Abstract:

The success of the teaching practicum is a key indicator of the success and quality of an initial teacher education programme. There are specific elements that play a significant role in determining the quality of the practicum experience, namely the nature of relationships among the triad of student teacher, mentor teacher and teacher educator, opportunities for supportive reflection, formative assessment and feedback (Aspden, 2014). The teaching practicum is a social and relational act (Haigh & Ell, 2014). It may be argued that for a given period of time, a set of participants come together to form a temporary community (Goodnough et al., 2009), in which the student teacher works closely with others to negotiate a shared understanding and shared repertoire of practice. Caires, Almeida and Vieira (2012) suggest that attention has shifted in research from considering the individual roles and responsibilities of the triad members, to greater consideration of the affective-relational elements of the student teacher-mentor teacher and/or teacher educator relationships. Wenger (2000) has argued that although individuals learn through participation in a community of practice, it is more important the generation of newer or deeper levels of knowledge through the sum of the group activity. Processes aimed at improving collaboration between universities and schools, and specifically between the triad are few and far between. This lack of collaboration, the emphasis placed on and prevalent use of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic and comments made by the triad triggered the consideration of a social annotation platform, Perusall, to enhance collaboration between schools and universities for the benefit of the practicum triad. In this study, the Perusall platform will be utilised in an innovative way to allow student teachers, mentor teachers as well as the teacher educators to engage in a learning cycle focused on core teaching practices (e.g., explaining/modelling content) by utilising the platform not only for reading of texts, related to core teaching practices, but also for video analysis. The purpose of the presentation will be to report on the extent to which the usage of the Perusall platform enhances the teaching practicum triad’s dialogic engagement on teaching practices as well as the student teachers’ reflective practices.

Keywords:

Core practices, reading literacy, mixed reality simulations, student teachers.