Challenge and support: the dynamics of student teachers’ professional learning in the field experience

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Abstract

The quality of student teachers’ learning experiences in the field is a major concern in initial teacher education. This paper reports a qualitative case study of seven preservice student teachers’ learning experiences in Hong Kong. It focuses on student teachers’ construction of teaching self in the three facets of the student teaching context, namely the action context, the socio-professional context and the supervisory context. The findings of the study point to four possibilities of professional learning—stasis, confirmation, retreat and growth. Productive student teaching experiences take place in a student teaching context with an appropriate mix of challenge and support which drives student teachers’ ongoing construction and reconstruction of teaching self. This enriched understanding of professional learning sheds light on the implications for the development of good student teaching placements in initial teacher education.

Introduction

Field experience has been regarded as the most favourably viewed component of initial teacher education in contributing to student teachers’ professional learning (Ben-Peretz, 1995). The quality of student teachers’ learning experiences in the field is a major concern in initial teacher education. Zeichner (1996) highlighted the necessity to have an “educative practicum”. Other scholars also argue for the importance of good student teaching placements (Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Burstein, 1992; Clark, 2002; LaBoskey & Richert, 2002; Potthoff & Alley, 1995) which foster productive student teaching experiences. Zeichner (2002) framed the quality question as “not so much a matter of finding good student teaching placement sites as it is of working to develop them” (p. 63). This paper approaches the question from the perspective of student teachers’ professional learning. Student teaching experiences are explored from the personal–professional conceptualization of professional learning. By examining the complexities and dynamics of student teachers’ learning experiences in the various facets of the student teaching context, the paper attempts to contribute to the ongoing discussion of developing good student teaching placements for productive student teaching experiences.

Section snippets

The construction of the teaching self

Preservice student teachers’ professional learning is broadly conceived as the interaction between the learner and the student teaching context. Tang (2002) regarded learning-to-teach as the construction of the teaching self in the professional artistry of teaching. This notion of professional learning is grounded on researchers’ inquiry of teacher professional development from the perspective of personal–professional development (Bullough, 1991; Bullough, Knowles, & Crow, 1991; Cook-Sather,

The research setting

The study is a qualitative case study of seven student teachers’ professional learning in a two-year sub-degree initial teacher education programme for secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. Field experience is run in the form of 5- and 8-week student teaching periods during the 2 years of study. In the action context, student teachers are assigned to teach two subjects at the junior secondary level. Field experience takes place in the context of the unidimensional form of institute–school

Facing challenge and support in the student teaching context

The findings of this study revealed that student teachers face different sorts of challenge and support in the action context, socio-professional context and supervisory context. Challenge opens gaps within the individual and support helps him/her close such gaps. It is through this process that the individual gradually constructs and reconstructs his/her teaching self in the midst of student teaching experiences.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper has argued that productive student teaching experiences take place in a student teaching context with an appropriate mix of challenge and support which drives student teachers’ ongoing movement from tension to equilibrium and from dissonance to resonance between the teaching self and core self. Though the empirical study reported in this paper was conducted with a limited sample of student teachers in a concurrent teacher education programme context in Hong Kong, the enriched

Acknowledgements

This article is one of the outcomes generated from the research project “Teachers’ Professional Learning: Student Teachers’ Learning to Teach in the Teaching Practice of an Initial Teacher Education Programme” funded by the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The author would like to express her heart-felt gratitude to Professor John Furlong of Oxford University for his invaluable advice on the study, as well as Dr. K.W. Chow of the Hong Kong Institute of Education for his suggestions on the

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