Opportunities to enact practice in campus courses: Taking a student perspective.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore similarities and differences in teacher candidates’ perceptions of their opportunities to enact practice in university courses in five teacher education programmes, located in Norway, Finland, USA, Cuba, and Chile. Paper and pencil surveys were distributed among candidates (N = 488) to measure their perception of their opportunities to enact practice in campus courses. Across programmes, the students report the least opportunity to examine transcripts of classroom talk or student discussions. They report the most opportunity to talk about their field placement and to plan for their teaching. Using Analysis of Variance, differences between the programmes were studied. Students in a programme which has explicitly made efforts to connect theory and practice over a period of 15 years do report more opportunities to enact practice. Students from a programme that has been constantly working on improvements but not a major redesign conceptualised around coherence, report experiencing fewer opportunities to enact practice. We conclude that teaching practices closely linked to pupils’ understanding might be in need of additional attention in teacher education programmes.