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Rethinking Teacher Education Practicum for Transformative and Regenerative University – Community Partnerships

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Transformative Education for Regeneration and Wellbeing

Part of the book series: Contemporary Systems Thinking ((CST))

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Abstract

One of the critical features of Teacher Education programmes across the globe is the incorporation of the practicum component to ensure that students obtain adequate classroom experience that provides opportunities for merging theory and practice. This chapter provides various critical perspectives from a range of countries based on the transformative and regenerative discourses on teacher professional standards in practice. I offer some selected cases through which I show the important role of acknowledging the context or situatedness of learning. The salient lessons emerging from the studies conducted are that the practicum can transform and regenerate the individual and collective change agencies and attitudes and practices of student teachers, mentor teachers and other school role players, whilst the actual implementation of the practicum strengthens university–school and community partnerships. While the chapter shows the importance of teacher professional standards as being pivotal to promoting quality we argue that without the focus on context they cannot on their own promote transformation and regenerative practices. In such cases, these standards may serve as constraining if they are not sufficiently broad in their conceptualisation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Standards can also have a developmental function as a tool for teachers’ own self-evaluation or be used as part of a system-wide strategy for professional learning (Kleinhenz & Ingvarson, 2007).

  2. 2.

    Generally, however, instead of showing an appreciation of teachers and providing resources for teachers’ professional development, teachers are blamed for poor quality and performance (Treagust et al., 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Pinkie L. Mabunda

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  1. Pinkie L. Mabunda
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Correspondence to Pinkie L. Mabunda .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria Central, Gauteng, South Africa

    Janet J. McIntyre-Mills

  2. Adjunct Associate Professor, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes

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Mabunda, P.L. (2022). Rethinking Teacher Education Practicum for Transformative and Regenerative University – Community Partnerships. In: McIntyre-Mills, J.J., Corcoran-Nantes, Y. (eds) Transformative Education for Regeneration and Wellbeing. Contemporary Systems Thinking. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3258-8_13

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