A learning ”practice triangle”

Abstract

Background: The Norwegian framework for teacher education serves to both provide a pathway for professional qualification and lay a foundation for educators to meet present and future challenges. Complementing work with teacher educators in the university classroom, a key focus of the framework is pre-service teaching practice, which aims to increase student teachers' knowledge, skills, and competencies via a triangular partnership among student teachers and teacher educators both in pre-service teaching practice and on campus. The aim of the study was to interview student teachers to investigate how their pre-service teaching practice can be better organized to meet these goals. Methods: Our data is based on six semistructured interviews and one focus group with six student teachers situated at the Oslo and Akershus University College and analyzed using inductive content analysis. The study was approved at the Norwegian Data Directorate. Results: The analysis revealed five categories that influence student teachers` pedagogical insight through pre-service teaching practice. These five categories were: Reflection plenaries on regular basis, the understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, teacher educators as mentors, and different competence and asymmetry in the mentoring process. Conclusions: To optimize pedagogical insight through pre-service teaching practice, our results emphasize the need to ensure quality throughout pre-service teacher training and clear guidelines for teacher educators. In particular, our sample of student teachers sought greater supervision and focus from teacher educators on the relationship between theory and practice, via use of reflection plenaries, and found most helpful pedagogical context that emphasized equal partnership with their teacher educators.