Interrupting practice traditions: using readers’ theatre to show the impact of a nationally mandated assessment task on initial teacher educators’ work

ABSTRACT

The mandated introduction of a teaching performance assessment (TPA) into initial teacher education programs in Australia is one of the numerous and continual reforms that have impacted those who work in the field. The Assessment for Graduate Teaching (AfGT) is an approved TPA developed by a national consortium of higher education institutions to determine the ‘classroom readiness’ of graduating teachers. Surveys and focus group discussions were conducted with stakeholder groups to explore their experiences of trialling and implementing the AfGT. Initial teacher educators identified several aspects related to implementation that had impacted the ways they work, which included experiencing an increased workload. A semi-fictionalised narrative in the form of a readers’ theatre script was developed to weave initial teacher educators’ accounts together in an anonymised yet believable fashion for presentation at a research conference. The resultant script provides illustrations of the changing and complex nature of teacher educators’ work because of the introduction of the AfGT, and when considered through the theory of practice architectures, it becomes evident that practice traditions are also interrupted.

KEYWORDS:

• Semi-fictional narrative
• readers’ theatre
• arts-related inquiry
• practice architectures
• teaching performance assessment

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the seed funding from the Australian Institute for Teaching & School Leadership (AITSL) in the first year of the project (2017) and the significant and ongoing financial support provided by the member institutions of the AfGT Consortium. The authors also thank the members of the AfGT Consortium for the enthusiastic and collaborative work in developing the Assessment for Graduate Teaching.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the interpretation of the data by all members of the AfGT Consortium.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ron Kim Keamy

Kim Keamy is Associate Professor in Education in the Centre for Program Evaluation (CPE), Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. He is the Director of the Assessment for Graduate Teaching Management Team and an investigator in several education evaluation projects being undertaken by the CPE. His major research is in educational leadership, initial teacher education, and teachers’ professional learning, including the use of arts-related and narrative research methods.

Mark Selkrig

Mark Selkrig is Associate Professor of Education in The Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. He is an Academic Group Leader and Director, Digital Engagement. He works in the fields of teacher education and creativities and the arts. Mark’s research and scholarly work focus on the changing nature of educators’ work, their identities, lived experiences and how they navigate the ecologies of their respective learning environments.