Effective/ineffective in pedagogical practicum – mentors’ considerations on the initial training of pre-school teachers

Abstract

Many studies in the existing specialized literature refer to the gap between theory and practice in the initial training of teachers. My paper is focused on providing answers to the following questions: What types of observations do pedagogical practicum mentors make? What would be effective and what would be ineffective in the activities led by pre-service teachers? The answers appear in this work after taking into account the observations provided by mentors in evaluation papers, inside pedagogical practicum, for 50 pre-school pre-service teachers (students of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Iasi, Romania).