Attempting to Link Practice and Theory: Straddling Candidates' Two Worlds

• In Event: Collaboration on Research on Practicum Learning as Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices

Abstract

Perspectives
Three years ago I began teaching a seminar linked concurrently with a full semester of student teaching in my university’s elementary teacher education program. What an opportunity to try to create a “reflective practicum” (Schön, 1987) or a “realistic” approach to teacher education (Korthagen, 2001) by making candidates’ teaching experience the “content” of the seminar! That is, the focus was their developing questions, challenges, and so on explored through socio-constructive discussion of their practice in an attempt to help them re-imagine and enhance their practice as teachers in a continuing cycle of action and reflection during the semester. However, candidate’s response to my seminar was lukewarm—and seemed to have little or no influence on their practice. My self-study over the past two years has attempted to understand candidate’s reaction to my seminar and, in light of those findings, to adjust my pedagogy to better support their development as teachers during practicum.

Methods
Over the past two years, I have gathered a great deal of anecdotal data during the conducting of my seminar and in informal discussions with candidates. In addition, I have recruited a sub-set of volunteers to be interviewed about the development of their practice vis-à-vis my seminar during their practicum. When possible, I have also conducted observation visits and debriefing sessions of their teaching during the practicum. In essence, candidates became my research collaborators (Loughran, 2004).
The following questions drive my work:

1.How do candidates perceive/interpret my efforts as an instructor?

2.How can I re-structure and re-organize my course so that it enhances the development of candidates’ practice as teachers?

Data Sources and Results
In sum, candidates seem to perceive my seminar as “just another course” seen through their lens as “students,” thus misinterpreting many of my efforts. When asked directly in interviews about influences on the development of their teaching (viewed through a “professional” lens), none of the informants named my course as a factor. When observing the actual teaching of the informants, I rarely saw any evidence of the practices that had been discussed in class. In summary, candidates seemed to live in two separate worlds for on-campus course work and in-school practicum. My own action research attempts at enhancing their practice more directly indicate that candidates usually need help and support in making connections between course work and teaching practice, because they have difficulty doing it themselves.

Scholarly Significance
These results have prompted me to adjust my pedagogical approach in my course in two major ways. One is to be more transparent about the objectives, principles, and strategies that I am using in the course (since they are different from those which candidates have experienced in other course work). The other is to make the process of learning and development concrete in the pedagogical steps that we follow in the course. As a result, there has been some development in helping candidates see how my seminar can be an integral part of the development of their teaching practice.

Author

• David Dillon, McGill University