Professional experience

Teaching practice, or practicum, is central to a coherent teacher education degree and is a cooperative venture of teachers, students and lecturers in a school or other setting for educational professional experience purposes.

Practicum represents an important opportunity for teacher education students to engage in new learning and to develop the teaching techniques, strategies and understandings that will enable them to teach effectively, to analyse their own teaching and to develop professionally throughout their course of study and into the future.

These experiences are embedded into all the teacher education degrees offered by the School of Education at Southern Cross University and are designed to help students develop competencies, skills and insights appropriate to a beginning teacher.

Students engage in systematic enquiry and experimentation as well as reflection and discussion with peers and teachers. The requirements for each are within the guidelines provided by the NSW Institute of Teachers (Professional Teaching Standards) and the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in order to meet accreditation.

In addition, all students participate in non-supervised professional experiences beyond formal evaluated placements with cooperating teachers in centres, schools or colleges. The formal and informal learning which occurs in schools and classrooms is a central focus of all professional experiences.

Updated: 19 April 2013