Search results for: Practicum

To identify the tasks student teachers perform during the practicum, a quantitative study was designed using a questionnaire completed by 248 students in their final year of teacher training. The results show that the student teachers did not have the chance to tackle the broad range of teaching tasks, limiting their view of teaching and reducing their training potential. It is necessary to clearly establish the obligations of institutions who collaborate in the practicum, defining participants’ roles and ensuring that this experience encourages appropriate learning.

In this article the authors present five trends that are impacting physical education teacher education (PETE). The trends are (a) practice-based teacher education that refines the knowledge base for teacher education, (b) core teaching practices that define the critical teaching practices for successful lifelong teaching, (c) pedagogies of practice that operationalize practice-based teacher education with core practices, (d) the reconnection of health education with physical education, and (e) the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model. They describe each trend, discuss related policy implications and provide examples of how to use these trends in PETE.

Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, this case study enquires into the methods employed by a Chinese teacher mentor of English as a Foreign Language to give feedback on practicum reports to poorly motivated student teachers. Data analysis showed that the mentor provided written comments mainly on empowered motivation with a focus on the reflection section. The findings also revealed that the mentor patterned her feedback with ‘praise-suggestion’ to shape student teachers’ identity emotionally and ethically.

This study sought to explore from the student teachers’ perspectives, the domains of knowledge that they gain from mentoring meetings during residential teaching practice (TP). A qualitative approach which employed open-ended questionnaires was used to generate data from 16 student teachers: seven men and nine women in two education districts. Students indicated that they had good relationships with their mentors, and held formal meetings weekly, fortnightly or monthly. They also reported gaining general pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, curriculum knowledge, knowledge of learners, and knowledge of educational contexts. Three students experienced ineffective mentoring, as such had limited benefits from mentoring processes and most likely from the practicum. Knowledge of what to teach, how to teach it as well as appropriate strategies for particular topics, the kinds of students and their specific settings often merge into what student teachers are expected to learn in teacher preparation inclusive of residential practicum. Comprehensive, prolonged, on-going mentor training workshops would expose mentors to the entire essence of mentoring and the centrality of formal mentor-mentee meetings not only for student teacher TP mentoring, but also for mentor growth and rejuvenation in their practice.