An appraisal of university-school collaboration for student teachers’ ethical and moral grooming through practicum
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Date
2019
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Abstract
Universities, worldwide, have a practicum component in which prospective teachers are provided opportunity to practice what they learned theoretically in their coursework. This article presents the findings of an interpretive study on the extent of university-school collaboration for cultivating prospective teachers‟ ethical and moral competences inherent in the teaching profession. The research question that guided the inquiry was: To what extent does the university-school partnership foster the ethical and moral development of student teachers during practicum? The study involved one (1) University of Dodoma practicum coordinator; twenty (20) school academic administrators as well as sixty-seven (67) student teachers from nine (9) schools. The study adopted the multiple case study design and employed documentary review, observation of various practices, individual face to face conversations and focus group discussion methods of the qualitative research tradition in generating data. Data were analyzed through data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing and verification methods (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The study results established that while each side assumed some roles in enabling student teachers perform their practicum, the collaboration among them was relatively poor, as far as student teachers‟ ethical and moral grooming into the teaching profession was concerned. It also revealed that the attachment theory, which should come into play in relationship building processes, was not in place during the practicum. Further, both parties seemed to take for granted the fact that ethical and moral aspects were understood by student teachers, thus largely overlooking an assessment of how student teachers lived them. The study provides some suggestions on how university-school partnership could be strengthened so as to generate ethical and moral teachers for Tanzanian schools.
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Full-text article.
Keywords
University-school collaboration, Ethics, Morality, Teaching profession, Practicum, Attachment theory, Teacher education
Citation
Mngarah, D. M., & Gwajekera, F. D. (2019). An appraisal of university-school collaboration for student teachers’ ethical and moral grooming through practicum. In the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Policy Reforms for Industrial Economy in Africa (ICIEPRIEA), (pp 399-419). The University of Dodoma, Tanzania.