Beyond Inquiry-Oriented Teacher Education: Rethinking the Practicum. Monograph No. 17.

This paper highlights some emerging trends in rethinking the teacher education practicum in North America. The paper discusses several major obstacles to student teacher learning that persist even in many of the new inquiry-oriented practicums that focus on the development of reflective teaching practice. While teachers praise the value of the practicum in relation to the rest of the teacher education program, there has been criticism of the ways in which the practicum as it is typically conducted undermines student teacher learning. It is argued that the practicum experience in its present form needs restructuring, and that major changes are needed to fundamentally alter power and role relationships. A practicum experience that is a more educative experience should prepare prospective teachers to enter learning communities; to assume the full range of teachers' responsibilities; and to learn to teach everybody's children, not just children like themselves. The recent re-emergence of the professional development school movement in North America is described as an example of the beginning of a paradigm shift in clinical teacher education. (Contains 78 references.) (LL)