Abstract
In this paper, I show how Mead’s theory of emergence can prove explanatory in how the theory-practice gap is co-created and sustained in front-end loading university programs. Taking teacher education as an exemplar, I argue that trainee teachers encounter different and oft-times conflicting environmental, social and cultural conditions in the two ‘fields of interaction’ of their training program, namely, the on-campus pre-service program and the in-school experience. The argument draws on interview and focus group data collected via a study of first-year graduate teachers of an Australian pre-service teacher education program. My conclusions are two-fold. First, I argue that role taking and self-regulated behaviour within the two environmental fields of interaction in front-end loading programs inhibit the trainee professional from exercising the power of agency to implement theory learned at university in practice in the workplace. Second, I conclude that Mead’s theory of emergence proves effective in predicting the obduracy of the gap between theory and practice in front-end programs.
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Notes
Pseudonyms for participants are used throughout the paper.
The Eight Learning Management Questions (Lynch and Smith 2006) are a set of sequential design based questions that form part of the BLM Learning Design. The expectation is that all BLM students master and implement the BLM Learning Design during their training and in-field experience.
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Allen, J.M. How front-end loading contributes to creating and sustaining the theory-practice gap in higher education programs. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 12, 289–299 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-010-9141-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-010-9141-x