Becoming a Teacher: Career Change Students in Teacher Education in Victoria

Judy Williams

PhD Research Project (2004 - 2008)

Project Aims:

• To gain a profile of current career change students in teacher education in Victoria, in regard to their motivation to change careers and to choose teaching as a career; career background, and their perceptions of their experiences in teacher education
• To explore the process of developing a professional teacher identity for people who have had one or more careers in a profession other than teaching before enrolling in a teacher education course
• To provide information to policy makers about the motivations, experiences and attitudes of career change students in teacher education so we can better understand what brings them into the teaching profession and how they ‘become a teacher.’ 

Researcher Biography

Judy Williams is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education.  She is also a primary teacher on leave from the Victorian Department of Education.  She has taught undergraduate and graduate students on the Clayton and Peninsula campuses, and is currently teaching in the primary stream of the B. Ed. Double Degree at Clayton campus.

jjwil4@student.monash.edu