[Rika]

Hi, thanks for starting and engaging in this forum about pre-service education.  I think there are somethings about pre-service education that is similar to most other humanities type HE programs, and others that are unique because the vocation for which the pre-service teachers are preparing is this interesting mix of ‘future yet present’.  In other words, their own students will be engaging with technologies in ways that even the youngest of pre-service teachers have not experienced.

so, I think a key ingredient in this type of HE learning is the capacity to engage critical thinking skills as something of an art form.  The amount of information available and the ways in which it can be accessed and changed is uncontrollable.  Teachers are often the type of people who lean towards being controllers.  So, in some ways, the plethora of knowledge available is particularly disconcerting to this type of professional.  So, therefore we see schools developing platforms and rules that attempt to control student access and engagement.

i think it is important to help pre-service teachers to become more flexible in their approach to teaching and learning and become more intuitive in their choice of technologies.  Healthier questions  for us as teacher educators to pose are those that challenge the pre-service teacher’s capacity for wisdom rather than knowledge and skills.  How do my children learn best? What do they already know and can I work to augment that? How can I engage the children’s own passions to further their learning?   Are there things they don’t get but ‘should’?  Does it really matter if they don’t finish that piece?  Does the prepared curriculum make sense? Do the children understand the nuances in what they are reading or listening to? … And so on …

[Author]

Posts