Teaching for the future professional partnership: The professional experience hub school perspective

This chapter focusses on the implementation and research findings of a four-year New South Wales teacher-education professional-experience (PEx) Hub project conducted in partnership with Charles Sturt University’s School of Educa-tion (Albury campus), the NSW Department of Education, and an Australian regional secondary school. The project employed an innovative, collaborative, and strengths-based model of PEx. Pre-service teachers were embedded into the school well in advance of more-traditional placement models. Additional opportunities for student support, peer coaching, enhanced collaborative strategies, and planning and self-reflection were provided by the Hub school and university partner as part of the model. The initiatives of the in-school professional-experience coordinators (PExCs), in conjunction with the university partner, allowed pre-service teachers multiple oppor-tunities to be immersed in the school community; this assisted them in developing a strong sense of the profession of teaching, particularly in relation to professional identity, professional respect, and professional confidence. This chapter focusses on the project through the lens of the PExCs and the school supervising teachers. The chapter outlines particular positive opportunities and challenges for professional-experience enhancement (for all stakeholders) and the strengths-based strategies that emerged and developed before and during the project. A strengths-based framework (Fenton, 2013) to qualitative research design (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005) was used. An embedded, multiple case study method enabled rich descriptions while researching the complexity of the school-based context. Qualitative methods, including strengths-based, informal, face-to-face interviews (Fenton, 2013), a school-based research assistant, and electronic semi-structured interviews (Fenton, 2013), were used to gather data to produce this case study (Yin, 2014). The chapter will outline the strate-gies implemented and research recommendations to enhance the significant mile-stone event of PEx for all stakeholders: school-based coordinators and supervising teachers, university educators, and pre-service teachers.