Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Professional Engagement through Place/Community Pedagogies and Partnerships

Overview & Synopsis

There is an expectation that Australian teachers engage professionally in all aspects of teaching and learning, including engagement with teaching networks and broader communities. This paper reports on a partnership between a teacher educator and an environmental educator who set out to expand pre-service teachers' professional knowledge, engagement and practice in an undergraduate Bachelor of Education (primary) course. The paper reports on a study about teacher education students' perspectives of fieldwork-based learning and its potential to inform students' future engagement with the broader school community. Using a conceptual framework of place- and community based education, the study examined data from an electronic survey and student teacher fieldwork reflections to better understand how pre-service teachers interpret the benefits of working with local schools, and community-based representatives. Findings suggest pre-service teachers' professional engagement was significantly enhanced as a consequence of partnership fieldwork. The implications for teacher education and future teacher practice are discussed.