© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 33
J. Kriewaldt et al. (eds.), Educating Future Teachers: Innovative Perspectives
in Professional Experience, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5484-6_3
Chapter 3
Theorising the Third Space of Professional
Experience Partnerships
Rachel Forgasz, Deborah Heck, Judy Williams, Angelina Ambrosetti,
and Linda-Dianne Willis
Abstract Across the international research literature, references to the problematic
‘theory-practice gap’ in initial teacher education abound. Essentially, this refers to
the dialectical positioning of university-based learning about teaching as abstracted
theory in opposition to situated school-based learning about teaching through prac-
tice. This perceived theory-practice gap is exacerbated by the fact that the distinc-
tion between university-based and school-based learning is not only figurative but
also literal, resulting in confusion amongst preservice teachers who often perceive
an irreconcilable tension between the theories learned at the university and the prac-
tices observed during their professional experience in schools.
Policy reform and popular debate around this persistent problem tend to focus
attention on rebalancing the ratios of theoretical and practical learning in initial
teacher education. But recent scholarship on the subject offers a new paradigm in
which theory meets practice and in which university- and school-based learning
come together in a third space of mutuality, hybridity and collaboration. Popularised
by Ken Zeichner, third space theory is gathering momentum as a framework for
closing the theory-practice gap in initial teacher education, especially as it plays out
in the professional experience component. Third space theory is being variously
applied across contexts to (re)frame school-university partnerships and the role and
position of various stakeholders within them.
R. Forgasz (*) • J. Williams
Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
D. Heck
University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia
A. Ambrosetti
Central Queensland University, Noosaville, QLD, Australia
L.-D. Willis
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia