Sustaining Communities of Practice with Early Career Teachers

Bernadette Mercieca currently works as a sessional educator at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. Her work with pre-service secondary teachers highlighted for her the disparity between the high hopes of graduating teachers and the challenges of their first years in a teaching position, especially as many could only acquire casual relief teaching positions. She is also researching the value of online learning spaces for early career teachers with her colleague, Jacqueline McDonald.
Honorary Associate Professor Jacquie McDonald is a Higher Education Community of Practice consultant. She previously worked for over 26 years as Learning and Teaching Designer at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Australia designing online and distance learning courses and programs. Since 2006, she led the successful implementation of communities of practice at USQ, which was recognised by a 2009 Australian Universities Quality Agency commendation and 2009 Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation. She led a number of institutional and national fellowships and grants to research and provide resources for leadership of communities of practice. She is a member of the Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows (ALTF) Alumni and has been invited by national and international universities to facilitate Community of Practice workshops and contribute to CoP initiatives. Recent publications include 2017 Springer co-edited books, Communities of Practice: Facilitating Social Learning in Higher Education, and Implementing Communities of Practice in Higher Education: Dreamers and Schemers.