Accounts from the field: Working with school communities

The enabling conditions for the implementation of a final year teacher performance assessment are intricately connected to the school context and the professional experience in which the preservice teacher completes the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA). Common across reviews into initial teacher education is how the teacher education academic program and school-based professional experience components work together. In Australia, the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Board Review of Initial Teacher Education (TEMAG, 2014) identified, as one of the highest priorities, the need for Education Faculties and Schools of Education to prepare beginning teachers who are classroom ready and assessment literate. The review gave particular attention to how preservice teachers are being prepared to collect, infer meaning from and use data to improve student learning and inform in-the-moment instructional decision-making. It also highlighted how teachers use data to monitor the impact of teaching on learning and diverse learners over time.

A focus on enabling conditions within the school context is essential in order to set preservice teachers up for success in their classrooms, and second, to clarify the relationship between their required competencies, teaching professionalism and development (Alexander, 2016; Grainger & Adie, 2014; Wyatt-Smith, Klenowski, & Colbert, 2014). The GTPA has been designed to bring together the cognitive and situated perspectives of teacher professionalism (Kaiser, Blömeke, & König, 2016), addressing the divide between theory and practice identified as an issue in preservice teachers’ experience (Du Plessis & Sunde, 2017). In this presentation, we consider the key issue of the enabling conditions necessary for undertaking performance assessments in school contexts.

The enabling conditions within school communities include, though are not limited to, the expectations of teachers and school leaders including the conversations with preservice teachers, access to data on student learning, placement conditions, and the duration of the professional experience that also fits within school curriculum planning and other significant school events. Integral to these conversations is how these enabling conditions provide opportunities for the development of preservice teacher agency, and the social and ethical considerations integral to completing teacher performance assessments in diverse contexts and under diverse conditions.