The key purposes of the EdASP were to enhance the innovation in and/or the quality of higher education by establishing a support service model for beginning teachers aimed at improving teacher retention in their first five years of service. The Project used The University of England (UNE) web-based technologies, to deliver support for beginning teachers in 2005 by providing fora for sharing professionally-based and academically-based information and for social interaction. The professional significance of the project was twofold: (1) The neophyte professional has to be assisted to adjust to specific classroom situations as part of the life-long learning continuum. Broadly this has not been done well in teaching despite reports over the last 25 years calling for various forms of support to be provided. (2) Teacher supply is currently a problem as many, especially baby boomers, are leaving teaching and there is the perennial problem of hard-to-staff schools. Beginning teachers are seen as potentially vulnerable as they cross the line into their new professional world. They bring with them social, cultural and political capital to deal with this new world. Where these are ineffective then vulnerabilities will arise and such teachers, more particularly, will need support. The method was essentially a case study using UNE alumni of 2005 who were invited to take part in primary and secondary online environments divided into discussion fora perceived to be useful to them. Discussion fora were available from the first day of first term until the end of the year. Postings by mentors and beginning teachers formed the bulk of the data though a specially prepared evaluative questionnaire was sent to all 2005 alumni. Data were mainly analysed using nVIVO and thematic analysis.

The Education Alumni Support Project provides online support for UNE graduand beginning teachers. In late November 2004 we were invited to rework the HEIP project application to suit the changed timeframe. The original timeframe can be seen in Appendix 1. Our modified proposal met HEIP requirements. We are grateful to DEST colleagues, especially Mr Paul Pfluger, for swiftly assisting us in getting the formalities of the project cleared. UNE staff also assisted us greatly in the demanding process of establishing the web environment shells and the associated log on requirements for graduands. We quickly determined that the projected trials could not take place (and hence baseline data as originally planned could not be obtained). A key decision was that the project had to be ready for the first day of school in 2005. We successfully achieved that objective. Much of the preparatory work set out prior to Monday 17 January 2005 was concertinaed into the December/January period. In short, major milestones we have achieved to date are: 1. Re-worked the outcomes and budget consistent with the thrust of the project and timeframes allowed; 2. Mailed recent graduates (twice); 3. Created a WebCT environment for primary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 4. Created a WebCT environment for secondary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 5. Created related resource web pages; 6. Gained UNE Human Research Ethics approval; 7. Achieved participation by six additional academics covering different areas for online support (the research participants/facilitators); 8. Went ‘public’ on 17th January 2005, just before schools in NSW began; 9. Guided and facilitated online discussions responding to neophyte teachers’ needs at least weekly or more often if discussion activity demanded; 10. Developed a preliminary literature review to guide conceptualisation and action research of the project; and Education Alumni Support Project Progress Report 3 11. Conducted semi-regular EdASP team meetings to consider the direction and needs of the online discussion and collaborate on project development issues. The remainder of this progress report provides some detail, where appropriate, of the above outcomes together with an indication of early results.

In 2005 the UNE Education Alumni Support Project provided online support for UNEgraduand and later graduate beginning teachers as they commenced their careers.Beginning teachers may find full-time work as permanent or contract workers, or,part-time employment as casual, relief or support teachers. EdASP was not designedto take the place of any support structures presently in place for beginning teachersbut rather to supplement these.We were aware that many beginning teachers did not get the support that theyneeded. We were aware that UNE graduates were relatively more likely to go intomarginal settings such as rural and isolated schools and also into hard-to-staff schoolsperhaps necessitating extra support. We also knew that UNE internal and externalgraduates were very familiar with online work and specifically knew how to usediscussion fora based on WebCT software. Our main motivation to develop theproject was to see if beginning teachers could be supported online.

• A support service model for beginning • Providing: - Academic support - Professional support - Social interaction - Resource sharing • Available to all UNE 2004 teacher graduates. • Aimed at improving teacher retention in the first 5 yrs of service.