Preservice Teachers’ Practical Knowledge and Their Sources

Abstract

Becoming a teacher requires preservice teachers (PSTs) to interpret experiences from different perspectives because of the reversal role from being a student to being a teacher. For teacher education programs to be most effective, they need to understand the knowledge that PSTs hold and develop in order to optimise professional learning. With an exploratory mixed-method design, this study’s overall aim was to investigate the content of practical knowledge and perceived sources among a group (n = 97) of Swedish physical education preservice teachers (PSTs). Their practical knowledge, operationalized through the concept of didactical milestone, were expressed in five different themes: the curriculum (what), the teacher (who), instructions (how), students (whom) and the classroom (where). Furthermore, the results showed that PSTs’ practical knowledge was influenced by situations before entering and during teacher education as well as from media, and to some extent, the PSTs’ work experiences. The results also showed that the type of source related to the different themes of practical knowledge. With the help of practical knowledge as construed in this study, teacher educators can assess PSTs’ capacity to reflect on teaching, as well as adjust their own instructional focus.

Keywords

• didactical milestones
• physical education
• teacher education
• Sweden
• mixed-method design

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