Memorable encounters: Learning narratives from preservice teachers' practicum

Practicum is an important part of the teacher education program and an important part of becoming a teacher. We believe that to understand the conditions and processes of practicum, special attention needs to be focussed on the preservice teachers' own accounts of their practicum learning experiences. In this chapter, we are exploring practicum learning from the preservice teacher perspective as described 'in their own voice' and 'in their own worlds'. We have conducted a parallel study with Australian, Chinese and Swedish preservice teachers in an effort to identify the distinguishing features of each context. Through gaining a greater awareness of the particularities of the lived experience of the preservice teachers and the mediating preconditions that frame the practicum in these three countries, we can contribute to our common knowledge about teacher education in general and the practicum in particular. Besides, we will argue, becoming a teacher and being a teacher have a certain universalism which makes it possible for us to recognise through comparison of sayings, doings and relatings, what makes a particular practice architecture work and where we might envisage changes. The preservice teachers' narratives expose strongly personal and individual learning encounters with themes of enactment, revelation and transformation.