“I Didn’t Realize They Knew So Much”: What Preservice Teachers Learn Through Interacting in Classrooms

• In Event: Transformative Growth, Learning, and Development of Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Research on what pre-service teachers learn through authentic experiences in classrooms is overwhelmingly dominated by reports on what they learn from listening to and interacting with supervising teachers. However, there is a dearth of research specifically describing what they learn through their interactions with students in the classrooms. This paper draws on a three year empirical study conducted at a rural Australian university which investigated how learning teaching practice is not only informed but formed through interrogating the theory-practice nexus in enactment. A key finding was that by focusing critically on listening to and interacting with students within the intersubjective spaces of classrooms rather than on the act of teaching, pre-service teachers shifted their perspectives on what teaching practice entails.

Authors

• Christine Edwards-Groves, Charles Sturt University

• Noella Maree Mackenzie, Charles Sturt University