From Supervising Practica to Mentoring Professional Experience: Possibilities for education students

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities presented in examining taken for granted aspects of pre‐service teacher practicum practices, especially in terms of naming and positioning within teacher education, as they present at a regional university in Ballarat, Australia. The University of Ballarat has introduced a new P‐10 teacher education course which is about to enter its fourth year. The course has focused some of its attention on traditional aspects of paid supervisory and assessment roles of practising teachers in relation to student teachers. As a result, changes have been made, with reconfigured foci on the roles of both practising teachers and undergraduate students, as well as those of other staff who support the new programme. One such focus is on what Schön described as “indeterminate zones of practice,” and the result has been a research programme exploring those zones as part of mentorship in relation to mandated supervision and assessment requirements for graduate registration. Examination of data provided by transcripts of focus groups conducted with the students, mentors, community coordinators, and university teachers involved in the programmes suggests possibilities that may serve to inform efforts to meet a major part of the challenge to better prepare pre‐service teachers in finding innovative and relevant ways to improve practicum experience from the outset of undergraduate education. Those involved in the programme at the University of Ballarat have examined assumptions underlying participants' roles in relation to partnerships within communities of practice in relation to the roles of university and educators in the field, as well as critically examining concepts of mentoring that guide reflection on practice and scaffold student learning. Such considerations go beyond concerns of individual pre‐service teacher classroom performances, focusing on the generalizability of pre‐service teacher experience in relation to the profession as a whole.