Student teachers’ online sharing of challenging incidents in practice placement

Abstract

The present study asks what challenges student teachers meet in today’s school and how they present, respond to, and reflect on these challenges in an online discussion forum. The study explores these questions by analysing cases written by student teachers in their last practice placement in a one-year post-graduate teacher education programme for secondary school in Norway. The findings show that the cases centre around students and classroom management, and that student teachers take on a role as either participant or observer. The responses are a mix of advice, descriptions of similar experiences, and support. They tend to normalise the situations rather than explore them. Learning from challenging incidents does not happen by itself. Timing is crucial, and so is space for reframing, reflection, and for considering alternative perspectives. This means that there is a need for distance to the situation and a process of interaction with various perspectives.