236
- What can new research contribute in strengthening teacher preparation in schools
and early learning centres? - What might these promising innovations mean for the range of stakeholders
responsible for designing and implementing teacher education including teacher
educators, supervising teachers, policymakers, employers and regulatory
authorities?
The area of professional experience was chosen as the focus of this volume as it
is broadly acknowledged as a critical component of learning to teach (Darling-
Hammond, 2010 ; White, Bloomfield, & Le Cornu, 2010 ). Yet university knowledge
is often privileged over practice-based learning. Concerns abound that there is a
disconnection between what preservice teachers learn in university-based settings
and what they learn and enact in school-based settings, which has led to a call for a
‘practicum turn’ in initial teacher education. This important turn is marked by new
and ‘different arrangements, approaches and concepts for practice that draw special
attention to practicum learning’ (Mattsson, Eilertsen, & Rorrison, 2011 , p. 2). It is
by forging meaningful connections between university-based and school-based
teacher educators, and particularly by designating experienced people in dedicated
roles to work across both sites that the preparation of teachers can be genuinely
strengthened (Rorrison, 2011 ).
Jennifer Gore ( 2001 ) rightly claims that ‘more field experience in and of itself is
not necessarily better for preservice teachers’ (p. 126). Rather, it is the quality and
range of professional experience that matters, the ways that relationships are man-
aged and nurtured that make a difference, and how coursework and assessment are
authentically connected to professional experience that is important. Taking into
account practical considerations from the number of days spent at school sites to
learning to understand how teacher education can better work as a holistic system
supported by all partners, it is necessary to recast the problem of preparing teachers.
The call to a practicum turn then is a call to build a communicative space to effec-
tively interlace practice and theory within specific education contexts.
As highlighted in many of the chapters, the changing landscape of initial teacher
education policy in Australia has created opportunities to reimagine the structure,
the relationships and the tools of the professional experience component. In this
respect, the recommendations from the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory
Group (TEMAG) report, Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers ( 2015 ), provides
challenges and opportunities that enable us to rethink teacher preparation. Although
current initial teacher education accreditation processes and accountabilities have
changed rapidly, leaving many teacher educators feeling that there is little flexibility
for difference and innovation, the documented accounts in this volume provide
strong examples of the types of innovations that can occur within this evolving
landscape.
The goal of initial teacher education is to produce ‘classroom-ready’ graduate
teachers. Yet this is a contested term. Some educationalists describe classroom
readiness as the point at which the graduate standards, as set by the Australian
Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, has been achieved. Others state that
A. Ambrosetti et al.