Teaching Practicum: Teacher-educators’ and Student-teachers’ Voices from the Field

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess the complexity of teaching practicum and its effectiveness from both the perspectives of teacher-educators and student-teachers in one of the public sector university in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Semi-structured interviews were taken from four teacher-educators and 25 student-teachers. The interview-data were analyzed thematically. Feedback from school mentors and hosting-department supervisor was not available to student-teachers as expected. Student-teachers’ excitement to have school experiences of engaging with children was the area of motivation for student-teachers to learn. Teacher-educators felt challenging to provide quality feedback to student teachers due to heavy work load, high number of students as well as the uninterested student-teachers in their own learning. We recommend introducing a reward system for the school mentors as well as transport facility for hosting-department supervisors to access easily to the student-teachers to address their expectations in a timely and effective manner. Keywords: Teacher Education; Student-teachers; Practicum; Prospective teachers; Perspectives