Reconstructing teacher education: a praxeological approach to pre-service teacher education

Abstract

Praxeological-learning has emerged as a potential theoretical framework that has considerable potential to support and improve teacher education preparation programs. This article presents a study with participative research on early childhood with four groups of students. In response to new twenty-first century Teaching Standards and enhanced field experiences, pre-service teacher (PST) education candidates at a regional campus in the Midwest engaged in academic praxeological-learning, which offered the opportunity to increase content mastery and reinforce pedagogical skills through authentic experiences. Results indicate that students participating in this type of learning believed their experiences contributed positively to pedagogical skill development, self-actualisation, and social and moral development. The impact on our teacher education program and the relevance of these findings for training the next generation of educators is discussed.

Keywords:

• praxeology
• early education
• teacher education
• teacher preparation
• pre-service
• early years

Notes

1. A ‘Not Applicable’ option was also available for the importance ratings. To facilitate data analysis and to provide a more conservative test, if ‘not applicable’ was selected, the data point was coded as ‘not important’.