New trends in pre-service teacher pedagogical practice: classes à la carte project

Abstract

Worldwide university curricula for teacher education offer few opportunities for pre-service teachers to experience and practice scientific, pedagogical, and relational skills in real-life pedagogical situations and contexts. As pedagogical practice is seen as an important component for the harmonious adaptation of personal traits and styles to the real pedagogical demands of the classroom, it is urgent to provide pre-service teachers with as many of these opportunities as possible before entering the profession. Since gaining formal access to official pedagogical contexts can be a complex endeavour, it seems relevant to study new ways of establishing such collaborations between universities and schools that can provide mutually beneficial immersions of pre-service teachers in schools’ pedagogical projects. This article focuses on a specific project underway in some Portuguese public schools called Classes à la Carte, in which school students choose and attend classes/activities from a menu that incorporates pedagogical activities proposed by schoolteachers. Students of education courses are invited by the project coordinator to present proposals to integrate such menu and implement them in the school. The openness and curricular flexibility associated with the project, along with the singularity of the pedagogical experience it entails to pre-service teachers indicate a fertile atmosphere to the occurrence of the desired opportunities. Preliminary results from an ongoing qualitative study with 12 pre-service teachers that planned and performed Classes à la Carte through three of its editions denote the scientific and pedagogical enthusiasm and creativity of future teachers, which must, at all costs, be stimulated.