Out-of-Field Teaching Across Teaching Disciplines and Contexts

Associate Professor Linda Hobbs has conducted a range of educational projects, evaluations and other initiatives. She works closely with researchers and academics, school teachers, pre-service teachers, the Victorian Government Department of Education, and key stakeholders with interests in education, both nationally and internationally. Hobbs leads a strategic program of research exploring the complexity of issues surrounding out-of-field teaching, investigating teachers' experiences, policy settings, principal attitudes and school culture structures, and evaluating programs specifically targeting needs of out-of-field teachers. She contributes to leadership of a world-wide research agenda by initiating and co-convening the Out-of-field-Teaching Across Specialisations (OOF-TAS) Collective, an international group focusing on research and practice relating to out-of-field teaching. Hobbs has delivered professional development programs for primary and secondary science and STEM teachers. She has a history of leading or contributing to evaluations of government, public and other types of education initiatives.Professor Raphaela Porsch is a full professor of education at the University of Magdeburg, Germany. She has conducted a number of empirical studies in the field of education. Her research interests include teacher education, teaching out-of-field/teaching across specializations, academic emotions, transition after primary school, school dropout, and (early) foreign language teaching. Porsch has worked in national large-scale assessment as well as in projects on school development. She has initiated a network of researchers from various disciplines who are concerned with out-of-field teaching in the German speaking countries, and is regularly contributing nationally and internationally with publications and presentations to extend knowledge about the specific situation in Europe. She is the editor of several anthologies on educational topics such as transition after primary school and teaching out-of-field.