Establishing the 'new' into 'the way we do things': Reviewing paper aims and content in response to national and local developments

Abstract

This paper reports on a review of 'Professional practice and inquiry I' in response to local and national developments. The introduction of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) raised questions for initial teacher educators about how they might prepare their pre-service student teachers to teach using this updated curriculum. 'Professional practice and inquiry I' is a first semester compulsory professional paper University of Waikato Bachelor of Teaching students (primary). The introduction of the 2007 national curriculum document was not the only reason for a review of this professional paper. This paper outlines how the teaching team had recognized the mixture of influences that impact on the development of paper content, explains in some detail what we did for the teaching and learning of the new 2007 key competencies, and the outcomes we found through collecting student voice. This was part of a collaborative research project investigating the teaching and learning of the 'front end' of The New Zealand Curriculum (ibid) and incorporating those findings into the primary Bachelor of Teaching programme.