Across Australia and around the world, school-university partnerships have been advocated by researchers and policymakers as a means of bridging the perceived theory-practice divide for which teacher education programs have been criticised. A range of literature exists that explores school-university partnerships either from a theoretical perspective, or grounded in specific examples. As these pieces of research typically provide an overview of school-university partnerships in general, or rely on findings from one or two partnerships, a broad understanding of partnerships and the research gaps that remain can be difficult to ascertain. This paper presents a systematic literature review to provide collective evidence on the implementation of Australian school-university partnerships for the purpose of developing pre-service teachers. The review reports on 59 sources, providing insights into the range of school-university partnerships in existence. It also highlights the benefits and challenges encountered through partnership implementation and proposes opportunities for future research.

Universities support students in their transition to work and future career through programmes such as work-integrated learning (WIL). WIL engages students in authentic industry-based experiences and is considered valuable for preparedness for work, including professional socialisation and developing skills prioritised by graduate employers. Research shows, however, that access and participation in WIL is not equal among all student groups. This paper reports on the responses of over 151,000 recent graduates in an Australian-wide survey. It investigates participation in different types of WIL and its influence on self-perceptions of employability and the employment outcomes of graduates from different backgrounds. Findings show how access to diverse forms of WIL is not uniform, urging universities to carefully consider barriers and challenges for different student cohorts. Those that do access WIL largely experience significant positive outcomes, highlighting WIL’s instrumental role in preparing students for future work. The paper highlights the need for tailored approaches to WIL that enable access and optimise outcomes for all students to best prepare them for career pathways.

Despite the growing prominence and importance of the field of teacher dispositions for addressing selection criteria and assessment in educational research, there is an absence of psychometrically evaluated instruments to facilitate investigations. Furthermore, research thus far has not explored the relationship between teacher dispositions and better student outcomes. To address this paucity, key dispositional factors conducive to successful teaching and learning were identified through interviewing high performing teachers. Based on the interview, data a 24-item Teacher Disposition Scale (TDS) was constructed consisting of five dimensions: Motivation to teach; Teacher efficacy; Willingness to learn; Conscientiousness; and Interpersonal and communication skill. The scale was psychometrically tested on 179 pre-service undergraduate students at an Australian university. Both factor analysis and Rasch measurement modelling indicated evidence of a reliable and valid multi-dimensional scale. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of the scale for future research.

Critical reflection writing in teacher education programmes is often undertaken without appropriate learning support despite the contribution it makes to informing meaningful changes in the early stages of their teaching careers. Students’ attempts at writing critical reflections often lack discursive depth when connecting theory to practice. However, teaching academics may also need to develop conceptual knowledge of critical reflection as a genre of writing to better inform teaching practices. This paper reports on a small-scale action research project which draws on a cohort of student voices to guide the creation of learning resources focused on critical reflection writing. Narrative frame style surveys and focus group discussions were used to explore students’ understanding of reflection, critical reflection, and ways learning resources assist development of critical reflection writing abilities The students’ responses informed the development of targeted learning resources to support critical reflection writing, and to raise their conceptual knowledge of critical reflection that may inform effective teaching practices. An implication from this study is the need to explore further ways to embed critical reflection discourse throughout teacher education so both teaching academics and studentsdevelop a common understanding of this important concept and its role in teacher education.

Online learning may be the key to enabling people in less populous areas to earn teaching degrees and other professional certificates.