Preschool student Teachers' practicum: Dialogue and partnership about the third space

• Main Author: Mörk, Svava Björg
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2024
• Subjects: Akureyri; Reykjavík; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tuuom/article/view/3920

In Iceland, preschool teacher education takes five years — three years of undergraduate study (B.Ed.) and two years of graduate study (M.Ed.) — and the study is both academic and on-site learning or field practice, wherein mentoring is an important part of the education and students’ professional development and application of theory. Almost all of the students in preschool teacher education in Iceland work in preschools during their studies and have extensive experience upon commencing. Many municipalities support them by, for example, paying their salaries during field practice, even though their practice is at preschools where they do not currently work, and also while the students participate in on-site sessions at university. On the national scale, Iceland’s Ministry of Education and Culture also recently instituted partially paid internship for students earning their master’s in education, such that students are recruited in half-time positions that award 30 ECTS credits. Universities in both Akureyri and Reykjavík currently offer such paid field practice. The study presented here focused on traditional field practice among education students at preschools other than where they work and how they collaborate with university teachers and mentors. The aim of the study was to obtain the stakeholders’ experiences of their collaborative practices and to acquire information as to their attitudes toward field practice. The theoretical background of the paper is rooted in partnership in teacher education, focusing on Smith’s (2016) and Halvorsen’s (2014) definition of true partnership. Qualitative interviews were conducted with local politicians serving on educational councils, preschool teachers specializing in mentoring programs, and university teachers with authority or influence over preschool education and field practice in some way. Thematic Analysis was used to code the data and to find themes. The data was coded in ATLAS.ti 8, from which codes were chosen and themes identified. The findings demonstrated ...