An experience in teacher training

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1959-60 fall semester, the author was assigned to direct a group of twenty-eight junior teachers (seniors in a Midwestern state college) during their practice teaching block in the field of secondary education. The block was made up of eight semester hours of theory courses and eight semester hours of observation and student teaching. The theory courses consisted of three hours in secondary school curriculum, three hours in educational psychology, and two hours of high school methods. Observation and practice teaching were done in the local junior and senior public high schools. During the last week of this teacher training period the students were asked to group themselves according to subject-matter interests, to discuss their teacher training experiences, and to express in writing, as individual groups, their evaluations of having taken all of their block work under the direction of a single individual. Later a class discussion of individual group findings was held to determine points of common agreement. Below are listed both the advantages and disadvantages of this type of scheduling as expressed by a majority of the students participating.