Loading...
Evaluating quality in professional experience partnerships for graduate teacher employability
Walker, Rebecca Morrison, Chad Hay, Iain
Walker, Rebecca
Morrison, Chad
Hay, Iain
Abstract
Over recent years, much has been said about the quality of Australian initial teacher education. Concerns about the preparation of pre-service teachers and the capacity of graduates to meet the demands of the classroom have re-emphasised professional experience as a fundamental component of high-quality teacher preparation. Simultaneously, this focus on professional experience has emphasised the importance of partnerships. Through policy, the formalisation of partnerships between initial teacher education providers and early learning centres and schools has been linked to quality assurance and auditing cycles which report on the ways that providers prepare graduates for teaching. The employability of suitably-prepared graduates and their early career traction are of particular interest to policy makers, regulators and teacher educators alike. As a result, establishing an evidence base for quality in professional experience partnerships is paramount. This paper reports on the evolution of a strategic partnerships model between one provider and its growing network of partner schools. This model has been developed through a comprehensive evaluation process, examining the nature of formal partnerships and the outcomes associated with them. Data presented here highlights outcomes identified by stakeholders as influential and enacted through formal partnerships. Analysis of data also emphasises ongoing priorities for partnership development, implementation and evaluation, collectively understood to be closely connected to graduate employability.
Keywords
initial teacher education, professional experience partnerships, graduate employability
Date
2019
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
10
Issue
1
Page Range
118-137
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
Open access
License
CC BY-NC 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
Copyright in the article is vested in the author(s) with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0), that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, but not use the material for commercial purposes.