College of Education is a representative institution for teacher education where fosters future educators. Thus, the purpose of this institution must be to equip such pre-service teachers with professionalism and prepare them to go out into the actual...
College of Education is a representative institution for teacher education where fosters future educators. Thus, the purpose of this institution must be to equip such pre-service teachers with professionalism and prepare them to go out into the actual field of education. Among the many areas of the professionalism, the most crucial element is the professionalism of instruction. It is because instruction, that is, the way an instructor teaches students is the most fundamental job of instructors. Especially, the teachers who ought to teach about their subjects must have profound understanding into their major area of study, for it is directly related to the professionalism of the teachers. In social studies, whose aim is to address various concepts of the subject and foster ideal democratic citizens, the importance of professional instruction cannot be understated.
However, many pre-service teachers ready to graduate from their academics or first year teachers who just arrived at the actual field of instruction do not infrequently address difficulties in teaching their students. Such difficulties often arise from the gap between the theoretical aspects and the attempts in incorporating such theories in the actual instruction. Student teaching is one of the curricular programs provided to such pre-service teachers in College of Education to overcome the gap between theory and practice and the absence of field experience. In this aspect, researches that study the effects of student teaching on fostering professional instruction ability of pre-service teachers are very important. In social studies, however, researches that investigated into the effectiveness of student teaching programs and verified what elements actually change the development of pre-service teachers’ professionalism have been small in amount to satisfy such questions.
On this purpose, this study presented research problems that ask, first, ‘does student teaching have effects on the awareness of instructional professionalism of pre-service teachers in social studies?’ and, second, ‘what are the variables of student teaching programs that effect on the awareness of pre-service teachers in social studies?’ in this paper. To prove these questions, the following hypotheses have been established :
Research hypothesis 1. Experience of student teaching will have positive effect on instructional professionalism of pre-service teachers in social studies.
Research hypothesis 2. Five experiential aspects of student teaching will have effects on the development of instructional professionalism of pre-service teachers in social studies.
In an attempt to verify the hypotheses, question investigation has surveyed 101 social studies pre-service teachers who were about to participate into student teaching programs. The study utilized t-test in order to prove the first research hypothesis and multiple regression analysis to prove the second research hypothesis basing on the results of the survey. In addition, the study included the interviews on six pre-service teachers to complement to the analysis of research results.
The results of the research showed the following outcomes. First, in accordance with the first hypothesis, the experiences of student teaching had positive effects on the four subordinate areas of instructional professionalism: basic knowledge and understanding, ability of lesson plans, ability of lesson practice, and effects on improving professionalism. Second, in accordance with the second hypothesis, the relationship with the cooperating teachers and with the students, among the five experiential aspects of student teaching, had significant effects on the development of instructional professionalism. However, the actual number of lessons, the number of lesson observations, and the number of making documents of lesson plans did not show significant effects. Thus, it is possible to make the following arguments based on the research results.
First, the practical teachers’ education programs like student teaching basing on the field experience have meaningful effects on the improvement instructional professionalism of the pre-service teachers. The experiences of teaching real students in the field provided great help for the pre-service teachers for making future lesson plans and carrying them on in the class. This suggests that more experiential and practical teachers’ education programs will be needed instead of the programs that rather focus on theoretical aspects of education.
Second, teachers’ training for the guidance instructors in the field or previous education for the pre-service teachers before field experience need to be strengthened. The research found out that the relationships that pre-service teachers form with the guidance instructors in the field have strong influence on the development of their instructional professionalism. Especially, because the attitude, skill, and feedback of the guidance instructors are crucial, it is necessary to improve their quality of their guidance through teachers’ training. They can also consider of providing various activities to the pre-service teachers that they can actively participate into, beyond the lesson programs that allow them to meet and understand the learners in the class.
Third, it is desired to provide an overall examination and improvement over the operations of field experiences provided to the social studies teachers. The four weeks of short period of field experience and formality of the operation of the programs had limited effects on the development of instructional professionalism of the teachers. Also, due to the concentrated subject system in the field and the organization of the curriculums, social studies pre-service teachers were given classes that did not even match their study of major. Therefore, it is necessary to provide improvements on the curricular systems given for the pre-service teachers in social studies in order to bring firmer stability of field experience.