Using Feedback from Stakeholders to Strengthen the Student Teacher Experience during Field Experience

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Using a Critical Inquiry Approach to Enhance Student Teachers’ Capacity for Reflection

Abstract

This paper reports a study into key stakeholders’ perceptions of a teacher education program in the context of field experience. Located in an urban Australian university, the study draws on data collected from students, university supervisors and teachers to provide insight into three inter-related issues. First, it projects an understanding of how different stakeholders perceive and enact their roles and responsibilities during field experience. Second, it contributes an understanding about factors that enhance and impede students’ capacity to integrate theory and practice and, third, it shows the fundamental role that effective university-school partnerships play in enabling student engagement in teacher education. The paper concludes by proposing ways in which the study’s findings can be used to improve teacher education.

Author

• Jeanne Maree Allen, University of Tasmania