ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a case story of a preservice teacher. Its purpose is to address findings in the literature related to the challenges of contemporary tertiary students undertaking professional degrees that leave many feeling ‘time poor’, overcome and struggling to achieve deep engagement with their studies (George-Walker & Keeffe, 2010; Sadowski, Stewart & Pediaditis, 2018). It then describes and examines an approach at one of the project sites – the University of Wollongong – to the design of an intervention that could ‘stretch’ and be responsive to the needs and preferences of the participants. In short, the approach initially offered the online intervention materials and then participants were invited to work through them at a common place and time while the facilitators were present. Within the face-to-face environment, the online materials offered opportunities for the preservice teachers to discuss and share their understandings and perspectives, to locate their thinking within previous and projected field experiences, and to challenge the current thinking of themselves and others. Further, the facilitators (authors of this chapter) were able to support the preservice teachers to make connections, provide localised relevant examples, and question and prompt for deeper understanding.
