What novice vocational education and training teachers learn in the teaching workplace

Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers often begin teaching with limited or no teaching qualifications, and necessarily much of their learning to be a teacher takes place in the teaching workplace. This paper considers what novice VET teachers learn in the workplace and what enables and constrains that learning. We argue that teachers learn to undertake their teaching role primarily in the same way as others in their teaching department undertake the role. The paper introduces the concept of three different groups of VET teachers whose learning is enabled and constrained in...  [+] Show more

Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers often begin teaching with limited or no teaching qualifications, and necessarily much of their learning to be a teacher takes place in the teaching workplace. This paper considers what novice VET teachers learn in the workplace and what enables and constrains that learning. We argue that teachers learn to undertake their teaching role primarily in the same way as others in their teaching department undertake the role. The paper introduces the concept of three different groups of VET teachers whose learning is enabled and constrained in different ways: fringe teachers; favela teachers; and those who have an employment contract or are permanently employed. Using the theory of practice architectures, we show that teacher learning in the workplace is impacted by various site based conditions: including material arrangements; arrangements related to the use of VET language and of industry related language; and social-political arrangements.

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