Digital Credentialing: Does It Offer a Meaningful Response to Initial Teacher Education Reform?

Abstract

The chapter briefly outlines the initial teacher education (ITE) reform landscape, particularly within the current Australian policy context with the release of the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report. At the heart of the most recent call for initial teacher education policy reform in Australia is to seek graduates that are able to provide evidence of their professional learning and practice and demonstrate how it is/will improve student learning in order to illustrate their classroom readiness. This policy ask is no small endeavor. The policy reform report challenges initial teacher education to seek new ways of learning and working to build enriched and stronger bridges between diverse high quality learning experiences for pre-service teachers in their coursework and professional experience contexts. The chapter examines the nature and affordances of digital credentialing and its role in education. Digital credentialing offers promise and potential to address meaningfully the calls for initial teacher education reform, particularly in areas of evidence and classroom readiness. Yet as a disruptive technological innovation it also presents its own sets of challenges and tensions.