Abstract
This paper presents the challenges faced by an Education faculty in reconceptualising a large Teacher Education Preservice course in times of change and uncertainty. The paper is presented as a conversational case study in three parts. The first part of the conversation provides a brief overview of course developments in the Faculty over the last decade. It highlights the ever-changing contexts and increasing complexities within which preservice teacher education programs operate both institutionally and professionally. The overview is firstly a descriptive story told in a chronological order. Secondly it gives critically reflective attention to the development the four-year Bachelor of Education and an end-on Graduate Bachelor of Education. This critically reflective element forms the second part of the conversation. In giving the story this more critical bent, we highlight the contexts and complexities in terms of professional standards, program guidelines and standards, and generic attributes of university graduates (along with the more specific teacher practitioner attributes which the Faculty has identified). The paper concludes with a reconstructive consideration of the emerging implications for supporting and sustaining these futures-oriented course developments in preservice teacher education. This is the third part of the conversation. It is a consideration of these implications which begins to define what it means to reconstruct teacher education in the faculty of education at QUT. Thus, this paper is presented as a means of generating ongoing conversation and debate across the wider teacher education community in Australia as we move further into the twenty-first century. It is one way of contributing the base from which a forum such as this one might develop a significant voice in shaping the future of preservice teacher education in Australia. This paper presents a conversational case study from the perspectives of two people who have been consistently involved in course coordination and leadership within the Faculty of Education at QUT (and formerly within Brisbane College of Advanced Education). The paper, then, is not in any sense representing a formal institutional position; rather, it is offered with the generative intent of creating a platform for ongoing conversation and debate.