Student Teachers’ Perceptions of their Paired Practicum Placement Experiences

Abstract

In this paper, we report our efforts to improve upon the difficulties traditionally experienced by preservice teachers while they are in their first field experience, such as resolving the gap between methodological approaches discussed in their “methods” class and the practicalities of the particular classroom setting they are teaching in (often referred to as the theory-practice gap). Drawing on our interviews with preservice teachers who taught in pairs, we report on the experience that such an environment for learning to teach provides to newcomers to the teaching profession. We theorize the experiences by drawing on two related theoretical frames that were developed to explain co-teaching and practical knowledge, respectively.