The Future of Education

The presentation and paper proposed here will present the findings of a completed study on innovations to the pre-service teacher education practicum undertaken by one Canadian school division in response to perceived shortcomings in the process.  Historically, pre-service teachers have been placed with mentor teachers in schools through a combination of requests made by the local post-secondary institution and acts of volunteerism on the part of teachers and schools.  While this process has, at its best, been efficient, it has disregarded the readiness of teacher mentors to lead pre-service teachers and has, at its worst, perpetuated the status quo in a profession that is currently undergoing rapid change.

One Canadian school division took up the issues around the current practices of pre-service teacher field education and developed a reflective tool designed to measure the readiness of teacher mentors to guide and lead pre-service teachers.  The reflective tool focused on a number of critical areas of teacher readiness including knowledge of curriculum, diversity of pedagogical techniques, attention to differentiated instruction, diversity of assessment practices and areas of passion for the practicing teacher. This has allowed university personnel to match pre-service teachers and practicing teachers on areas other than teaching specialization.  Through a full implementation cycle, several key findings emerged including the increased role of the school administrator in pre-service teacher education, the importance of strong relationships between school administrators and teachers in the placing of pre-service teachers and the importance of secondary teacher attributes such as expertise outside of curriculum content and pedagogical strategies.

The literature base on pre-service teacher practicums is extensive yet deals primarily with concerns within the experiential placement such as the relationship between mentor teachers and pre-service teachers (e.g., Franklin Torrez & Krebs, 2012).  The research described here differs in that it has examined the model itself and will address a new role for key stakeholders in ensuring excellence in pre-service teacher education.