Initial Teacher Education in Australia: A Study in Progress. A Background Paper and Workshop Material.

This paper outlines the need for a more substantial and publicly available base of information and analysis of initial teacher education in Australia, so that the school teaching profession, school authorities, and the Commonwealth can join with teacher educators in developing optimal programs, policies, and strategy. The paper then describes a project to gather information from all initial teacher education programs in Australia and to collect in-depth information about key programs which best exemplify particular approaches or innovations. Information to be collected will address course philosophy and objectives, course structure, content, pedagogy and sites of learning, assessment methods and criteria; and partnerships and collaboration in course development and/or delivery. Appended to the paper is a response sheet for workshop participants to indicate their perceptions of areas in which data collection, analysis, and dissemination are needed. (Contains 11 references.) (JDD)