise partnerships that provide innovative professional experience for preservice teachers. Established scholars Linda Willis, Helen Grimmett and Debbie Heck explore three Australian preservice teacher education partnership projects through the use of ‘metalogue’, which they offer as a unique research methodology for education researchers. In their conversation about the notion of cogenerativity, they model how the method can be used, analysing cogenerativity as it is reflected in the literature and in their own projects. Issues of power sharing, knowledge pooling and deep negotiation characterise the concept, and the authors conclude that cogenerativity may be useful for framing the critical conversations that are important in initial teacher education as well as managing the evolving nature of the field.

In Chap. 5 Tony Loughland and early career researcher Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen discuss how cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987) can intersect with Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice theories to provide a generative theoretical lens and conceptual framework for professional experience. Through identifying university taught teaching methods/strategies and the reflective practitioner approach as boundary objects, the authors argue most cogently that these ‘artefacts’ are then ‘brokered’ by the university mentor to facilitate boundary crossing for preservice teachers. Implicit in the spaces that are then created is a coordination and alignment of perspectives that supports the collaborative partnerships that are sought between schools and universities. By recognising the entities of the two different communities and the important roles of boundary objects and brokers, other teacher educators can apply these concepts to inform the development of their collaborative professional experience programs.

In Chap. 6, Distinguishing Spaces of Mentoring: Mentoring as Praxis, Debra Talbot continues the theme of ‘spaces’ in her concern with the spaces in which mentoring might occur. She develops a strong and challenging argument to justify why she believes it is necessary to the interests of ongoing teacher education, and particularly initial teacher education, to trouble the existing paradigm and enactments of mentoring that continue in many institutions. Through consideration of the activities of those involved in mentoring relationships, she aims to contribute to a conceptualisation of mentoring as praxis that is transformative and mutually educative. She discusses the mentor/mentee relationship as reciprocal and fluid and refers to ‘communities of practice’ (Hord & Sommers, 2008; Lave & Wenger, 1991) as she positions her claims. Traversing the literature on mentoring in teacher education, the author provides evidence of a contested and under-theorised terrain, populated by the great thinkers in our critical–theoretical history (the likes of Homer, Bakhtin, Marx, Aristotle and Voloshinov) as well as more recent major Australian influences (the likes of Kemmis, Lave and Wenger) with emerging themes of collaboration and dialectical spaces.

Chapter 7, Reconsidering the Communicative Space: Learning to Be, offers three ‘vignettes’ as stories to illustrate how professional experience offers opportunities for preservice teachers to ‘learn to be’. Mia O’Brien, Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen, Fay Hadley, Rebecca Andrews, Nick Kelly and Steven Kickbusch ask the reader to review their perceptions of mentoring and being mentored as an iterative process where identity is continually being renegotiated through praxis. Regulatory bodies tend to focus on ‘what we know’ and ‘how we act’, yet this chapter provides a theoretical lens to help us understand how we ‘become’ as a teacher. The development of creativity, the diversity of preservice teacher background and the importance of disposition are presented as ‘spaces’ for revisioning how teacher identity can develop.

Chapter 8, Raising the Quality of Praxis in Online Mentoring, authored by Nick Kelly, Steven Kickbusch, Fay Hadley, Rebecca Andrews, Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen and Mia O’Brien provides a deep interrogation of the quality of the praxis of mentoring, particularly online mentoring, drawing on Habermas’s conception of praxis and Freire’s critical theoretical lens. Acknowledging the role of ‘systems’ in organising the knowledge of preservice teachers during professional experience, the authors also align with Hudson’s (2004) ‘five-factor model’ of mentoring. They demonstrate how the varied elements of mentoring can be enriched through asking the critical questions of moral and ethical practice. Although the TeachConnect online mentoring system has not yet achieved what the designers had hoped for, the opportunity to share their aspirations, particularly as a way to bridge the gap between teachers and designers, has been critical to the further development of their project. This chapter is an example of how the opportunities afforded to the participants at the Noosa workshop enabled them to engage with a range of ideas from participants with quite different backgrounds.

Chapter 9, Using a Developmental Assessment Rubric to Revitalise Stakeholder Conversations in Professional Experience, is the first chapter in the section Enabling Dialogues where innovations come together to provide evidence of the variety and quality of responses across Australia around the important conversations during professional experience. Trudy-Ann Sweeney and Barbara Nielsen report on an assessment rubric they have designed and trialled in Flinders University, which they compare rigorously with a rubric used at Malmo University in Sweden (Jonsson & Mattsson, 2011; Jonsson & Svingby, 2007; Panadero & Jonsson, 2013). Through adding the formative levels of ‘novice’ and ‘emerging’ to the graduate level of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) in an assessment rubric for all mentors to use during professional experience, there is evidence of transformed processes, understandings and outcomes. With findings of more professional conversations between preservice teachers and their mentors, better relationships with partnership schools due to the clarity of the assessment tool, and enhanced involvement and thus increasing agency of preservice teachers, the use of the rubric has recently been extended to all teacher preparation courses in the authors’ School of Education.

Chapter 10 , Fostering Professional Learning Through Evidence-Informed Mentoring Dialogues in School Settings, continues the theme of dialogues as well as stressing the importance of the mentoring role. Jeana Kriewaldt, Melanie Nash, Sally Windsor, Catherine Reid and Jane Thornton examine how the use of a descriptive observation tool enhances mentor teachers’ post-lesson conversations with preservice teachers. Relational agency is used as a conceptual framework particularly related to reflective phases of the process. Through an interpretivist case study approach, the authors offer strong evidence to support their findings through multiple extracts from participants and deep analysis of their data. Although acknowledging that perspective shapes what one notices, and that in turn depends on what we turn our attention to, the Teacher Tracking Tool is providing openings for more open and focussed learning conversations and has fostered an inquiring and collaborative stance.

Chapter 11, Professional Experience and Project-Based Learning as Service Learning, is the first in the final section Reframing Professional Practice. Teacher educators Kellie Tobin and Sally Windsor are led by experienced scholar and researcher Bill Eckersley to discuss well-established projects at three different Victorian universities that focus on ‘communities of practice’ in regions of low socio-economic status. Although the projects are quite distinct – one involves teaching in a remote indigenous setting, another regularly taking school students onto the university campus and yet another providing professional experience through designing curriculum projects within schools – the outcomes of strong partnerships and mutual benefits are enlightening and reflect deep engagement with the local context. The authors clearly establish that their innovative professional experience arrangements integrate the important elements of team work, leadership, negotiation, evaluation and collaboration that benefit both preservice teachers and the communities where they are placed.

Chapter 12, Immersion Programs in Australia: Exploring Four Models for Developing ‘Classroom-Ready’ Teachers, explores how immersion programs develop ‘classroom-ready’ teachers. Sharon Tindall-Ford, Susan Ledger, Judy Williams and Angelina Ambrosetti present the purpose, structure and intended outcomes of four different immersion models in four different jurisdictions across Australia. The programs are as varied as they are similar, and the authors begin to problematise the issues that emerge. Through the examination of each model, guiding principles are highlighted for the establishment and success of an immersion program. All authors are deeply committed to the advantages of immersive experiences in their context, and the chapter establishes the need for further study in this area.

Chapter 13, Paired Placements in Intensified School and University Environments: Advantages and Barriers, continues the theme of different ‘arrangements’ for professional experience and investigates the complexities of the pairing of placements during professional experience. Paired placement is an attractive solution to the problem of providing placements for all preservice teachers who are enrolled in teacher education programs, yet the authors believe that the practice is under-researched. Through a review of the literature and the application of the findings to their own projects, a range of enabling and constraining elements are uncovered. The authors, Catherine Lang and Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen, find that commitment by all participants and the development of trust between the preservice teachers, as well as strong communication pathways, are critical to success. The careful and creative management of these elements is also essential. The quality of the relationships that develop both between the preservice teachers and with their mentors is crucial for successful learning outcomes. In this triadic approach to teaching and learning, peers can provide a source of support and can complement the development of deeper reflective practice.

The final chapter presents our insights, conclusions and future challenges as we interrogate what we have shared, what we have learned and where the gaps continue to be. While we have endeavoured to keep alive the conversations around professional experience in teacher education, it is critical that collaborative, cross-institutional and cross-border research becomes more established in our field to nurture early career researchers and turn fresh lenses on some established perspectives. This chapter addresses these issues.