The impact of the apprenticeship of observation on preservice teachers’ perceptions of teaching

Abstract

First year pre-service teachers’ images of and beliefs about teaching are formed over years of prior educational experiences and these images exert a powerful impact on their developing professional identity. These perceptions are embedded in the apprenticeship of observation that serves as a lens through which they often measure their own ability or inability regarding their knowledge and skills. Acknowledging this impact of the apprenticeship of observation might have on first year pre-service teachers not only poses a great challenge to the students themselves, but also constitutes a critical pedagogical challenge for tertiary institutions. These deeply rooted ways of thinking about teaching and what teachers do should be acknowledged, disrupted and challenged and pre-service teachers should be supported in effort to create their own local knowledge and lived experience that can constitute their dominant discourses about teaching and being a full time teacher.