Abstract:

This presentation explores student teachers’ perceptions of enablers or hinderers influencing the quality of their learning during teaching experience (practicum). Whilst it is generally understood that teaching experience is an essential and valuable component of teacher education, key aspects such as its purposes, the institutional need for assessment thereof and the impact of the school environment do not necessarily merge seamlessly towards a unified optimal learning experience. A varied distribution of power amongst the participants may further contribute to the tension between a process (learning) and a product (assessment) approach. Several scholars have also cautioned that teaching experiences, as part of the preparation of prospective teachers, may have negative as well as positive consequences on the quality of learning experienced by the students (Hodgson, 1976; Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Zeichner, 1985; Russell, 1993; Peercy & Tryan, 2016).

A recent South African study conducted at a university of technology investigated the perceptions of a group of 60 final year B Ed Foundation Phase (Gr R – 3; age group 6 to 9) student teachers about the enablers and hinderers influencing their learning from their teaching experience. Over the course of their four year degree, these experiences took place in different school contexts across the Foundation Phase grades for a period of 33 weeks. The case study showed a negative response to the reliability of marks allocated for teaching by university evaluators. The influence of the mentor teacher on their learning scored significantly higher than that of the university evaluator. Furthermore, the student teachers perceived the diverse learning contexts to be a major influence on the mark allocated by the university evaluator as well as on the quality of their own learning.

We argue that teaching experience needs to be reframed with the role of the university evaluator or supervisor firmly embedded within a social constructivist paradigm allowing for a more equal distribution of agency amongst the participants. In an attempt to understand the factors that either enable or hinder the student learning process during practicum, it became evident that student teachers experience a tension between university expectations and learning through practice. Consideration of the enablers and hinderers channeled through alternative pathways such as mindful reflective practices involving all participants, can contribute towards a finer tuned balance of power and the foregrounding of learning through experience.

Keywords:

Teacher education, practicum, learning through experience, enablers, hinderers, tensions.