Section archive - Preservice Teachers

This article draws on Deborah Britzman's work over the past two decades and, in particular, her claim that teacher becoming is a 'struggle for voice'. The author focuses on the three dimensions of 'voice' - biography, emotion and institutional structures.

The goal of this study was to identify events in the field experiences of Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) preservice teachers that were perceived by the preservice teachers as influencing their thinking about intervention practices.The assumption was that preservice teachers would write and talk about those experiences that most affected them during their field experience. The data reveal that preservice teachers provided the most information in the strand of child-focused practices, since the focus of their fieldwork related to interventions with individual children. Findings from this study have three implications for the preparation of ECSE teachers.

This study was conducted following the return of pre-service teachers from the teaching practice. The study also examines the attitudes of the pre-service teachers towards development education, the extent to which they included development education issues in their teaching while on teaching practice and their attitudes towards including such issues in the future. Results indicate that while pre-service teachers were positive towards integrating development education into post-primary schools and indicated their hope to include such issues in the future, they face a number of barriers that prevent them from doing so.

This paper examines the way student teachers make sense of conceptual tools when writing cases. The findings show that transforming practical experiences into theoretical reflection is not a straightforward matter. To be able to elaborate on the task it is crucial to make meaning of the tools. It is demonstrated that the institutional practices, rules and expectations must be explicit for the students.