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This paper presents evidence from a nationally representative sample of early career teachers about those likely to miss out on formal support, and the employment conditions associated with this absence of support. It uses survey data from the Staff in Australia’s Schools Survey. Consistent with existing research, our results suggest a relationship between early career teachers with insecure employment and a lack of support. The findings suggest that, for early career teachers, being unsupported is associated with dissatisfaction with professional relationships and career opportunities; and that this dissatisfaction is associated with an intention to leave the profession.

This positioning paper seeks to contribute to the knowledge base of the changing professional learning needs of supervising or mentor teachers in initial teacher education. To do so, we draw from the work of Project Evidence, an Australian Office of Learning and Teaching funded project, designed to support teacher education through the development of a professional learning website. Our focus in this paper is our growing understanding of the complex work of teachers as they navigate new supervisory and mentoring roles in the current education context of high stakes standardisation. We examine the implications for their changing work practices within the policy imperative to build effective school-university partnerships in teacher education. Within this context, we discuss the ways in which Project Evidence has attempted to (re)position the emphasis of the work of the mentor teacher away from the dual role of assessor and supervisor to encompass their own professional learning.

Facebook status updates provided the data for a study about the transition learning experiences of 1st-year university students. Strict ethical guidelines were proposed by the PhD researcher from the outset of the study. Anonymity was considered important for the approved ethical clearance for both the university and the participants. Phenomenography was adopted and adapted for the study because it both conceptually and methodologically managed anonymity as well as questions of authenticity. An ethical dilemma arose during the research because the archival parameters were expanded by the researcher to allow the collection of data from the participants’ network. Questions of consent in an online space and how to report findings, which included data from people unaware of their involvement in the research, needed to be considered.

The school-based experiences of preservice teachers are much reported in research with school placement often presented as a ‘high stakes’ endeavour. However, there is limited research on the impact of their presence on supervising teachers. This paper highlights supervision as bringing a change to teaching that impacts on teachers’ identities. Tensions can emerge when teachers are required to act concurrently as teacher and supervisor. The paper argues that it is critical that the interpersonal demands of supervision become an important focus of the partnership between universities and schools if practicums are to be beneficial to all stakeholders.

Policy documents informing the profession of teaching in Australia and elsewhere explicitly recommend nurturing those new to the profession working collaboratively with colleagues. Key to the development and growth of beginning teachers is the informal exchange of ideas and knowledge between colleagues – essentially through the functioning of a community of practice. In practice there are beginning teachers who do not experience productive professional collaborations. In this article we use positioning theory and discourse analysis as a methodological “hearing aid” to listen to the story of a beginning teacher, a global English speaker, as she tells of her personal experiences of being excluded by her colleagues as she begins teaching at her first school. Speakers of global English are defined, for this research, as those for whom English is not their first language but may be one of many spoken languages. This story reflects similar accounts gathered during a larger research study conducted by the author...

This paper argues for the potential for a particular data-gathering tool used in educational research to provide opportunities for the professional development of participants. The particular method is video-stimulated recall. The evidence in the literature suggests that this methodology used to gather data does have a valuable role in promoting the reflective practices of teachers. The paper further argues that in order to be effective, professional development needs to take into account the context of teachers' work so that their professional practice is linked in the strategies used for professional development. Video-stimulated recall is one tool that can provide a direct link between theory and practice.

Not having clear pathways, or the social means and personal capacities to make a productive transition from schooling, can inhibit young people’s participation in social and economic life thereafter. This paper advances an analysis of how policy documents associated with senior schooling from across Australian states address the needs of students who are most at risk of not securing productive transitions. The review identifies that many of the goals emphasised the autonomy of students in taking control of their own transitions. However, such individualistic views downplay the importance of the mediating role that access to cultural, social and economic capital is likely to play in the negotiations involved in making a productive transition. Thus, the needs of ‘at‐risk’ students who may have limited access to the forms of capital offering the best support for these negotiations are not well acknowledged in the policies.

This article reports on an action research study that combined a process-product approach to improving learning with reflective practice. In Queensland, the school subject of senior secondary Visual Art is based on a state curriculum document that sets out standards against which teachers assess each student's creative ability. A pedagogy that supports the development of creativity is integral to student success. This action research centered around the explicit teaching of a cooperative learning model that set out to facilitate senior secondary students' creativity in art making. One of us examined her teaching for creativity while she implemented the model. The action research required Corcoran to examine her teaching for creativity when she decided to implement a particular model of cooperative learning. Through analysis of the evidence collected, Corcoran and Sim identify the process whereby Corcoran acknowledged the role of her assumptions about learners and content, in her pedagogical decision-making. As a result, the finding was that learning and teaching for creativity can be achieved successfully when teachers understand the nature of their own pedagogical reasoning.

This paper focuses on a model of delivery of professional experience courses for pre-service teachers that has been running in the author's institution for 9 years. The overall purpose of the model has been to assist the development of a reflective approach in pre-service teachers as they build their professional knowledge in schools and on campus. To achieve this purpose, the design of the courses for professional experience has used a framework of ‘communities of practice’. Following a major evaluation of the course through student surveys, the author examines the achievements and continuing challenges of developing a sense of professional community among pre-service teachers. The model of the course is a substantial teaching experience in a secondary school, supported by a campus-based tutorial component.

This paper uses data originally gathered as part of an Australian national research study into the Impact of Educational Research (2000).1 The author was a member of one of four research teams, led by Professor Marilyn McMeniman. The team's focus was to identify the main influences on the knowledge that teachers draw on as they teach—their ‘knowledge in action’. What emerged from the data was a complex picture of the teacher in action and the multiplicity of functions undertaken by teachers in the teaching/learning process. This paper examines one practice that emerged from this complex picture—teacher disclosure. Three teachers in the study incorporated personal disclosure in their practice. The context of the teachers and their disclosures is described followed by an examination of these teachers' reasons for incorporating as pedagogical practice experiences from their personal lives. The reasons that emerge are about not only explaining content to students, but also establishing particular learning env...

This chapter presents a case study of post-school transition arrangements as revealed through interviews with teachers, parents and students at Southside College, a coeducational private school in Brisbane, southeast Queensland. This chapter begins by outlining the policy context relating to the management of transitions for young people in Queensland. It then places the case study in context by reviewing the role played by selective schooling in helping middle-class families secure competitive advantage in the academic curriculum in Australia and hence, desirable transition pathways leading to university. This chapter then draws on interview data from administrators, teachers and students to overview arrangements implemented at Southside to support students’ transitions. It shows how the range of transition options available to students was influenced by the views of key administrators about what constituted ‘appropriate’ transition pathways for students at the school. This chapter uses membership categorisation analysis to demonstrate how the privileging of traditional academic pathways over vocational education and training was articulated as part of the school’s moral order by administrators who associated those pathways with distinct categories of students undertaking them. This chapter concludes that the school’s focus on traditional pathways supported successful transitions for a majority of its students; however, these arrangements worked as a constraint for a number of non-tertiary-bound students attempting to engage their preferred transition pathway. For these young people, the experience was one of being ‘stuck in school’ but excluded from the advantages and social protection that selective schooling is thought to afford.

This chapter presents a synthesis of the themes and issues emerging from the contributions across this section, each of which focused on the transition to post-school life for young people in Queensland, Australia. In particular, it applies a curriculum enactment perspective to this synthesis. The enactment of education policy is held to involve ‘interpretation because implementers must figure out what a policy means and whether and how it applies to their school to decide whether and how to ignore, adapt, or adopt policy locally’ (Spillane J, Diamond J, Burch P, Hallett T, Loyiso L, Zoltners J, Educ Policy 16(5):733, 2002). As a consequence, beyond the policy prescriptions provided earlier in this book, here the consideration turns to issues of enactment and an appraisal of nexus between intentions and enactments. In doing so, the chapter is presented in three parts. It commences by revisiting the policies relating to post-school transitions in Queensland and Australia and locating policy prescriptions in turn within the international context. The second part draws on the case study evidence to identify the characteristics and consequences of the curriculum decision-making associated with the implementation of transition policies, as discussed in the case studies. This section draws out similarities and differences amongst the various approaches to managing transitions across the three case study schools. In the third section, conclusions are identified from the study’s findings for informing productive transition policy and enactment more widely. In all, it is concluded that factors extending from global sentiment, federal schooling funding priorities, state government policies and local preference and requirements shaped what is done in three Queensland schools to facilitate student’s post certification transitions from school to further learning or work.

Work integrated learning which is terminology now very familiar to all universities' faculty members, has always been integral to initial teacher education programs. As a result of the complexities involved in this field, building effective partnerships with schools continues to be a major focus of education faculties. These complexities around a partnership between two very different institutional contexts require negotiating a relationship that is of value to all involved. The concept of communities of practice can provide a framework to establish the collaboration needed. The Australian Commonwealth government conducted in 2007 a national inquiry into the effectiveness of the teacher education programs in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2007). One of the recommendations from the inquiry was to provide funds directly to Education faculties to assist in the improvement of the professional experience (or practicum) component of teacher education courses. This paper describes and examines a project that was funded and implemented in 2009. Project Supervision aimed to develop professional development materials for school supervisors/mentors. The process to achieve this was designed by the author around a community of practice involving teachers - both experienced and preservice - and teacher educators.