Early childhood practicum students' professional growth in the USA: areas of confidence and concern

Wee, Su-Jeong; Weber, Elsa K.; Park, Soyeon

doi:10.1080/09669760.2014.911644

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Students relate practicum with the development of professional competences and fundamental awareness of the professional performance of the early childhood teacher, stressing the skills of planning, managing documents to support the daily work of the early childhood teacher, managing the group of children and time, acting on the moment, problematizing practice and reflect in and on practice, giving relevance to the reflection role. Thus, practicum is revealed as a space and time of professional (re) configuration, socialization and professional development [16], [35], [36].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The countless roles and responsibilities of early childhood educators, namely: to promote children's development, respond to the different needs and interests of children, design and implement an integrated curriculum, organize the educational environment, observe, plan and evaluate, working collaboratively with families and communities, negotiating unexpected and challenging situations [36] require these professionals to have a broad and diverse set of knowledge. In this context, it is fundamental that during the training period the student become aware of the different dimensions that constitute the professionalism of an early childhood teacher and acquire a set of professional knowledge and skills that will allow him/her to respond to what will later be required.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quality of experiential learning that occurs at practicum is influenced by several factors, those more related with the subjects (students) in training, and those more relate to the formative contexts (schools) [29]. Supervision is widely pointed out in the literature as one of the main critical components at this stage of the student's formative process [36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Practicum for Early Childhood Teacher Education: The Perspectives of Student Teachers

Craveiro¹,

Silva²,

Friães³

et al. 2018

ICERI2018 Proceedings

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In the last decade with the reforms required by the Bologna process the role of practicum in preservice teacher education has been emphasized, making it a central component of European curricula. It has been observed over the years that this dimension has been mainly approached in terms of organization and supervision processes and cannot be found many studies that focus effectively on what it represents for the actors and its contributions for professional development. This study aims to understand the practicum at pre-service early childhood teacher education. The objectives of the study are: (i) to identify the role of the practicum for professional learning and development of early childhood teachers; (ii) to know the difficulties and critical factors experienced by student teachers at practicum. The methodology used is the mix-method research and data was collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The participants are early childhood teachers that have graduated in the last three years from different Portuguese Higher Education Institutions. The qualitative data was analyzed through content analyze and descriptive statistic was used to analyze the quantitative data. To ensure confidentiality no information is disclosed without participant's consent and the interviews were transcribed. The results confirm the centrality of practicum for early childhood teachers' professional development. The construction of professional knowledge emerges as one of the main contributions of practicum. Another contribution is the student teachers' awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses in terms of theoretical and practical knowledge. The data also show that the relationships with the educational context and with the different practicum actors (supervisors, cooperating teachers) has a supportive role for student teachers' success. The study points out several difficulties experienced by the student teachers, namely: lack of time to respond to all the academic tasks; the interconnection theory practice; the development of reflection and research skills.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Practicum for Early Childhood Teacher Education: The Perspectives of Student Teachers

Craveiro¹,

Silva²,

Friães³

et al. 2018

ICERI2018 Proceedings

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“…In an extensive review of nearly 50 years of literature, pre-service teachers consistently identified components of lesson planning (Cherubini, 2009) as a concern. Unsurprisingly, planning is a greater concern for pre-service teachers in the early stages than for those in more advanced stages of their preparation programs (Cho, 2017;Wee, Weber, & Park, 2014).…”

Section: Pre-service Teachers and Lesson Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to Lesson Plan: A Mentor’s Impact on Pre-service Teachers

Johnson¹,

Schaffer²,

Nix³

et al. 2020

The Nebraska Educator

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Lesson planning is considered an essential skill of teachers. As pre-service teachers first encounter the fundamental principles of planning for instruction, the complexity of planning to support the rigorous learning goals of content, curriculum, and individual student needs could be daunting. The mixed methods study explored how mentoring influenced early-program preservice teachers' self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) and progression through stages of concerns (Fuller, 1969) in relation to lesson planning. Participants, secondary early-program pre-service teachers enrolled in a Midwestern teacher preparation program, included a target group who received mentoring and a comparison group who did not. Using constant comparison techniques guided by the theoretical frameworks, researchers gathered and analyzed qualitative target group data from participant reflections and mentor conference memos. Researchers collected and analyzed quantitative data using Likert-type survey questions also linked to the frameworks of this study. Integrated findings from the qualitative and quantitative data revealed that when a mentor provided metacognitive modeling, addressed anxiety, recognized incremental victories, and offered focused feedback, pre-service teachers' concerns were addressed and their efficacy increased related to lesson planning.

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“…In addition to attending classes at the university or college, they are required to attend teaching practicum in schools and to teach. The practicum has various goals, including exposing the pre-service teachers to real-world teaching situations and allowing them to apply the pedagogical knowledge they have acquired at the college or university (Cohen et al, 2013), enabling them to develop a teacher identity (Tran & Huynh, 2017) and increasing their confidence (Mukeredzi, 2016;Wee et al, 2014). However, this experience exposes the pre-service teachers to various new challenges, teaching-related stress and uncertainties and in some cases even leads to burnout (Kokkinos & Stavropoulos, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socits - Predictor For Pre-Service Efl Teachers’ Choices To Pursue Teaching Career

Levy¹

2022

European Proceedings of Educational Sciences

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Sense of Coherence (SOC), an inner resource that exists within people, is positively associated with better quality of life and satisfaction. It is related to how well people manage to cope with the stressful situations they face making them more comprehensible, meaningful and manageable. Among college and university students SOC is positively associated with the capability to cope with the academic challenges posed upon them. Furthermore, pre-service teachers show that Sense of Coherence in Teaching Situations (SOCITS) has been found to be a coping strategy that helps them perceive stressful and challenging teaching situations as less perplexing. However, what is less clear in the teacher education literature to date, is to what extent high levels of SOCITS can influence career engagement among pre-service teachers and whether it can be a predictor of pre-service teachers' choices to pursue a career in teaching upon graduating from their teaching training program. The current paper contributes to the understanding of SOC and SOCITS among pre-service teachers. The findings in this paper may advance the knowledge in the field of pre-service education and have significant implications as to the development of teacher training programs.

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Early childhood practicum students' professional growth in the USA: areas of confidence and concern

Cited by 13 publications

References 19 publications

The Role of Practicum for Early Childhood Teacher Education: The Perspectives of Student Teachers

The Role of Practicum for Early Childhood Teacher Education: The Perspectives of Student Teachers

Learning to Lesson Plan: A Mentor’s Impact on Pre-service Teachers

Socits - Predictor For Pre-Service Efl Teachers’ Choices To Pursue Teaching Career

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