EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Education and Culture
Lifelong Learning: policies and programme
School education; "Comenius"
Brussels,
EAC.B.2/P S D(2009)
Education and Training 2010
Cluster ‘Teachers and Trainers’
PLA, Vilnius, Lithuania
4 – 8 October 2009
‘Practical classroom training within Initial Teacher Education’
Preparation
Theme
1
The Cluster ‘Teachers and Trainers’ in March agreed that this PLA should focus on
practical classroom training within Initial Teacher Education (ITE) for lower and
upper secondary teachers.
2
It will seek to answer the question ‘what are the policy conditions for the
successful implementation of classroom practice (CP) in ITE?
Homework
3
In preparing this PLA, we realised that many different issues arise when discussing
classroom practice in ITE.
4
Before taking part in the PLA, please take some time, discussing with colleagues if
possible, to reflect upon the situation in your country on the following policy issues.
Commission européenne, B-1049 Bruxelles / Europese Commissie, B-1049 Brussel - Belgium. Telephone: (32-2) 299 11 11.
Office: MADO 14/32. Telephone: direct line (32-2) 292967434.
1. For classroom practice to be useful, the people involved need to have a shared
understanding about what constitutes ‘good practice’ in teaching.
How is this shared understanding arrived at in your country?
How / where is it described?
(Hint: is there a list of observable and measurable teaching competences?
Are there defined teaching standards?
Have the learning outcomes for the classroom practice been clearly defined?)
2. How does your country’s approach to classroom practice fit into its pedagogy
of Teacher Education?
3. How does classroom practice connect with the other phases of the continuum
of lifelong Teacher Education?
4. How is a ‘successful’ classroom practice defined?
5. How are student teachers’ classroom practices assessed?
Against which criteria are they assessed?
By whom are they assessed? (Teacher Education Institution? school? …)
Why these people?
Who devised these criteria?
6. In the context of encouraging reflective practice, what role is given to student
teachers’ self-evaluation?
7. How are students prepared for classroom practice, and supported during it?
8. How are mentors educated or trained?
9. How are different roles and responsibilities divided between Teacher
Education Institution, school, etc.? How is smooth cooperation ensured?
10. How are students teachers helped to integrate ‘theory’ and ‘practise’ and to
implement what they’ve integrated?
11. How is classroom practice structured?:
how many hours?
how many ECTS?
how many separate of blocks of CP?
how much time in total is devoted to CP throughout the TE course?
12. How is quality assured?
How does the Teacher Education Institution gather feedback to improve its
classroom practices?
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