Assessing Professional Teaching Standards in Practicum Using Digital Technologies with Aboriginal and Other Pre-service Teachers

The extent to which pre-service teachers undertaking practicum in remote/regional locations are able to share knowledge about teaching practice, standards and quality relies on overcoming challenges of inexperience, distance, technology and culture. This report details how three universities supported Aboriginal and other cohorts of pre-service teachers (PSTs) to evidence and self-assess their professional teaching standards during their practicums in schools with substantial Aboriginal populations. The students used digital technologies to enhance and document their achievement of standards and to develop a professional learning community of PSTs willing to develop inter-cultural relationships and share knowledge about teacher practice. Key issues addressed in this report include ways PSTs made judgments about their own practices while undertaking practicum, how they selected evidence to demonstrate professional standards and how they represented their professional self in the public arena. The dispersed cohorts, institutions and practicum communities involved in the project benefited from using digital technologies to promote collegial collaboration, bridge geographical distances and facilitate developing meaningful feedback, self-reflection and self-assessment practices in relation to attaining professional teaching standards.