Chapter 10: Professional Preparation Standards For The Practicum

Learning to be a teacher is a complex and very personal matter that involves transformation from student teacher to teacher or, in other words, from “students of teaching” to “teachers of students” (Ganser, 2002). Most commonly, student teachers study their profession in higher education institutions. Here, they develop formal knowledge generated through research and scholarship, and undertake supervised periods of professional field education. These supervised periods are variously called clinical experience, professional experience, field placements, practice teaching or practicum. This chapter will use the term practicum, and conceptualizes practicum holistically. In this conceptualization, practicum involves student-teacher immersion in a school or early learning community, and a process of learning. It also involves the integration of a student teacher’s knowledge, feelings, experience and thinking with the reality of professional practice. Finally, practicum leads to the creation of a professional identity (conceptualization based upon research by Sinclair, Trim-ingham-Jack, & Pollnitz, 2006).