The present paper explores the need to innovate in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in order to support student-teachers during their school placement and sustain co-operation between multiple actors involved in school placement. School Placement (also known as ‘Teaching Practice’, ‘Teaching Placement’, and the School ‘Practicum’) is long recognised as a critical component of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes for the professional and personal growth of student-teachers (e.g. Anderson & Stillman, 2013;  Flores, 2016; MacBeath, 2011). This crucial period is when student-teachers require much support and guidance from their ITE tutors and school ‘mentors’ (Boag-Munroe, 2007, Caires, Almeida & Vieira, 2012; Orr. 2012; Smith & Le-Ari, 2005). The provision of such support is often challenging due to the various demands on student-teachers and the geographical distance between all the parties involved. It is argued that there is the need for effective and supportive communication between student-teachers, their ITE tutors and school mentors, as well as between ITE tutors and school mentors. This is particularly evident in administrative support of the student-teachers while they are out on placement, but also a need arises for continuous communication between all actors involved in the “triadic relationship” (Hall et. al. 2018). These communication channels are used to support teacher students’ reflection on-in-for action, especially in terms of support, advice, guidance and feedback for the student-teacher.

Recently, due to Covid-19 restrictions on travel, teacher educators and colleges had to reimagine placements and learning practices during lockdown. Arguably, these challenges could be transformed into opportunities to rethink the types of supports provided by ITE tutors and school ‘mentors’ in the post-lockdown time to support their student teachers. 

The present paper draws on the five-country Educational Knowledge Transfer Project (EKT Project), funded by Erasmus +. The EKT Project aims to address the challenges underlined above by introducing an online learning environment (EKT System incorporates the EKT Platform and online training for ITE tutors, school mentors and student-teachers) to support and sustain the university-school communication channels, and by developing a novel e-learning methodology to guide and support student-teachers during their school placement. Information and Communication Technologies and in particular their communication and collaborative affordances have been the subject of attention in ITE (Donlon, 2019). This EKT tool can be considered as a comprehensive e-learning support for all the actors involved in school placement. 

The paper starts by examining the complex nature of school placement practices in the five countries involved in the project (Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the UK (England)). Indeed, the level of cooperation between the key actors involved in school placement, and the expectations from teacher-students during the practicum are determined by the conceptualisation of school placement, as influenced by policy, conditions and traditions (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Tatto & Mentor, 2019). The paper presents the evolving e-learning methodology that seeks to capture and address the complexity and diversity of school placement practices in the five countries. It introduces an online environment and e-learning solution that was devised for school placement which was built based on the transnational school placement needs analysis  (the sample from five teacher education Universities in Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and England). Finally, it seeks to answer the question if the developed e-learning methodologies and e-solutions provide adequate supports for the actors involved in school placement.

The EKT Platform is evaluated by use of the technological self-efficacy instrument, based on psychological literature (Bandura, 1997) and Compeau and Higgins’ (1995) computer self-efficacy scale. The ten technological self-efficacy statements used commenced with an introductory phrase ‘I am able to’, which led into various technological self-efficacy statements about using the EKT platform. Participants’ levels of agreement were then measured on a five-point Likert-type scale, from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (coded from 1 to 5). Statements such as ‘I am able to integrate EKT in my college work effectively’, ‘I am able to navigate the contents of the EKT platform’ and ‘I am able to use EKT if there are user manuals available’ were used (Compeau & Higgins, 1995; McCoy, 2010) to evaluate the EKT platform. This technological self-efficacy instrument was administered to all members of the school placement ‘triad’ namely the student-teachers, ITE tutors and school mentors. Parametric statistical analysis was conducted on the data collected, based on a normal distribution response pattern observed as a result of an initial Shapiro-Wilk test. Then descriptive statistics, frequency counts and paired t-tests measured any difference in response patterns for each of the three types of respondent. Further, a composite score for technological self-efficacy was then created in SPSS, by creating a new variable that calculated the mean of the ten technological self-efficacy items for each respondent (Egan, Johnston, Fitzgibbon & Oldham, 2019). Hence, an overall score of ‘technological self-efficacy’ of the EKT platform for each participant in the study was available, and this tool provided an effective evaluation method of the platform during the lifetime of the project.

Because competences related to ITE are locally defined and contextually shaped, future teachers must ‘feel their way’ into becoming successful practitioners through interaction with more experienced colleagues and reflection on their own practice. Capturing the subtleties of this relational reflective learning should relate to local requirements as well as personal learning - with the opportunity for confidential critical commentary. The findings from this transnational study will explore how an online resource might offer such a space, where students, mentors and tutors can interact confidently to track and shape students' professional development as well as promote discussion of difficulties and tensions. We anticipate finding critical moments (Mcintosh, 2018) when support from tutors and/or mentors moves students to new understandings about the how and why of educational practice.

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