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Across the world, countries have engaged in different iterations of curriculum change, and one of the common denominators of reform is the proposal of more agency for teachers around curriculum making. This is not an easy task for teachers. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the effects that international ERASMUS+ mobilities have had on the power of curricular agency of teachers from two European countries. This work is based on an empirical investigation of a qualitative nature which collected the testimonies of four school headmasters, a deputy principal and eleven teachers from Ireland and Portugal, teaching different curriculum matters, who were involved in the ERASMUS+ programme. Our findings evidence a very positive impact on secondary teachers' capacity to self‐organize and achieve agency in relation to curriculum making by adapting their knowledge and skills, learnt through the mobility, to their own culture and context through collaborative communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the COVID-19 restrictions and the pivot to online teaching and learning, teacher educators were forced to consider new spaces for School Placement and the assessment of these new sites of practice. This paper explores the process of the redesigning of the assessment of school placement components from the perspective of ten teacher educators across five teacher education programmes in one university. Hybridity theory, 'third space', and figurational sociology allowed us to understand who and what influenced the redesigning of assessment practices. The three themes relating to assessment included: (i) A network of interdependent relationships influencing teacher educators' reimagining of assessment processes; (ii) The influence of external interdependent relationships and context(s); and (iii) The role(s) of assessor for the teacher educator. We explicitly argue for the need to continue to advocate and advance these practices to 'build Initial Teacher Education back better'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2020, Initial Teacher Education providers were forced to reimagine many long-established practices due to pandemic restrictions. One post-primary concurrent Initial Teacher Education programme in the Republic of Ireland responded by conceptualising and developing an initiative to engage pre-service teachers in an authentic assessment task through the preparation of a classroom-based assessment from the perspective of the pupil. They then engaged in peer review and peer feedback on these classroom-based assessments and partook in a Subject Learning and Assessment Review meeting. This required the professional development of assessment literacies on the part of pre-service teachers, as well as disturbing their personal assessment beliefs at a cognitive and affective level. This paper finds that the collaborative assignment experience challenged pre-service teachers' previous conceptions about the purposes of assessment while providing them with insight and preparation for formative assessment processes in use throughout Irish post-primary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]