A workplace learning partnership for selecting candidates for the professions

In the light of the forthcoming wave of baby-boom retirements, dropout rates from the early years in professions are worryingly high. This can result when the individual finds the job not to be what is expected, a mismatch between person and context or a lack of early mentoring. Would retention rates be higher if university programs were able to identify those individuals who were best suited to the working realities of the professions? Current practice emphasizes academic standing, most commonly measured by grade point average for selection and admission, even though, at best, it is weakly correlated with professional success. In order to select candidates who demonstrate potential for teacher education, a partnership was formed between the Alberta Teachers' Association and the University of Lethbridge. Over 25 years, this collaboration has developed policies and practices for a workplace-based University course that identifies suitable candidates for admission. This course is a required pre-requisite for admission to the teaching degree program. The students spend 60 hours in a classroom-based practicum so they can experience the teacher's working reality. This experience is supported by a University-based seminar that facilitates cycles of critical reflection on professional workplace learning. Theoretical aspects of contemporary education issues are integrated with the students' experiences within the workplace. Thus, workplace learning, the core process for successful professional and organizational improvement is a major requirement of the course. Following a description of the course, this paper will focus on mapping the thematic structure of qualitative data from over 300 students as to the impact of the course on their explorations of the work of teaching. This course may be a useful model not only for discerning the best candidates for professional programs but also for job transfer or promotions.

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