Abstract:

There is a strong consensus amongst both pre-service teachers and teacher educators that the field experiences is one of the most important aspects of learning to teach. Although there is a strong field of literature around pre-service teachers’ learning in field experiences, there has been limited studies that have attempted to investigate whether, how, and in what ways pre-service teachers may or may not experience shifts in their learning when they move to a second school placement as part of their professional learning in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes requiring pre-service teachers to teach in two school placements. Existing studies on learning to teach have tended to focus on their learning in the beginning or end of field experiences. Knowing how pre-service teachers engage with demands, the kinds of demands, and how they re-orient their learning trajectories are important if teacher educators are to support their pre-service teachers. Framed within a cultural-historical perspective of learning, the study followed four pre-service teachers across two school placements during a one year ITE course. In this ITE course, pre-service teachers are required to teach in at least two contrasting schools during their training year to acquire a breadth and variety of experience for the award of teaching licensure. Specifically, the second school placement is is considered a stage in which pre-service teachers are expected to increasingly demonstrate their competencies as they leave their first school placement and seek to establish themselves in their second school placement. Data was collected through the use of interviews, lesson observations and post-lesson interviews. The analysis followed their learning trajectories across the two school placements to capture and to build an analytic account of the pre-service teachers’ experiences. This paper offers insights into the black box of field experiences and highlights the complexity of learning to teach in two school placements. The study found that all four of the pre-service teachers’ learning trajectories were far from linear and the transition to the second school placement worked differently for each of them, carrying implications towards their learning and development as beginning teachers. Implications for practice and design of the ITE course include giving thought to the ways in which their transitions to different schools are organised and the kinds of support that are offered from the schools and university in order to support their learning in schools.

Keywords:

Initial teacher education, pre-service teachers, teacher candidates, practicum, field experiences, school placements, learning to teach.