A shared responsibility: Working together to develop professional learning opportunities for professional-experience supervising teachers

There are numerous examples of schools and universities forming partnerships to achieve common goals. In the field of teacher education in Australia at present, however, there are tensions between universities and classroom-based teachers in relation to what knowledge and which practices are to be valued and privileged in regard to professional experience. To address these current tensions regarding knowledge privilege, the New South Wales Department of Education initiated a school-university partnerships programs, known as Hub partnerships. These partnerships brought 24 schools together with a university in their region to develop a more collaborative partnership approach to professional experience. This chapter will explore one outcome from one of these partnerships situated in a regional context. The outcome was the development of a multilayered process drawing on the expertise of school and university staff to design and deliver a suite of professional-learning modules aimed at improving the supervisory practices of school-based practitioners who lead or supervise professional experience in schools. Using a mixed-methods research paradigm, this chapter traces the development of the professional-learning program and explores the perceived efficacy and impact of a partnered approach to developing professional-experience opportunities. Preliminary findings showed a positive correlation between the professional-learning program and supervisory practice.