Professional Scaffolding of Student-teachers during Practicum in Tanzania: Roles, Skills, and Challenges

Abstract

This study investigated on student teachers’ professional experiences during teaching practicum in Tanzania. In precedence, three objectives were pursued to identify roles of school based teachers, the skills acquired by student teachers, and challenges encountered by student teachers during practicum. The study employed qualitative design integrating documentary review and interviews for data collection. The content analysis was used to analyze reflection reports and interviews from 35 student teachers and 12 school based teachers respectively. The study was conducted during teaching practice period session of the eight (8) weeks from July 13th to September 4th, 2015. The analysis showed that both school managers and mentor teachers played a critical role to engage student teachers in various essential roles that help them to acquire various skills that transform them into professional teachers including handling of learners’ behavior in schools; leadership and supervision process; school-community partnership, strategizing the teaching and learning process; and on other school contexts. In addition, the study has identified several challenges including, accommodation; time wastage, large class size; inadequate infrastructures; contextual conflicts; declining student teachers activities; inadequate and late financial remittance; and inadequate and late classroom assessments and feedback. Notwithstanding, student teachers had benefited from the teaching practice which supports and confirms the usefulness of practicum in the preparation process of teachers, however, the latter will only be realized if all conditional factors are available. Moreover, the study provides recommendations and established several areas of further investigations.