First year out Five top tips from Phil Beadle Teacher preparation ...

14 PROFESSION PROFESSION 15
School-based practicum
experience is highly valued by
pre-service teachers, but in
preparing quality teachers for this
new century we need to ensure
that the school-based or ‘clinical’
experience is purposefully
interwoven with academic
content and professional courses.
As America’s National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher
Education (NCATE) Blue Ribbon
Panel puts it in Transforming
Teacher Education Through
Clinical Practice, ‘It is time
to fundamentally redesign
preparation programs to support
close coupling of practice,
content, theory, and pedagogy.’
Partnership
Balancing
Partnership is a key to achieving
such close coupling. Top of
act
Theory and practice – and partnerships
A key challenge in the education of pre-service teachers is getting the balance right
between the academic course and school-based experience. Ruth Radford explains
how a Tasmanian partnerships approach is doing just that.
the Class, the 2007 report by
the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on
Education and Vocational
Training on its inquiry into
teacher education, recommended
partnerships where stakeholders
worked together and shared
decisions and responsibility. In
2009, Tony Kruger, Anne Davies,
Bill Eckersley, Frances Newell
and Brenda Cherednichenko
examined the development of
such partnerships and noted
that while some exciting
university-school partnerships
exist, systematic approaches
are absent or at best passive.
As Kruger and co. conclude,
school systems and governments
need to contribute actively to
partnerships if they want them
to succeed.
In Tasmania, we’re building just
such an active and systemic
partnership between the
University of Tasmania and
the Tasmanian Department
of Education (DoE): the
Partnerships in Teaching
Excellence (PiTE) program. This
initiative builds on the strengths
of both University of Tasmania
staff and staff from the DoE in
preparing teachers to work in
low-socioeconomic status (SES)
schools.
Twenty PiTE scholarships were
awarded in 2009, the program’s
inaugural year; 25 in 2010; and
23 in 2011.
Kruger and co. identify three
benefits of an effective and
sustainable partnership:
• a focus on learning
inside teaching | April 2011 www.atra.edu.au | insideteaching@atra.edu.au