Educating Future Teachers Innovative Perspectives in Professional Experience

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Conversations Focused on Teaching Capability Aligned

with the Standards

This study also sought to investigate to what extent the rubric impacted on profes-
sional conversations associated with formative feedback and summative judgements
about preservice teachers’ teaching capabilities aligned with the APST. The inten-
tion was to identify whether these conversations between preservice teachers and
their supervisors were transformed from being largely based on personal opinion
towards using evidence to demonstrate achievement of specific focus areas. The
rubric was designed to evaluate and guide conversations that were integral to the
formative, as well as the summative, assessment processes in the professional expe-
rience program. Table 9.6 shows that the majority of teacher educators, school coor-
dinators and supervising teachers agreed that they used the rubric to assist evaluating
preservice teachers’ teaching and learning.
During the focus groups, some teacher educators reported that preservice teach-
ers ensured they were very familiar with all aspects of the rubric in preparation for
their professional experience placements and were worried if they felt that a particu-
lar school might not give them the opportunity to gain feedback on some aspect of
teaching. Consequently, they described how some preservice teachers were proac-
tive in securing professional experience placements in schools they were confident
would support their learning. In particular, some preservice teachers had elected to
undertake an extended internship professional experience placement in schools
which provided a high level of support for a group of preservice teachers over a
60-day placement (as opposed to the standard 40-day placement with few preser-
vice teachers). The extended option was attractive as it often led to employment
after graduation; however, this frequently resulted in reduced income from part-
time employment.
Throughout the open-ended survey comments and focus group interviews with
the teacher educators, there was frequent mention that the rubric was well received
by supervising teachers, school coordinators, teacher educators and preservice
teachers as it used a common language to discuss teaching. In contrast to this view,
a final-year preservice teacher questioned the utility of the rubric and the interim
and final reporting process. She commented:

Table 9.6 The rubric was used to assist the evaluation of preservice teachers’ teaching and
learning

Group

Strongly

disagree Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly

agree Total

Teacher educators 0% 0% 0% 73.33% 26.67% 15

(0) (0) (0) (11) (4)

Supervising teachers 0% 2.20% 6.59% 52.75% 38.46 91

(0) (2) (6) (48) (35)

School coordinators 0% 4.55% 18.18 50.00 27.27% 22

(0) (1) (4) (11) (6)

T.-A. Sweeney and B. Nielsen

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