Reflective processes promoted in future teachers from the perspective of mentoring teachers during the professional practicum

Abstract

The professional practicum included in the curricula of Education Programs is seen as a formative space that has high relevance since it challenges future teachers to take on an active role in the classroom and to immerse themselves in the educational reality under the guidance of experience professionals: a mentor teacher designated by the educational center and a tutor teacher chosen by the university.  This practicum is widely recognized as a favorable scenario for the generation of reflective processes leading to the construction of pedagogical knowledge, however, it continues to be a subject of dispute in various

sectors that argue that it has not managed to impact the quality of teaching performance and that the reflective processes continue to be situated from a technical and instrumental level. In view of the relevance of the tutoring provided by the university in this training area, this article presents the results of a study focused on the meaning attributed by the practicum tutors to the contribution they make to the training of future teachers, in the promotion of reflective processes that contribute to the configuration of pedagogical knowledge. A qualitative methodology with a hermeneutic phenomenology approach was used. Two universities located in the Central South Zone of Chile were considered and six tutor teachers participated in a semi-structured interview in the year 2021, delving into the experiences obtained from the fulfilment of their role. For the analysis of the data, an

inductive procedure was used based on the summary of phenomenologically based meanings, supported by the Atlas.ti software, v. 9. The results show that the tutors highly value their formative contribution, emphasizing the transmission of knowledge of teaching acquired in the exercise of their profession. On the other hand, it is evident that the intentional reflective processes in tutoring are situated only in the emotional, experiential and technical domain, without a theoretical framework that acts as a reference for the critical analysis of pedagogical action and for the construction of pedagogical knowledge. The conclusion is that there is a need to move towards a model of practical training that favors critical reflection among students and that, in particular, aims to analyze the teaching practice, taking into consideration not only the practical and experiential knowledge that they acquire in the reality of school, but also its relationship with the theoretical knowledge transmitted in initial training and vice versa. To this end, the university needs to emphasize the role of practicum tutors and promote instances of support and constant updating on the different theoretical and practical dimensions of pedagogy, on educational policies and their effects on pedagogical practice, and on teacher reflection and strategies to promote it in their students. They must also possess personal qualities that enable them to provide the support required by the trainees, including empathy, flexibility and the ability to communicate in order to generate the support required by the trainees.

Mentoring cannot be based solely on the personal criteria and self-validations of the person performing this function but requires specific training and monitoring of the role they are fulfilling.