Reframing professional experience: adopting a distributed open collaborative course framework to facilitate third spaces

This chapter describes a redesigned practicum course that interconnects theory and practice using a Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOCC) pedagogical approach. Course design decisions were influenced from literature advocating for greater connection between universities and schools (Top of the Class, 2007, Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group [TEMAG], 2015), the use of effective work-integrated learning (WIL) features (Orrell, 2011), and forming productive partnerships (Top of the Class, 2007; TEMAG, 2015). This chapter outlines the theoretical underpinning and features of the course. Using the feedback from students/pre-service teachers' pre and post survey data, it evaluates the various DOCC principles such as collaborative partnerships and shared responsibility for teacher education.