experience was conceptualized and enacted. Research therefore needed to be
viewed as not only facilitating knowledge engagement and production with partners
but to also enable evidence-based and practice-based decision making.
In summary, placing professional experience at the centre of the learning of
students of teaching was built on the basis of a partnership designed to foster
collaboration whilst addressing particular imperatives as different teaching and
learning possibilities were envisaged and achieved. Being cognisant of the dis-
tinctive needs of each partner, the partnership itself was fuelled by a recognition of
the legitimacy of practice-based learning which itself was reliant on inquiry into
practice and the knowledge forms and learning spaces in which it was conducted.
Following is a brief example of how the approach to Professional Experience
(described above) was initiated and activated.
48.6 Activating Professional Experience Through
a Partnership
Activating this approach to professional experience is exemplified in the partnership
between an Education Faculty and a Secondary School in Victoria, Australia. The
Midland School-University partnership^1 was developed to provide a cohort expe-
rience for a group of students of teaching that might provide an intentional and
consistent learning experience for the group while at the same time positively
contributing to the school in which it was based.
From their third week at university, the entirefirst year cohort of around 100 Bachelor of
Education students attended Midland School for one day a week across a ten week period.
The pre-service teachers completed a core undergraduate unit on the campus, undertook a
school induction programme, learnt about what being a teacher meant, experienced the
rhythms of work within a school and practised their teaching in numeracy, literacy and
sport education curriculum.
The numbers involved in having an entire cohort on the Midland campus meant that issues
requiring serious consideration naturally extended beyond the logistics of parking and
signing into the school. How participating teachers might prepare for working with, and
assessing, the progress of large numbers of students of teaching through the professional
experience required ongoing consideration. There was a need to develop a model that was
not cumbersome for mentor teachers as they had up to six students of teaching to mentor
but at the same time they needed to be comfortable with the sense of accountability
associated with assessing progress in relation to the professional standards they were
required to meet. (see AITSL professional standards,www.aitsl.edu.au)
At the same time, the scale of the endeavour afforded significant benefits for resourcing and
evaluation. Students of teaching ended their day of professional experience with their core
university unit taught in Midland school. This offered time for university academics to
facilitate the collective stories of practice accumulated during the day and to debrief and
support the students of teaching around their practice and subsequent knowledge(^1) The school name is a pseudonym designated for this study.
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