Helping Primary Student Teachers Understand Pupils' Learning: Exploring the student‐mentor interaction

The school-based task is firmly established in teacher education in the UK. In the study reported, primary student teachers carried out tasks exploring children's learning in science and were told to discuss the outcomes with their classteacher-mentors. The tasks and their university-based training followed a "constructivist" approach to learning science. The mentors' role in debriefing school-based tasks has been assumed to be one of "reflective practitioner" able to unpack issues of pedagogy with the student teacher. The research reported here shows that discussions often lacked depth or reflected a superficial or different understanding of constructivism by mentors that conflicted with the student teachers' aspirations. The implications of the research for future practice in teacher education and specifically for the training of mentors in science are discussed.