Building Personal Resources for Professional Lives: Pre-Service Teachers’ Experiences of Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

Initial teacher education is an important contributor to teacher retention through teachers’ identity and their resilience in teaching. Relationships are key elements of teachers’ resilience and identity formation. During teacher education, professional learning communities can build these relationships and dispositions that support pre-service teachers’ persistence during challenges they encounter professionally and as students during their teacher education program. While previous research has shown the value of learning communities in professional experience in teacher education, the effects of a learning community approach to the delivery of an entire teacher education program has not previously been examined. A professional learning community approach to delivery of a postgraduate initial teacher education program was designed and has been implemented at regional campuses of an Australian university since 2018. This interpretivist study evaluated the contribution of the program to pre-service teachers’ personal resources for their professional lives as teachers. Focus groups were held with all students enrolled in the regional program in 2018 and 2021, and self-selected alumni of the program in 2022, as well as four teacher educators involved in delivering the regional program in 2021 and 2022. A thematic approach was employed to analyze the transcripts. The professional learning communities built a number of resources for teaching, including relational resilience in the form of strong relationships that offered support during the program, teacher education student engagement, and teacher identity. In the process, the learners obtained skills and dispositions that would equip them to continue to work in professional learning communities during their teaching careers. The findings highlight the importance of relationships in teacher education and have implications for the design of initial teacher education programs for teacher retention.

1. Introduction

Teachers’ role in classrooms is becoming increasingly challenging (Suarez & McGrath, 2022) and teacher education programs have an important role in preparing and equipping teachers for such challenges (Mansfield et al., 2016). At the same time, initial teacher education itself presents challenges for pre-service teachers in terms of workload (in both coursework and teaching practice), work–life balance, and financial worries, as well as concerns about teaching itself (Squires et al., 2022; Beutel et al., 2019). Formal programs teaching about resilience are one approach that has proven successful in equipping pre-service teachers for the challenges they encounter (e.g., Weatherby-Fell et al., 2021). The relationships students develop with their peers in their teacher education programs and as early career teachers also contribute to their resilience, as Le Cornu (2013), Gu (2014), and Versfeld et al. (2022) have demonstrated. As a consequence of national program requirements, collaborative teacher relationships have been pushed aside within the Australian initial teacher education context in recent years. National initial teacher education program standards (AITSL, 2022) and individual professional teacher standards (AITSL, 2011), as well as a recent review of initial teacher education (Australian Government, 2022) and report on teacher retention (Australian Government, 2023) are silent regarding this contributor to teacher resilience and retention.

Drawing on focus groups with pre-service teachers and their teacher educator coordinators, this study aimed to evaluate the contributions of a professional learning community approach to an initial teacher education degree to pre-service teachers’ resources for resilience and retention. The findings of this Australian research study show that where professional learning communities exist within teacher education programs, they and the relationships they engender can provide a context for the development of resilience and other important resources for members’ teaching and learning, including teacher identity and engagement. These professional learning communities, embedded throughout the lifetime of the degree, provide an extended opportunity for pre-service teachers to develop the skills, habits and dispositions that underpin their success during and potentially beyond the degree, preparing them for increasingly challenging educational workplaces.

1.1. Professional Learning Communities

Professional learning communities are defined in a review of the literature by Stoll et al. (2006, p. 223) as “a group of people sharing and critically interrogating their practice in an ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning-oriented, growth-promoting way.” They have their origins, then, in Dewey’s (1929) work on teacher reflection and Schon’s (1983) work on reflective practice, and were prevalent in professional development work in schools in the 1990s (Vescio et al., 2008). In professional learning communities there is a dual focus on professional learning and on the community within which such professional learning occurs. As Stoll et al. (2006, p. 225) point out,

“At the heart of the concept, however, is the notion of community. The focus is not just on individual teachers’ professional learning but of professional learning within a community context—a community of learners, and the notion of collective learning.”

Stoll et al. (2006) go on to argue that community offers opportunities for support and caring for one another, discussion of each other’s views and building of shared understandings, participation and social interaction, and relationships. Professional learning communities have been promoted for teacher professional development by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL, 2017b), by the Educational Review Office in New Zealand (ERO, 2024), and by the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (DCELLS) in Wales (Harris & Jones, 2017). In the USA, Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) argued that professional learning communities can provide teachers both efficacy and confidence by supporting collaboration, active learning, support and opportunities for feedback and reflection, all of which have been identified as elements of effective professional learning. In this way, professional learning communities can provide contextual support for resilience and for other personal resources that contribute to it, including identity and engagement.

Professional learning communities may be considered a type of community of practice, and this term is also used, particularly in the online space and in initial teacher education. In this paper “learning communities” are conceptualized as a type of “community of practice” and so both terms appear. Communities of practice were defined by Lave and Wenger (1991), Wenger (1998) and Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015, p. 1):

Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour… In a nutshell, communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

In initial teacher education, the notion of communities of practice has been more strongly taken up, perhaps recognizing that professional learning communities tend not only to explicitly focus on student learning, but also on schools as organizations with an aim to build their capacity (Christensen & Jerrim, 2025). Both professional learning communities and communities of practice are grounded in situated learning, collaboration and shared practice (Christensen & Jerrim, 2025).

In teacher education programs, communities of practice have in the past been recognized as valuable for learning and support through community and interaction. For example, Le Cornu (2009, 2010) described communities of practice that were established through “learning circles” in professional experience. Le Cornu found the relationships that developed between peers through these learning communities supported their resilience and agency as well as their learning whilst undertaking professional experience. She argued that teacher education programs must nurture such “sustaining relationships” (2010, p. 6) that are based on trust, mutuality and reciprocity, and that participation in a learning community is a powerful way to do this. Le Cornu and Ewing (2008) and Broadley et al. (2019) identify a learning communities model of professional experience in which pre-service teachers and mentors build a professional relationship that can prompt critical reflection and foster such relationships in teachers’ early careers. Broadley et al. argued that for this to be realized, the learning community needed to operate as a “third space” that spanned across university and school contexts to resolve cultural differences between the school and university sites of learning. In a similar way, individual subjects within a teaching degree may operate as individual “silos” with potentially conflicting perspectives needing to be resolved.

Outside of professional experience, Zeivots et al. (2024) set up professional learning groups for action research in a subject and found pre-service teachers experienced high levels of support, engagement and agency through their collaborative discussions. While such initiatives are no doubt valuable, the communities developed may be constrained when bounded within a subject or placement in the degree. A professional learning community operating within a teacher education degree and across subjects offers powerful opportunities both for support and for professional discussions of problematic knowledge, particularly when there are teacher educators who are able to move across the multiple settings pre-service teachers are involved in, such as within school–university partnerships and cross-subject discussions.

1.2. Teacher Resilience

Teacher resilience has been defined in various ways, but seems to include responses to adverse events, and to lead to positive outcomes despite those events. According to Mansfield et al. (2016), it is at the same time a capacity, a process, and an outcome.

Pre-service teachers may develop capacity for resilience through building personal resources (e.g., motivation; social and emotional competence), understanding ways to mobilise contextual resources (e.g., relationships, support networks), and developing a range of adaptive coping strategies (e.g., problem solving, time management, maintaining work–life balance) to manage challenges with a view to maximising adaptive, resilient outcomes (e.g., commitment, job satisfaction, wellbeing, engagement).

(Mansfield et al., 2016, p. 80)

Resilience influences teachers’ ability to navigate the challenges they encounter and to achieve and maintain job satisfaction (Lu et al., 2024). Equally, in an initial teacher education program, resilience can help pre-service teachers to navigate the challenges encountered in their professional experiences in schools as well as in their academic work and life, and maintain their interest and vitality while preparing for a career in teaching (Le Cornu, 2009). Resilience is dynamic, and responds to both personal resources and demands and contextual resources and demands. Social support through collegial work and relationships with peers connect to both personal and contextual resources, and so the sets of personal and contextual resources cannot be viewed as separate things. For example, in the quote above, Mansfield et al. (2016) identified social and emotional competencies and motivation among personal resources, and relationships and support networks among contextual resources. In support networks like professional learning communities and the relationships built within them (“contextual resources”), personal resources of social and emotional competence and motivation (as well as self-efficacy, optimism, and hope) can be built. The potential of contexts to provide support for resilience, and not simply to present challenges to it, is important, particularly when considering a teacher education program as one of these contexts. As Mansfield et al.’s (2016) systemic picture of resilience recognized, both contextual and individual resources for resilience contribute to the teacher resilience process.

Relationships with colleagues have been identified as important contributors to resilience and to teacher identity (Mansfield et al., 2016) through both colleague support and the relationships themselves (Lu et al., 2024). The review by Mansfield et al. (2016) identified facilitation of support networks as a means of fostering resilience among pre-service teachers during their degree. Gu (2014) described teacher resilience as a relational concept rather than an individual capacity, drawing on Jordan’s (2005, 2012) model of relational resilience. In this model relational resilience reflects the relational worlds of schools and the social capital that can result from trusting, caring relationships there. In her discussion of relational resilience, Le Cornu (2010) similarly drew on Jordan’s work and argued that in pre-service teacher education, “sustaining relationships” can be built through learning communities that empower pre-service teachers towards greater agency and identity and resilience as teachers, and that benefits of these relationships carried through into their first year of teaching.

Having time set aside to build such relationships is important to ensure they occur, as Le Cornu (2009) showed with her design of learning circles within professional placements in schools. Versfeld et al. (2022) went further, designing particular experiences for teachers in schools (monthly “art-based time” p. 74). The researchers concluded that it was the time the teachers spent together that enabled them to support one another through difficulties, and to develop what they called “relationship-resourced resilience” (p. 72). While their theorizing was built on social connectedness within an African worldview, Versfeld et al.’s (2022) study points to the benefits of social connectedness, and how this can be built through time spent together. This time allows the reciprocity, trust and support that Gu (2014) and Le Cornu (2009) identified as characteristic of relationships supporting resilience to become established in a learning community.

Collective resilience goes beyond individual conceptions of resilience and refers to resilience held by groups who respond to difficult events together. Liu et al. (2022, p. 2) define this as “the way people in crowds express and expect solidarity and thereby coordinate and draw upon collective sources of practical and emotional support to adaptively deal with an emergency or disaster.” This has been observed in communities responding to crises such as natural disasters (Liu et al., 2022) and has also been described in migrant communities withstanding challenges related to migration (Olcese et al., 2024). It has also been identified in teacher educators navigating changing and challenging times (McDonough et al., 2021). Collective resilience supports individual resilience primarily through emotional support whilst also contributing to collective identity, including a sense of belonging. In turn, these contribute to individual resilience, providing social and cultural capital (Liu et al., 2022). In a professional learning community, collective resilience to common difficulties the group encounters may support individual resilience through the emotional support and interpretation of difficulties that are provided by the community. Collective resilience is an example of relational resilience but is distinct from it. It involves a combined response to an event, whereas relational resilience can influence and support each individual’s response.

1.3. Teacher Identity

A key developmental task for pre-service teachers is development of a teacher identity. Teacher identity is described by Flores and Day (2006, p. 220) as “an ongoing and dynamic process which entails the making sense and (re)interpretation of one’s own values and experiences”. According to Day et al. (2007), it influences teachers’ self-efficacy, motivation, commitment to the profession, and job satisfaction (and thereby, resilience). Suarez and McGrath (2022) identified factors influencing teacher identity, including previous experience, initial teacher education, interactions with others and, in particular, collaboration, support from supervisors or mentors, and personal and combined reflections on teaching practice and beliefs. Most if not all of these could be visible within a professional learning community. Significantly, Suarez & McGrath also cite Davey (2013) as stating that across multiple disciplines, professional identity is agreed to be built through interpersonal relationships—the central defining feature of a community. Indeed, Harlow and Cobb (2014) found that the social support from a collaborative community supported the pre-service teachers in their program in building confidence for involvement in teaching which in its turn contributed to the development of teacher identity. This informal learning, though it may be both structured and unstructured, planned and unplanned (Jeong et al., 2018), can be argued to be at least as important as formal learning in teacher education programs, which is becoming the focus of an increasing number of reviews of teacher education in Australia (Bourke, 2019), because of the influence it has on teacher resilience.

During initial teacher education, teacher identity is built as pre-service teachers construct and reconstruct understandings of learning, teaching, schools and learners, and develop their personal philosophy of teaching as a result of experiences they have in schools and university classrooms. Teacher identity involves beliefs and values as well as practices, and is dynamic rather than fixed, as Flores and Day (2006) noted. Wenger (1998) would argue that “legitimate peripheral participation” in communities of practice in schools is an important contributor to teacher identity. Yet the “making sense” that Flores and Day (2006) described happens before, after, and around those school experiences as much as within them. This is where the “third space” of a professional learning community that spreads across school and university cultures (Broadley et al., 2019) is important to consider. Rather than restricting learning communities to professional experience or individual subjects within a degree, a learning community that operates across an entire program can provide powerful opportunities for meaning-making, engagement with and enactment of the learning undertaken.

Pre-service teachers constructing their individual teacher identities alongside and in collaboration with one another in a learning community may also construct a collective identity as a member of the group. Snow and Corrigall-Brown (2015) argue that this involves a shared “we” and group agency that contribute to belonging and also to individual identities of the members. Where the learning community contributes to a collective teacher identity, then, aspects of this may become part of the individual teacher identities of its members; the identity building is a reciprocal process between the individual and the collective.

1.4. Engagement

Student engagement has been a focus for higher education internationally, due to its links to student retention and success (Kahu & Nelson, 2018), and is an important resource for pre-service teacher resilience and retention. Teacher retention literature generally focuses on the period following graduation from university, but at least some of the issues involved appear during the pre-service teacher experience and may contribute to attrition from teacher education programs, although these attrition rates are similar to rates for other courses (AITSL, 2017b). In Australia, pre-service teachers are increasingly employed in schools before completing their studies, which may add to their experience of challenges associated with teaching and its preparation. Sturges et al. (2024) identified teacher workload, classroom factors such as behavior management, and lack of confidence as challenges associated with working as a teacher while studying, and suggested guidance or support from a mentor could contribute to pre-service teachers’ job satisfaction. Two of these challenges are among the top three factors influencing teachers’ intentions to leave the profession according to AITSL (2017a). This suggests that supporting pre-service teachers during their teacher education programs is important, not just to their retention in their degrees, but in the profession. Student engagement is therefore an important part of the effort to support (pre-service) teacher retention.

Fredricks et al. (2004) wrote a seminal paper expanding understandings of student engagement beyond a vague conception of “involvement” and identifying three core dimensions of engagement: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. Others have since expanded upon this, adding social engagement, for example, as an important consideration in particular domains such as language learning (Philp & Duchesne, 2016) or teacher education, in which social interaction is core to learning and praxis.

Redmond et al. (2018) developed a conceptual framework for online higher education engagement, focusing on the online learning experience that is becoming an increasingly significant part of learning at university. While, undoubtedly, different processes are involved in online and face-to-face learning (Bright & Vogler, 2024), in teacher education, with professional experience in schools being integral alongside university classes, students are commonly involved in a mixture of online and face-to-face experiences. Redmond et al.’s (2018) framework provides some key indicators of engagement in higher education that include cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, and collaborative engagement, and so Redmond et al.’s framework may be useful in considering how learning communities contribute to student engagement in teacher education programs.

Redmond et al. (2018) define each dimension in their framework of engagement with specific indicators. Cognitive engagement is described as “the active process of learning … related to what students do and think to promote learning” (pp. 191–192), involving for example, critical thinking, self-regulation, and metacognition. In the framework, behavioral engagement is defined in terms of participation, asking questions, upholding norms, and supporting peers—all of which are important within a learning community. Emotional engagement includes attitudes towards learning and reactions to others in the environment or discipline, as well as emotional responses to learning experiences. The framework defines social engagement in terms of interactions and relationships with peers both within and outside the learning environment and links creating belonging, connection and community; all of these are needed for learning communities to function well. Collaborative engagement is defined by Redmond et al. in terms of relationships supporting learning and is thus related to social engagement and most closely aligned with the notion of a learning community. It acknowledges the benefits of such relationships for learning, but is more specific, focusing on collaboration with peers, academics, and industry (school) partners.

1.5. Collective Resilience, Collective Identity, and Collaborative Engagement in a Learning Community: Supporting Personal Resources

While resilience, teacher identity and engagement each have a basis in individual psychology, they also have been identified in group contexts, as was acknowledged in the sections above. When this occurs, the collective mode of each resource has been shown to support the individual mode. Collective resilience supports individual resilience in response to hardship through its support for emotions (Liu et al., 2022); collective identity interacts with and becomes one of an individual’s multiple identities (Snow & Corrigall-Brown, 2015); and collaborative engagement strengthens individual engagement (Redmond et al., 2018). These become resources that beginning teachers can draw on in their professional lives as teachers. This process explains some of the mechanisms through which professional learning communities, and the relationships formed within them, contribute to teacher resilience and retention.

Establishing strong foundations for teacher resilience and retention at the birth of a teacher’s career offers opportunities to build personal resources for teachers’ professional lives throughout their careers. Teachers’ identity and resilience contribute to their retention in teaching and previous work has shown that they can be built in learning communities in initial teacher education programs. With mandated content crowding the curriculum in initial teacher education, how programs are delivered will become increasingly important for the development of such skills and attitudes. While learning communities have been established in individual subjects (Zeivots et al., 2024) and in professional experience in schools (Le Cornu, 2009), this study examines what can result when pre-service teachers are involved in professional learning communities across their entire degree. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contributions of a professional learning community approach to a Master of Teaching degree that is taught in four regional campuses of a large multicampus university to pre-service teachers’ resources for resilience and retention. The research questions examined in this paper focus on particular foundations of teacher retention and resilience and how they are built in the professional learning communities of the program:

• What capacities for resilience are developed in the professional learning communities known as SPLAT/TLC?
• How is teacher identity built by participation in these professional learning communities?
• What indicators of student engagement are evident in student and staff descriptions of SPLAT/TLC?
• How does the collective experience of a professional learning community build sustaining support for pre-service teachers?

1.6. Context: SPLAT/TLC and How It Operates

In 2018, staff at the University of Wollongong (UOW), a multicampus Australian university with four regional campuses (as well as a larger metropolitan campus) commenced a new delivery model for the Master of Teaching program on its regional campuses; a community of practice drawing on Students as Partners approaches (Cook-Sather et al., 2014) in which students and regional teacher educator coordinators on each campus partnered together in workshops integrating learning from the subjects in the program. In designing this approach, regional teacher educator coordinators sought to maximize benefits of the smaller numbers (5–12 on each campus) and community culture that characterized their campuses. As these campuses are embedded in communities where the teacher shortage is acute, communities of practice were also understood as a way to support and successfully transition students into local teaching careers. The communities of practice operated as professional learning communities in the sense that they had a dual focus on students’ professional learning and on the communities within which that learning occurred. This developed into the “Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching” (SPLAT) model of delivery of the Master of Teaching program which commenced on regional campuses of the university in 2018.

Continuing evaluation of the SPLAT (Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching) program revealed that support was a key benefit commonly named by students in focus groups and interviews and this linked our program with outcomes of other learning communities that had been established by Le Cornu (2009) and others. Accordingly, the name of the approach became TLC (Teaching and Learning Community, with a nod to the notion of “tender loving care” in the acronym) in 2022. Its success led to the adoption of the TLC approach at the metropolitan campus in 2024. Integration of professional learning communities throughout the degree provided an opportunity to gather data about how this approach contributed to teacher education students’ learning and development as teachers. SPLAT/TLC is used in this paper as processes are similar pre and post the name change, apart from quotations in focus groups.

Teacher education students and teacher educator coordinators met weekly, guided by students’ questions and requests for sessions expanding on particular topics or skills. Some examples of activities involved students trialing a lesson idea and receiving feedback from peers; discussing questions that had arisen in the media and community around the status of teaching; unpacking complex assessments to decide what was required and how they would approach them; comparing and discussing experiences in schools; and working together on group assignments. Community members, teachers and past graduates joined in on occasion to provide advice, answer questions and explore issues together. Visits to schools were arranged to view particular teaching approaches, and students worked together to prepare for the LANTITE (a National Literacy and Numeracy assessment of teacher education students) and a first aid course. Social connection was strengthened through informal activities such as eating together, playing games, and arts-based activities. The SPLAT/TLC approach was also integrated into tutorials for some subjects, with students using Socratic questioning to lead discussions in one subject, and KWL charts being used to set goals for learning in another. Outside of tutorial and scheduled times, students also connected with each other using Facebook, and engaged in relaxed interactions such as coffees, dinners, and social engagements.

In this university’s Master of Teaching degree, professional experience (PEX) is integrated in the degree with pre-service teachers undertaking individual PEX days from week 4 of the first semester, followed by blocks at the end of that semester, at the end of the following semester, and mid-way through the final semester. This allowed SPLAT/TLC sessions to include discussion of and planning for school visits, including teaching plans. Additionally, with conditional accreditation and employment in schools common in the final year, there is opportunity for pre-service teachers to support one another through SPLAT/TLC as they commence their teaching career.

2. Methodology, Materials and Methods

This research employed an interpretivist qualitative research design that recognizes that “researchers are inevitably embedded in the intersubjective social processes of the worlds they study” (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012, p. 2) and sought insight into how the participants made sense of their own worlds. It utilized focus groups with both teacher education students and teacher educators; artworks and associated commentary and a recording of a meeting between teacher educators were used as data sources. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. The combination of these methods allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the participants’ experiences and perspectives and for triangulation of the data to contribute to the reliability of interpretations.

Ethics approval was obtained from the University of Wollongong Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC2018/365). Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their involvement in the study. Participants were assured of confidentiality and the right to withdraw from the study at any time without any consequences.

Semi-structured focus groups were conducted with teacher education students in 2018 and 2021, with alumni in 2021 and 2022 and with teacher educator coordinators in 2021, with each session lasting approximately 1 h. In focus groups, teacher education students were asked questions about their experience of SPLAT/TLC with open-ended questions that captured their reflections on the year and the role SPLAT/TLC had played in their studies. Teacher educator coordinators led these discussions as an extension of SPLAT/TLC. Focus groups were appropriate, as they reflected the kinds of discussions held in professional learning communities (SPLAT/TLC) the teacher education students had been members of throughout their degree. The focus group with teacher educators was led by a colleague who was not otherwise involved in the research, with questions about the process of developing the SPLAT program, its effects on students’ learning and development, and lessons for the future. The final session in 2022 was a recording of a meeting between the four teacher educators reflecting on SPLAT/TLC, as one of their number moved on from the university. All sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis.

In 2018, teacher education students came together to celebrate the end of the year and developed artworks individually and together based on their conceptions of SPLAT. A researcher invited them to explain what their artwork conveyed about their experience of SPLAT. The commentary was recorded, transcribed, and added to the set of thematically analyzed data. Arts-based research has been used to access a deeper understanding of participants’ views and experiences that may not be expressed in traditional (text-based) data (Morris & Paris, 2022). Both artwork and discussions that occur during and around its creation can be considered helpful data, as was the case in this study. The full set of artworks with their descriptions can be accessed in the data file Supplementary Materials.

Participants were recruited through sampling that included all teacher education students who had been involved in the SPLAT/TLC program in the relevant years and their teacher educator coordinators. In total, 53 teacher education students from the four UOW regional campus sites participated: 26 in 2018, 21 in 2021 as well as 6 alumni of two campuses in 2022. Additionally, 4 regional academic staff (teacher educator coordinators) were involved in a focus group in 2021 and a recorded meeting in 2022. These teacher educators were coordinators of their campus programs, as well as lecturers, and were involved as participant researchers in the study. Henceforth, they are referred to as “the researchers” in this paper. Three of them are authors of this paper.

Table 1. Timeline of research activities and participants.

Year	Activity	Number and Type of Participants
2018	Focus groups	26 pre-service teachers
2018	Artwork workshop	24 pre-service teachers
2021	Focus groups	21 pre-service teachers
2021	Focus group	4 teacher educators
2022	Focus groups	6 alumni
2022	Meeting	4 teacher educators

sets out the research participants and data collection activities of the study.

The transcripts from the focus groups, the meeting and artwork commentary were analyzed using thematic analysis. The trustworthiness of the data lies in the triangulation and confirmation of themes across 4 campus groups, across two cohorts of the degree: 2018 and 2021, between pre-service teachers and their teacher educators, and different sources (focus groups, a recorded meeting and commentary on artworks). Examples of each theme were located from at least two campuses, with at least one artwork referencing each theme.

Thematic analysis was employed, using pre-existing codes of resilience, based on Mansfield et al. (2016), building of teacher identity based on Suarez and McGrath (2022), engagement based on Redmond et al. (2018), and professional learning communities based on Stoll et al. (2006) to define the themes.

The approach to the analysis included the following steps:

Familiarization: Researchers read and re-read the transcripts to become thoroughly familiar with the data.

Thematic Analysis: Responses were first grouped independently by two of the researchers into broader themes of professional learning communities, support, building teacher identity, engagement, and resilience. The identified themes were then agreed between the two researchers as capturing the essence of participants’ experiences. In a second phase of analysis, the themes of building teacher identity, resilience, engagement, and professional learning communities were the themes explored and coded based on the previous work cited above. Four researchers contributed examples to each theme, which were then discussed between the four researchers to reach agreement, with the theoretical frameworks previously listed used to check coding of each theme and establish validity.

3. Results

Our thematic analysis of pre-service teachers’ reflections reveals how their experiences within learning communities, implemented as initiatives like SPLAT (2018–2021) and TLC (2022), provided more than social or academic support. These settings became transformative spaces where pre-service teachers not only cultivated meaningful networks but also actively reconfigured their understanding of what it means to be a teacher. The findings discussed here by both teacher education students and teacher educator coordinators strongly suggest that intentional, relationship-focused structures embedded across a teacher education degree can significantly mitigate the isolating effects of a challenging career choice, while reinforcing a collective, evolving professional identity. In this, they represent a contextual support for resilience.

3.1. Relational Resilience

The stories shared by pre-service teachers illustrate that participating in SPLAT/TLC sessions was akin to entering a safe space where academic pressures were diffused through collective effort. One teacher education student participant remarked,

“You need to rely on people around you and help each other out, or it gets too much, and I think SPLAT’s really helped us embrace that and use that … it really helped build the network that we’ve used to get through it all and share resources.”

(Campus 4, 2018)

This testimony, along with others, emphasizes that these designated sessions offered not merely a time for academic discussion but also an emotional and social lifeline. Pre-service teachers described how these conversations allowed them to express shared struggles with assessment pressures and practical concerns, fostering a sense of belonging. As explained by a teacher education student in discussing her artwork:

“The biggest thing for me was the support system that comes with it. As a mental pillar to help us at times it was very much needed. I don’t think just through general tutorials in the subjects we would have had the opportunity to have the conversations that we had in SPLAT. That’s the biggest thing for me: the pillar that I need to support me at times, in the form of all these lovely people.”

(Figure 1, Artwork 1, 2018)

Furthermore, in dialogue between peers, the SPLAT/TLC environment was depicted as a space where discussions could range from assignment anxieties to the pressures of everyday life, thereby reinforcing the idea that teacher education extends well beyond conventional content delivery. As noted by a teacher education student:

“SPLAT just brought everyone together. It was very inclusive, we could talk about assignments, we could also talk about things that were lingering, such as prac, which is nerve-racking, we could talk with our fellow students, we could also talk with the teaching staff… And then what actually had followed on from SPLAT, was that connecting this as a group, we would then go back to computer labs and work on tasks independently but still together. So I think SPLAT largely did inspire that working togetherness.”

(Campus 1, 2021)

The “relationship-resourced resilience” that Versfeld et al. (2022) noted is evident here, as is collective resilience; the group working together. This was a collective rather than individual resilience, with strong recognition that resilience depended on a network of supports. As one teacher education student explained in commenting on her artwork,

“That’s what SPLAT means: supporting the network that we already have, as well as growing and increasing the network for further support and engagement.”

(Artwork 2, 2018, see Figure 2)

3.2. Engagement Across Multiple Dimensions

Enhanced engagement was a notable benefit of the model, as demonstrated by the pre-service teachers’ reflections. Drawing upon Redmond et al.’s (2018) framework, the data showed evidence of all five interrelated dimensions of engagement (social, cognitive, emotional, behavioral and collaborative) in the SPLAT/TLC experiences.

In relation to social engagement, pre-service teachers emphasized that interpersonal connections were critical. One teacher education student remarked, “if I didn’t have these relationships, I probably wouldn’t be doing it. And I know for sure that I can’t study online.” (Campus 1, 2021)

Group discussions during TLC served as dynamic mini-tutorials, where teacher education students collectively navigated academic challenges involving cognitive engagement. A teacher education student noted that these sessions were instrumental in clarifying assignment expectations and refining the questions they wanted to ask. Aligning with emotional engagement, the space also allowed for raw expressions of how the teacher education students truly felt. As one participant stated, “last year, it was just everyone saying how they feel… we just had someone to listen to us and understand what was going on.” Campus 4, 2021. This sentiment was echoed by a teacher education student from another campus who noted

I just appreciated that it’s always such an open space for you to discuss and talk about things. Even it doesn’t have to be directly related to the Master of Teaching, just what you’re going through at that time, and just sharing the same space.

(Campus 2, 2021)

Alongside the emotional engagement, behavioral engagement became a shared experience of navigating academic challenges together that helped pre-service teachers feel less isolated and more able to persist. One teacher education student reflected on how knowing that “everyone else is in the same boat” was a deeply consoling experience connecting this to the emotional benefit.

“I guess for me, it just made me feel like I wasn’t doing the degree alone, just myself, that everyone else we’re all in the same boat, doing the same things. We had the opportunity to discuss that we all have the same worries or the same complications with our assessments. So, just knowing that no matter how I felt or how I was going with my assessments, that there was always someone there as well in a similar boat always ready to show me.”

(Campus 4, 2021)

This led to collaborative engagement; the inherent need to work together emerged as a key theme. One teacher education student summarized, “you need to rely on people around you and help each other out, or it gets too much, and I think SPLAT’s really helped us embrace that.” (Campus 4, 2018)

Another teacher education student chose to show this in their artwork, explaining “Each one of the colours represent our lives, individuals and people, and how we all flow together, mesh together, and you have to learn to grow together, learn together, talk about different things, and all of our ideas flow and add a different layer of understanding. Working together as a team to achieve a common goal of learning.” (Artwork 3, 2018, see Figure 3).

A coordinator succinctly summed up the value of SPLAT/TLC for teacher education student engagement by noting:

“They said how important that peer support had been, and they keep each other going through difficulties. They’re actually contributing to one another’s engagement. I think that’s the other thing, there has been increased student engagement because the students are there, egging each other on and just supporting one another through all of the challenges.”

(Campus 4 Coordinator, 2021)

3.3. Negotiating Teacher Identity

Beyond community building, SPLAT/TLC played a significant role in how pre-service teachers came to understand and eventually embrace their emerging professional identities. As one teacher education student discusses,

“I think that SPLAT has gradually provided those building blocks to understand the profession, because it’s one thing to say, ‘I want to be a teacher’ and it’s another thing to walk into your first semester of the degree and go, ‘Oh wow. This is a lot more work than I expected.’ Or I feel like it’s different once you actually get into it. So having those gradual sort of building blocks to build on that understanding rather than trying to figure that all out for yourself. That’s really helpful because it’s a lot; getting a lot of information at once when you’re in a new environment can be very overwhelming.”

(Campus 1, 2021)

The narrative of doubt transformed into one of collective reassurance. The act of sharing personal insecurities within SPLAT/TLC allowed pre-service teachers to recognize that uncertainty was not a unique failing but an intrinsic part of their journey. In time, the experiences recounted by pre-service teachers evolved into expressions of rising confidence. They began to articulate a clearer image of the teacher they were becoming, insights reinforced by peer interaction and mutual support. For some, the relationships cultivated during SPLAT/TLC sessions were seen as proto-teacher collaborations, mirroring the teamwork they would later require in their classrooms. As one pre-service teacher noted in discussing her artwork, the learning community was part of her evolution as a teacher:

“We’re all individuals, but we’re learning and we’re growing together, helping each other grow with what we do in SPLAT. It’s helped build who I am as a teacher, I think just having that support there is the thing. It’s made the process easier.”

(Artwork 4, 2018, see Figure 4)

A notable thread in the narratives is the insight offered by teacher educator campus coordinators. One coordinator described launching the SPLAT/TLC with her teacher education students by declaring,

“Here we are, this is our staff room and this is how we’re going to start working together… be there for each other, help each other, and learn from each other.”

(Coordinator Campus 3)

This perspective highlights the deliberate design of SPLAT/TLC as microcosms of professional practice. The coordinator’s vision, framing these sessions as early steps towards building a collaborative professional community, resonates with the subsequent reflections of pre-service teachers. Their lived experiences confirm that such an environment can foster deep, relational learning, and ultimately support the resilience and professional identity necessary for effective teaching.

3.4. Pre-Service Teachers’ Impressions of Teacher Identity

The narratives reveal that participation in communities of practice had a profound influence on the pre-service teachers’ emerging professional identities. In the learning community sessions, delivered through SPLAT and TLC, teacher education students not only honed their academic skills but also engaged in deep, relational learning that reconfigured their understandings of themselves as teachers.

3.4.1. Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome

For many pre-service teachers, the early stages of teacher identity formation were marked by uncertainty and self-doubt. One participant encapsulated these feelings, stating,

“Well, it’s like you walk in the imposter shoes and you come into the interviews, because it is just a thought, ‘I want to be a teacher’. And then you walk in and suddenly it hits you like, ‘Am I the imposter here? Because I don’t know that I can do this. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ But when you’re in something like SPLAT, you realise that you’re not alone and that everyone else feels similar, therefore ‘no, it’s going to be possible and I’m not going to be the imposter forever’.”

(Campus 1, 2021)

This reflection highlights how the SPLAT/TLC environment provided a safe space for pre-service teachers to confront and reframe their insecurities. Here, self-doubt was not an experience of failure but a shared experience among peers, a crucial realization that tempered feelings of isolation and the intimidating nature of professional expectations.

3.4.2. Evolving Through Collaborative Practice

Beyond individual self-doubt, the SPLAT/TLC sessions fostered an evolving understanding of what it means to be a teacher. As another teacher education student observed,

“These are the kinds of relationships we will have as teachers, and I think that this supports the development of my skills in how to work collaboratively with my peers.”

(Campus 2, 2018)

This perception was further reinforced by teacher educator coordinators, who noted that the process of mutual support and collective problem solving was foundational to forming a resilient teacher identity. One coordinator described the transformative impact of these shared experiences:

“The way they support each other in their wellbeing and the resilience to get through the course, however, it is all predicated around this emerging professional understanding of themselves as teachers.”

(Coordinator, Campus 2)

The teacher identities that were built included recognition that teacher identity is a collaborative thing; through the communities of practice, pre-service teachers took on an understanding of teaching as a team activity rather than a solo enterprise. They recognized the role of colleagues in their thinking as well as their support. One teacher education student put this powerfully when describing her artwork:

“I’ve drawn hands holding and supporting a little sapling, because we all started off as these little seeds needing a bit of nurturing and support, and we’ll keep growing. SPLAT has definitely made me realise that you need other teachers, and you need support at work and you need people to have for emotional support, and to share ideas and resources and your thoughts with. You can’t do it in isolation, like a seed can’t turn into a plant without water and sunlight.”

(Artwork 5, 2018, see Figure 5)

The cooperative spirit extended beyond graduation. For example, one coordinator (Campus 2) recalled a group of graduates who, having worked together closely during their studies, reunited during school holidays to collaboratively address the demands of professional documentation. This continued collaboration underscored a growing recognition that the relationships forged in SPLAT/TLC were not temporary but could evolve into long-term professional networks.

3.5. Counter Examples: When Pre-Service Teachers Were Not Interested in Community

While teacher education students did not discuss this issue, it was acknowledged in the teacher–educator coordinator focus group in 2021. One coordinator, in a discussion of the importance of responsiveness in establishment of communities, related her experience one year.

I certainly had a year where in fact it just didn’t happen, very small numbers, they were all very disparate people, they really didn’t gel at all together. It was a challenge to even work with them within subjects, but certainly it would have been a very, very false environment in fact to try and bring them together because it just wasn’t possible. And I think the strength then was to basically let it go and not to force it.

(Coordinator, Campus 1)

This has implications for the personal resources that can be developed in such a group in the absence of relationships and shows the value of a range of ways in which pre-service teachers’ resilience can be supported in initial teacher education programs. Other resilience resources provided in the program included BRITE (Building Resilience in Teacher Education modules, see Mansfield et al., 2021) which all students completed in their first year and revisited in each semester prior to professional experience in schools. In a discussion of challenges for the SPLAT/TLC approach, another coordinator identified students within a wider group who were uninterested in being part of the learning community.

Coordinator, Campus 4: (Referring to the experience at campus 1) When a cohort doesn’t buy into that approach and they don’t want to work together and they resist the idea of having it… because they see it as extra time, an extra demand on them. So that’s the challenge I think, the big challenge. And that doesn’t happen very often.

Coordinator, Campus 2: Or when just an individual in the group is like that, it is actually really hard and it ends up alienating them more from the rest.

The concern of the coordinator of campus 2 reflects her awareness of the importance of relationships and community to learning and development as a teacher. In future research, we could investigate the dynamics of groups, motivations, and outcomes for teacher education students who are resistant to being involved in a professional learning community during their degree, although convincing such students to voluntarily participate in research could be challenging.

3.6. The Enduring Impact of Relationship-Building

These narratives further illustrate that the transformative power of SPLAT/TLC extended into the school environment. One teacher education student noted,

“I actually think this (SPLAT experience) will help us in being confident in actually building relationships in schools as well and being open to expressing how we’re feeling even if we may not be so familiar with some of the people there. Building these relationships from the ground up, I think, is a good experience. I think it’s a good thing to do on a teacher program too, because like someone said before, this is what it means in the school, it’s about relationships with teachers and students.”

(Campus 4, 2021)

An alumnus of the program detailed the tangible benefits of these relationships once they had begun their teaching careers:

“I have contacted my SPLAT members multiple times within my beginning teacher years to ask for advice about many different things… behaviour management strategies, programming, resource suggestions, casual teacher tips, etc… One of my SPLAT members even completed their very first casual day in my class! It was awesome to see that come full circle and work together outside of uni.”

(Alumni focus group, 2022)

Informal gatherings contributed to this sense of community. As one participant explained, colleagues would meet for lunchtimes and end-of-week debrief sessions, sharing experiences and insights across different schools, subjects, and career stages. Such ongoing engagements reflect a recognized and shared belief in the importance of collegial support as a foundation for professional practice. The time spent together (Versfeld et al., 2022) was an important contributor to the trust and intimacy of the relationships that enabled this support.

The responses affirm that learning communities serve as crucibles in which pre-service teacher identities are formed and refined. Through shared vulnerabilities, collaborative work, and enduring peer relationships, pre-service teachers are not only constructing a vision of their future as educators, but also forging a resilient foundation for lifelong professional engagement.

The benefits of their engagement, identity and personal resources built for teacher retention beyond the degree itself can be seen in the number of graduates of the program who have entered and remain in the field of teaching. Between 2019 and 2023, 95% of graduates are still teaching in schools (according to internal tracking data). Acknowledging that context influences resilience as much as individual qualities (Gu & Li, 2013), there are undoubtedly other contributors to this retention, such as the majority living and working in their local communities in rural and regional schools (Kingsford-Smith et al., 2023). Nevertheless, UNESCO (2024) identified initial teacher education programs as important contributors to teacher retention. From the data presented here, it is evident that this contribution does not only consist of the formal content in a teacher education program but also likely includes dispositions and skills for working with others such as those developed in communities of practice. The supportive context of these communities is itself a contextual resource, as well as providing resources in the form of relationships, identity and engagement for resilience.

4. Discussion

In response to the research question, “How does the collective experience of a professional learning community build sustaining support for pre-service teachers?”, the teacher education student and teacher educator coordinator data presented here confirms that such support is built, and we have argued based on the data that engagement, teacher identity, and resources for resilience are three mechanisms through which it does this. More importantly, what emerged from the data was that it was a collaborative engagement, a collective identity, and connected resilience that were built by the learning communities. This collective nature of the contributors aligns with Versfeld et al.’s (2022) finding of the importance of social connectedness to resilience. Whereas prevailing models of teacher identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009), engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004) and resilience (Mansfield et al., 2016) tend to be individual (and recognizing that each of these constructs has multiple theories and definitions), the findings of this study have shown that when developed within a learning community, they are developed and operate collectively. Others have noted the role of relationships in resilience (Gu, 2014; Versfeld et al., 2022), that identity can be both individual and social (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011), and social and collaborative dimensions of engagement (Redmond et al., 2018). This in itself supports the current finding. What has been found in the current study points to learning communities as a valuable incubator of these important contributors to support for pre-service teachers during the vulnerable stage of their pre-service training and probably also during the beginning stages of their career. The support provided by developing these personal resources collectively operates as a contextual resource (Mansfield et al., 2016) for the challenges pre-service teachers encounter during their degree and for their professional lives as new teachers.

The processes of support for teacher resilience that have been set out in the reviews of Mansfield et al. (2016) and Lu et al. (2024) were evident during the narratives of pre-service teachers’ and teacher educator coordinators’ reflections on their learning communities. Personal and contextual (“job”) resources for teacher resilience (Lu et al., 2024) came together during SPLAT/TLC: pre-service teachers worked collectively as colleagues, and time spent together in and out of SPLAT/TLC sessions built trust and a social network, with members providing emotional support for one another. Pre-service teachers’ reflections showed that these contextual resources allowed for personal resources of motivation, social and emotional competence, initiative, and empathy to be strengthened. Resilience strategies of communication, reflection, help-seeking, and professional learning (Mansfield et al., 2016) were employed in SPLAT/TLC interactions and resilience outcomes (Mansfield et al., 2016) of wellbeing, belonging, and engagement were all evident. This provides a model for embedding resources, strategies, and outcomes for resilience within teacher education programs through communities of practice that span the degree and associated placements.

Although the literature (Broadley et al., 2019; Le Cornu, 2009) has previously highlighted the benefits of communities of practice in initial teacher education, often these benefits are related to specific instances where pre-service teachers are supported during school placements, or through mentoring relationships. These contexts are often considered the “pinch points” of the teacher education degree and are understood as requiring support mechanisms in order to evidence positive outcomes. The SPLAT/TLC approach, which embeds communities of practice throughout the degree experience, situates relational experiences as central to the development of collective teacher identity, collaborative engagement and relational (including collective) resilience (Gu, 2014; Versfeld et al., 2022). The focus on relationships as a key underpinning of learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2019), of successful teaching (Le Cornu, 2010) and of resilience (Gu, 2014) was not just a taught principle but one modeled and experienced in the delivery of the program. The centering of relational experiences in the pre-service teaching degree opened up opportunities for the teacher education students to experience the possibilities that teaching and learning communities offer, fostering collaborative mindsets with accompanying skills and practices, as evident in the interview data. In the process, they built “capacities for connection” which Jordan (2012) proposed as the basis for resilience and growth, and which can be carried through into these beginning teachers’ professional lives.

The community of practice dimensions outlined by Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015) as applied to educational contexts internally, externally and over the lifetime of the pre-service teachers’ degree, resonate with the “wraparound” approach created. These are adaptive experiences, initially instigated and curated by a teacher educator coordinator (internally) then enhanced by connections to school experiences and communities (externally) while providing adaptive spaces where teacher educator coordinators create and respond to these experiences over the lifetime of the teacher education students’ degree. The embedded approach responds to the uniqueness of the group’s experiences and offers a developmental and supportive suite of experiences. These experiences constellated around sharing, social events, and academic needs, fundamentally acknowledging that the university degree and/or the school placement are not the sole places of learning during this time. Important principles underpinning the success of the approach are responsiveness and autonomy, which provide contextual and personal resources (Mansfield et al., 2016) for the pre-service teacher members of the SPLAT/TLC learning communities.

Similarly, Broadley et al. (2019, p. 4) note the need for responsiveness in initial teacher education programs and posit the “third space” as one where teacher education students negotiate multidimensional relationships, multiple realities, and where cultures merge. This allows this space to become the site of emergent teacher identity, growing resilience, and renewed engagement. As a collaborative knowledge and experience space, a community of practice such as SPLAT/TLC can be where the different sites of learning unite. As explained by Whatman and MacDonald (2017, p. 5) “the knowing and the being, practicing and learning of a beginning teacher cannot be separated into different sites for learning but will most profitably come together when learning is embraced in a range of contexts that cohere.”

Student engagement contributes to retention in initial teacher education degrees, and both through and beyond that, to teacher retention (AITSL, 2017b). Cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, and collaborative engagement (based on Redmond et al.’s (2018) indicators) were all evident in the SPLAT/TLC communities of practice and facilitated by them. This emphasizes the role that collaborative engagement (engagement with the community itself) played in strengthening the other dimensions and suggests that communities of practice embedded into initial teacher education degrees have potential to support teacher retention.

Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research

This interpretivist study has contributed to understanding of how a professional learning community approach builds teacher identity, engagement, and resilience in pre-service teachers. Interpretivist research has limited generalizability, although it can point to interrelated elements at work in complex social processes such as learning in a professional learning community (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012). There are a number of opportunities for further investigation that might help to improve the generalizability, confidence, and breadth of the findings.

A mixed-methods study could gather other quantitative and qualitative data to confirm these findings and generate generalizable conclusions. For example, there was variation in the extent to which all teacher education students engaged with the community of practice, although this was silent in the student data and we acknowledge this as a limitation of the research. Part time study meant that some students were not present for particular SPLAT/TLC or focus group sessions, although timetabling of SPLAT/TLC sessions alongside other classes means that they engage with them at some points during their degree. Future research could look at individual differences in outcomes based on teacher education student engagement with the community of practice and at dynamics within particular learning communities. Due to the qualitative nature of the study, it was not possible to draw conclusions about this. Individual quantitative surveys could help to confirm the presence of specific resources for resilience and assess correlations between the community of practice, resilience resources, and outcomes. They may also give a voice to students who were not interested in the professional learning community.

Proposed benefits of the resources built in the pre-service teachers’ experience of professional learning communities for their retention as teachers need to be tested in longitudinal research. This could also provide an opportunity to compare the outcomes of pre-service teachers with various levels of involvement in the learning communities, although the high numbers of graduates of the program who continued to work as teachers suggest this might be difficult to separate from other influences. A third possibility in such a study, using mixed-methods and a sufficiently large population, would be to tease out how each of the mechanisms—resilience, engagement, and identity—is built in the professional learning community, how they interact, and how they influence later resilience and retention in pre-service teachers’ careers going forward.

The learning community approach was introduced to capitalize on the small size of cohorts at regional campuses in the Master of Teaching program. The small numbers at the regional campuses involved in the study each year likely contributed to the intimate nature of the communities that evolved there. This facilitated sharing of vulnerability, formation of relationships, and belonging. On a larger campus, such communities may be challenging to form but could be developed through arranging students into learning teams within larger groups, which we suggest need to be longer-term rather than project-based for true communities to form. Secondly, such groups need the support of a facilitator to help to build the community and ensure that there is continued focus on professional learning goals as well as the community itself, as has been identified in research on professional learning communities in schools (Tai & Omar, 2022). At the same time, there is a critical size below which it is difficult to maintain a community of practice, so drawing on the experience of educators involved in developing virtual communities of practice (e.g., Koh et al., 2007) to link students together across campuses may be important for such groups. Koh et al. (2007) suggest that it is important to support members’ social presence through video chats as well as graphics such as avatars and memes, supported by online and offline interactions that can build and strengthen relational ties. They argue that developing a social climate that encourages participation is key, as is the usefulness of content. The benefits of communities of practice in initial teacher education for pre-service teachers’ resilience and retention suggest it is worth the effort to make these adjustments.

5. Conclusions

Increasing tightening of the content of initial teacher education degrees (Bourke, 2019) means teacher educators must ensure that teacher retention is not overlooked as a curriculum priority. Delivery models such as communities of practice provide opportunities to strengthen teacher education student engagement, build teachers’ identity, and support personal and relational resources for pre-service teacher resilience while connecting with key content. The importance of relationships to teacher and pre-service teacher resilience and retention means that calls for relationships to form part of design models for initial teacher education (Le Cornu, 2009, 2010) are becoming increasingly important in the current era.

Initial teacher education has a privileged position in teachers’ careers, with opportunities available for building personal resources that can carry through into teachers’ professional lives. When the need to bolster teacher retention is raised by teacher shortages, not just in Australia but worldwide (UNESCO, 2024), personal resources that influence resilience such as motivation, efficacy, sense of purpose, optimism, social and emotional competence, and initiative (Mansfield et al., 2016) are important to develop. This study has shown that when this happens within a community of practice embedded across an initial teacher education degree, the social connection involved provides support for the strengthening of these resources along with teacher identity and teacher education student engagement. The strong retention of the alumni of the program as teachers in schools described in this article suggest that such resources may carry through into the professional lives of the teachers who graduate from such programs, which provides considerable hope for teacher supply.