Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Learning to Teach in a Predominantly School-Based Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Sixty-two preservice teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire in order to examine their perceptions of how they felt that the school-based experiences within a predominantly school-based, government-imposed physical educator education program helped them learn to teach. The preservice teachers placed much emphasis on the accumulation of experiences and “coming to terms” with the realities of teaching, serviced by the university element of the course. Although some higher education institution–school partnerships were helping preservice teachers to look beyond the immediate context, the quality of the collaborative venture was being affected by the variability in mentoring processes, school contexts, and the personal histories of both mentors and preservice teachers. It is suggested that the continual extension of school-based experiences is not only privileging the practical over theory and emphasizing doing more than thinking, but is replacing complexity with simplicity.