Mentoring and assessing student teachers on school placement: Integrating theory and practice
Hall, Kathy, Murphy, ReginaORCID: 0000-0002-1575-4249, Ní Áingléis, Bernadette and Rutherford, Vanessa
(2019)
Mentoring and assessing student teachers on school placement: Integrating theory and practice.
Education Research Perspectives, 46
.
pp. 77-107.
ISSN 1446-0017
This paper examines the extent to which School Placement (SP)
maximizes opportunities for integrating theory and practice in student
teachers’ professional learning. Part of a larger project (Hall et al, 2018)
the paper is based on a four-year longitudinal study, commissioned by the
Teaching Council of Ireland, of a new policy initiative in which teacher
educators are required to work in partnership with schools to equip student
teachers to teach critically and reflectively. The paper briefly summarizes
the current policy in Ireland against relevant international literature on SP.
The main part of the paper analyses evidence on mentoring and
assessment, and the respective roles adopted by Higher Education
Institution (HEI) tutors and school-based staff, highlighting some
alignments and tensions in these roles. It discusses the variability of
experience and the implications for maximising the fit between theory and
practice in the experience of the student teacher.