It Takes a Village: Using Communities of Practice as a Framework for Reflecting on Rural and Regional Professional Experience Opportunities

It Takes a Village: Using Communities of Practice as a Framework for Reflecting on Rural and Regional Professional Experience Opportunities

In the Australian context, while the population is largely clustered in metropolitan areas, much of the country can be defined as regional, rural and remote. This reality means that significant numbers of students are experiencing their schooling across these locations. This raises questions around how universities are preparing pre-service teachers to live and work in these contexts where work is readily available and quality educational opportunities are much sought after. This chapter uses case study methodology to tell the stories of two rural and regional professional experience programs supported by different Australian universities. Using Community of Practice (CoP) as a framework for sense-making, these two cases are unpacked to reveal the embedded structures and processes that supported pre-service teachers to engage in a quality rural professional experience. Key learnings relating to the three components of a CoP are shared—domain, community, and practice—before considerations and implications for other contexts and initial teacher education providers are discussed.