Preparing preservice teachers (PSTs) to attend to the complexities of modern classrooms is a perennial global? challenge.  In Australia, the preparation of teachers has been redefined by the rationality of a neoliberal system (Connell, 2013). The underlying logic is that competition in a free market will advance efficiency and innovation in both schools and society (Bullough, 2016). Policy mechanisms which seek to impose a particular logic of order and individualism on the world by enterprising individuals (Bullough, 2016). However, when that enterprise translates to hyper individualism and a neoliberal order structural inequalities can emerge that fail both our students and communities. In Australia, the higher education sector is not immune from processes that claim to prepare new teachers for the realities of modern classrooms, abstracted from the realities of everyday teaching and learning.  The logic of capitalism transpires through policy mandates that link financial support for initial teacher education (ITE) programs to the development of Teacher Performance Assessments (TPA). A high stakes assessment in Australian teacher preparation (Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group [TEMAG], 2014) aims to capture evidence of PSTs meeting national teacher Standards and showcase the impact of teaching on academic learning growth (AITSL, 2017). However, such a framework stands as a national and largely generic measure of ‘classroom ready’ competency (Brownlee et al., 2023) and moves away from the authentic and contextualised reality of PST practicum (Brownlee et al., 2023). We argue this reorientation places the responsibility for teaching on individuals and does so by disregarding the diverse contexts of teachers’ practices where conditions and performance mandates affect agency (TEMAG, 2014). 

While (TPA) requirements redefine teaching to evidence based measurable skills a key concern is PST’ ability to engage with the world in ways that address their goals for teaching and capacity to enact their praxis where there are issues of social justice. PSTs required to infuse an entrepreneurial approach into their teaching performance may feel pressured to adapt students to their performative world, rather than equip them with the critical knowledge and skills necessary to make the world a more just place. This raises questions about PST’ lived experience of practicum learning where changes in assessment processes assume benefits for prospective teachers and students in classrooms. However, PST’ experience of practicum embedded in performative orientations can affect professional judgement and evaluative expertise, which are central processes in decision-making and teacher agency. These concerns point to the need for ITE organisations and schools to understand and collaborate on advancing practicum experiences in ways that return to participant agency. How we think about the preparation of teachers is critical. What if we realised the preparation of teachers as always embodied and situated? Learning teaching is not a decontextualised experience but profoundly entangled with real situations and people. Ideas, thoughts and actions live alongside an ecosystem of people and material things. What if instead of imposing an orderly classroom-ready future we supported PSTs to confront the fluid, complex and chaotic world they navigate and work within? Preparing teachers in this way is an invitation to noticing, listening and acting in response to their experiences that offer as a means to embrace other ways of making sense of learning and teaching.

Method(s): Qualitative survey data is combined with the lived experience of PSTs, including open-ended questions that centred around describing their experiences of learning teaching within the framework of their TPA. Participants were recruited via a recruitment survey and data was collected via Qualtrics and follow up semi structured interviews. Inductive and deductive approaches to thematic analysis were utilised (Braun & Clarke, 2019) and data was drawn from participants across two Australian universities. Evidence: 42 PSTs responded to survey data and 7 PSTs participated in follow up interviews. Through our analysis, several themes and sub-themes are constructed and detailed for this presentation. Contribution: Our research contributes to the literature on PST experience in initial teacher education. New knowledge is generated on how social, organisational, and institutional conditions shape experiences of PST learning and their possibilities for agency, with implications for future research, policymaking, and institutional action. Engagement: Alongside our findings, we pose some reflective questions that advance thinking on the ways higher education teachers might support the collective struggles of PSTs that enable them to address of social injustice and disrupt the acceptance of performative discourses.

Through PST’ qualitative survey responses and practice accounts captured through semi structured interviews, we discern the social, organisational, and institutional factors that affect PST’ lived experience of practicum learning. This process sheds light on the factors that influence PSTs experience and agency in their work and the ways they are enabled to navigate the circumstances of their context given their performative requirements. We expect that PSTs will experience circumstances differently, where school life and social structures influence teaching during efforts to perform a teacher performance assessment standard. Previous findings suggest the TPA enlarges participant’s understanding of the practical elements of working in classrooms, the ways to document the outcomes of teaching and notions of impact. However, enlarging technical processes will not ensure PST agency to find their own path or ensure teachers who are ready to address the structural inequities inherent in society. We argue for a multi-dimensional teacher who can challenge normative ways of thinking and support their students to think crucially about the kind of society they want to create. While TPAs focus on identifying learning outcomes as an idealised notion of teaching, this ideal stands apart from the challenges PSTs must manage, where they must carve their teacher path. Teacher educators and schools must work collaboratively to understand how the preparation of teachers is entangled in the existing order of practices and as a means for supporting PSTs to negotiate the contradictions of schooling demands. Rethinking learning teaching within a framework that moves beyond transcendent models of teaching might enable us to embrace the PSTs rich experiences as an invitation to notice, listen and become attuned to co-construction.

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