Field-Based Teacher Education at Multiple Sites: A Story of Possibilities and Tensions

Abstract

In this paper I will tell a story of Te Tani Puna Ora o Aotearoa/New Zealand Childcare Association as a provider of field-based teacher education for early childhood practitioners at multiple sites throughout Aotearoa/NZ. It will also be a story of institutional change, as it begins 3 years ago at the time I began working at Te Tani Puna Ora o Aotearoa/New Zealand Childcare Association, and assumed responsibility for an under-funded, 3-year-old Diploma of Teaching (ECE) programme which had 'grown' from a certificate course and was seen by our Monitor to be lacking in academic rigour and missing key areas of content.