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Graduate Teachers Professional Learning Program in the Southwest Region of Victoria

Education‚ Governance and Policy for Sustainable Societies

The challenge

The Graduate Teachers Professional Learning Program (GTPLP) will be developed and delivered by Deakin academics, in consultation with graduate teachers and on behalf of Beyond the Bell (BtB), through the Professional Learning Education Hub at Deakin University. This project seeks to provide a series of professional learning activities to teachers who are in their first to fourth year of teaching, across schools in the Southwest region of Victoria.

Research has shown that teacher attrition is particularly evident in a teacher’s initial years in a school setting and participating in targeted professional development/learning opportunities can impact retention.

Project overview

This Graduate Teachers Professional Learning Program in the Southwest Region of Victoria (GTPLP) will be developed based on input from teachers as to their current professional needs. The research questions being addressed by this project are:

What are some of the challenges impacting early career teachers’ likelihood to stay in the profession?
What professional learning needs do Graduate teachers require to support their knowledge and practice?
In what ways has the Graduate Teachers Professional Learning Program in the Southwest Region of Victoria (GTPLP) supported/extended Graduate teachers’ professional knowledge and practice?
What suggestions do the participating Graduate teachers have for retention in the profession?

The project will start by sending out a survey to graduate teachers (via their principals) across schools in southwest Victoria. The survey will aim to ascertain the various professional learning needs of the teachers. The data from this survey will inform the design of the Professional Learning Program.

The program will be delivered over six sessions in term 2 and term 4 of 2023. The delivery will be a hybrid of online and face-to-face sessions. We will collect data to help us understand how we can enhance the support we can provide graduate teachers in Victoria. A variety of qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to better understand the experiences of graduate teachers and the efficacy of the program.

Outcome

This research is expected to benefit Graduate Teachers, policy makers and other stakeholders through improved pre-service and graduate teacher support and development processes.