Addressing the wicked problem of feedback during the teaching practicum

Abstract

COVID-19 affected the teaching practicum placement of approximately 650 fourth year BEd Foundation Phase student teachers at University N in April and July 2020. The teaching practicum is seen as a purposeful, organised, supervised, mentored and assessed educational activity required for the completion of a teacher education programme. During the teaching practicum, the provision of feedback from teacher educators as well as mentor teachers forms an integral part of the learning process and enriches student teachers’ learning experiences. However, student dissatisfaction with feedback during the teaching practicum presents a “wicked” problem that requires a strategic partnership approach between the university and partnership schools as well as between the triad partners of teacher educator, mentor teacher and student teacher. The purpose of this exploratory case study is to provide an overview of student teachers’ perspectives on the innovative use of a social annotation platform to ensure greater collaboration on the “wicked” problem of feedback by all partners during the “learning from practice” component of the teaching practicum. The results indicated that student teachers, teacher educators as well as mentor teachers were actively engaged “on the same page” with constructive dialogic feedback that assisted student teachers to make crucial adjustments to the core practice of explaining/modelling content.