"A pre-service teacher education course has a dual purpose. It provides future teachers with the knowledge they require to teach, but it also must also serve to transform the student and enable them to become the teacher. This change of identity is not a sudden transition that happens when a student graduates, rather it needs to be embedded from the start of the course and then progressively developed throughout the learning journey. This presentation describes how PebblePad workbooks are used in a curriculum content unit to scaffold students to write, speak and think as teachers. The workbooks contain assessment tasks with sequenced response pages containing guiding questions, hints and modelled construction. The tasks progress from simple to complex across the unit and include many opportunities for the student to practice the skills needed to develop their identity as a teacher. "

1. FROM
STUDENT
TO
TEACHER
Dr. Louise Zarmati
Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania
Supporting pre-service
teachers to develop their
professional identity through
scaffolded portfolio tasks
Dr. Jennifer Masters
PebblePad Australia

2. DEVELOPING IDENTITY
• Teacher professional identity can be fostered through tasks
designed to encourage pre-service teachers to consider
themselves as teachers.
• They need to learn to write, speak and think from a teacher
perspective.

3. YEAR 1
• Sem 1, Year 1- Academic Literacies
• The unit includes topics such as:
• Personal reflection
• Formal writing – the essay
• Communication
• Managing workload and schedules
• The Portfolio of Evidence – use of PebblePad
• Digital media

4. YEAR 2
• Sem 2, Year 2 – Introduction to Humanities and Social
Sciences Education
• This is the mid-point of the degree – the tipping point
• Students now need to establish their teacher identity
• They need to
• Speak or write with authority using first person voice
• Embed theory and provide expert opinions
• Be reflective and thoughtful.

5. THE TASKS
Assessment Task 1 (67.5%)
1. ‘First contact’ history
2. History mystery box
3. Museum learning quest
4. Yarning story
Assessment Task 2 (33.5%)
1. Geography excursion
resource pack
2. Critical review of Civics &
Citizenship resource

6. EXPLICIT WORKBOOKS

7. ASSIGNMENT CONTAINERS

8. SCAFFOLDING IDENTITY
We want you to start talking about what you would do in this
classroom situation and why you would do it…we want to hear
your 'professional voice' coming through.
This is the sort of communicating you will be doing when you
become a teacher rather than academic writing

9. SUMMARY
• Dual purpose for assessment –HASS knowledge + identity
development
• Support literacy development extending to professional
writing
• PebblePad workbooks guide student responses and capture
evidence
• The ‘Portfolio of Evidence’ is not just about collecting
examples, it is about capturing the learning journey, as
students transform into teachers.

10. DISCUSSION