A Study On Student Practicum And Its Influencing Factors In The Context Of Curriculum Reform In School Education

Practicum is a vital component in pre-service teacher education. This study examines the ways that student teachers learn to teach during the practicum, and analyzes factors that influence their learning. These factors include: (1) the triangular relations among student teachers, their university supervisors, and supervising teachers in schools; (2) the content and level of student teacher reflection; and (3) Pedagogical Content Knowledge of student teachers. The structure of the thesis is as follows: Chapter One introduces the background, research questions, aims and value of the thesis.Chapter Two reviews local and international literature that pertain to following topics: teaching practice; teacher learning; teacher reflection; teacher knowledge; student teaching.Chapter Three illustrates the research design of the thesis, which yields a qualitative research approach that employs a case study strategy; moreover, matters concerning research units, data collection and analysis, research limitations, and research schedule are also discussed.Chapter Four presents two stories of student teaching in the context of curriculum reform in school education. It depicts how student teachers learn to teach and deal with the changing context.Chapter Five examines the complex relations among student teachers, their university supervisors, and supervising schools teachers by a framework of conceptual approaches of practicum as proposed by Zeichner.Chapter Six looks into the content and level of reflection of student teachers, and discusses the factors that influence student teachers to reflect as well as strategies for teaching them to reflect.Chapter Seven analyzes the lack of attention given to Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK) among student teachers and the kinds of factors that influence the scarcity of PCK; it makes suggestions for the reform of teaching method courses to develop PCK.The conclusion provides a brief review of the thesis, restates the research findings, and offers suggestions for improvement and future research.