Defining and designing impact consciousness in teacher education

This article explores contested possible meanings of the term ‘impact’ used in recent initial teacher education review body and accreditation documentation in Australia. It proposes a model of program design that explicitly evidences graduate capabilities to generate effective teaching and learning in school classrooms. It argues that we cannot expect to recognise, generate, and evidence positive classroom impact unless pre-service teachers are equipped with the pedagogical content knowledge and habitus to look beyond teaching inputs to student outcomes. The article further argues for learning experiences in initial teacher education programs that forge teacher identities that develop pre-service teachers’ and supervising teachers’ awareness of impact consciousness. It draws upon assessment literature and examination of individual practice within a design-based research framework to propose a diagrammatic model of impact. The article presents programmatic assessment as a fresh lens to consider a program model that incrementally develops and evidences increasing levels of pre-service teacher impact consciousness.