Abstract:
Enhancing school –University pre-service teacher professional experience with online wellbeing masterclasses during COVID-19Over the past ten years, the topics of character, resilience and wellbeing in education have drawn the attention of school leaders, teachers and policymakers. However, there is a gap between the developments in schools and how initial teacher education at universities have responded. This paper reports on the making of a series of pilot online wellbeing masterclasses created during the first wave of COVID-19 for second-year bachelor of teaching pre-service teachers at an Australian University. The Carpe Diem process was adopted for the development of the overall masterclasses. Experts were interviewed on the topics of character, resilience and wellbeing education from the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. Of the 153 students enrolled in the bachelor of teaching, 93 students (60%) voluntarily enrolled in the masterclasses. This paper provides a practical explanation of the creation process employed to integrate these approaches within the offering for bachelor of teaching students to improve the overall experience for their professional practice.