Collaborative Teacher Education: Forging Tangible Connections between Field and Classroom

From Section:
Instruction in Teacher Training
Published:
Aug. 01, 2014

Source: Teaching Education, Volume 25, Issue 3, 2014, pages 239-260.

This article describes a collaboration between the authors, a university course instructor for an introductory Learning Sciences course in a university-based teacher education program, and a site coordinator for its paired practicum experience.
The collaboration was drawn on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.

The collaborators found that their weekly conversations focused on supporting novice teacher learning had the potential to
(1) lead to more strategic support of pre-service teachers, and
(2) lend greater insights into the nature of the larger teacher education activity system in which they both worked.
They consider the ways the seemingly simple addition of weekly conversations across sites of teacher learning can create spaces that collapse traditional theory/practice divides in teacher education.


Updated: Dec. 07, 2019
Keywords:
Cooperating teachers | Preservice teachers | Teacher student relationship | Theory practice relationship