New Research in Teaching School Hubs

Have you ever baked a cake? A strange question in regards to researching Teaching School Hubs - but is it?
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A cake requires five core active ingredients – butter, sugar, flour, milk and eggs. That’s it. It will be a plain one, but when mixed in correct proportions, through the right process, a cake is born. Once this basic recipe is mastered, personalisation of the cake can evolve with flavour and decoration. It depends on who you are baking for, of course.

So how does this relate to initial teacher education (ITE) pathways and the NECSTEP (National Embedded Cross Sector Teaching Education Program) research currently underway?

Developing teachers ready to enter the education profession is the fundamental goal of any ITE program. While there is nuanced complexity to readiness, the NECSTEP research team (AC and UNSW) are curious to find the core active ingredients, just like our basic cake.

To do so, the NECSTEP research has four key aims:

1. Identify the core active ingredients unique to a school-embedded teacher education pathway (such as the Alphacrucis University College Teaching School Hubs program).
2. Explore the influence of these unique active ingredients on the preparedness/school readiness of initial teacher education students.
3. Understand who is best placed to support and guide initial teacher education students in relation to each of these active ingredients.
4. Develop a framework to track and measure the development of initial teacher education students in relation to these active ingredients.

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Data collection is scheduled to commence in 2024. We are excited to find out what implications this research can have on the recipe that is shaping the future of initial teacher education. Let the baking begin!

For more information:

Contact Dr. Rachel Perry, (Research Director: NECSTEP) – [email protected]

NECSTEP research team
Dr. Rachel Perry (Alphacrucis University College),
Associate Professor David Hastie (Alphacrucis University College),
Associate Professor Tony Loughland (UNSW)