Reflection Issue 27 | Page 49

Meeting the Challenge – Improving the Practicum Experience for Supervisors and Pre Service Teachers Chris Dann – [email protected] Tony Richardson - [email protected] University of the Sunshine Coast www.usc.edu.au Introduction The technology associated with CeMeE - a flexible and configurable mobile application with a companion website for administrative configuration which we report upon here - moves teacher education into a 21st century working environment by actively, and effectively, challenging the dogmas associated with the current model of education by offering concrete strategies to meet the challengers of a 21st century work environment. CeMeE CeMeE® stands for ‘See Me Excel’. This reflects the underlying intention of the technology - to allow supervisors to catch students excelling on placement and to develop productive partnerships with them; thus increasing the satisfaction of both parties during the assessment process. CeMeE is designed to reduce the impact of workplace assessment loads on supervisors, and also seeks to effectively increase the consistency of feedback, generate a common language and a community of practice amongst students and supervisors; while also being flexible in its implementation; it is a mobile technology that can be used in the field or classroom. Utilising this freedom it meets the needs of students, supervisors and educational instructions. The platform was developed initially as the result of collaborative work between a regional Australian university and a group of school partners who were involved in the assessment of pre service teachers. Principals, academics, supervising teachers and pre service teachers were involved in a process. This culminated in a ‘wish list’ of capabilities and aspirations that resulted in a four-year program of development and testing. Subsequently the team leader began the commercialisation process ending the university assigning a global license for the intellectual property (IP). This commercialisation has translated into the current CeMeE application available today. The system is composed of an application or App that is downloadable from the apple store for use on an ipad. This requiresa log in and a specific school code. This school code points the App to the individualised database that houses the student's data and the assessment criteria or learning outcomes. Every log in to the system will result in a fully customised experience for the user. The customisation for the student and the supervising teacher occurs at the organisation level; each organisation uploads their student data and the learning outcomes. This is facilitated by having one THE CENTRE FOR RECORDING ACHIEVEMENT 104 -108 WALLGATE, WIGAN, WN3 4AB | 49