2011 Volume 20 Pages 135-145
The objective of this study was to explore optimal post-practicum guidance and the roles of educators in a kindergarten teacher training program in order to effectively reinforce their practicum learning, which is a requirement of the program. To encourage students to reflect on their experiences, asking them to describe various episodes during their practicum is widely implemented as a post-practicum guidance activity. Previous studies into on-the-job training for childcare professionals argue that group discussion about the reports of childcare professionals helps in promoting self reflection. This argument is applicable to professionals actually working, but group discussions based on episodes during their practicum may facilitate reflection in students, too. In addition, episodes written by students are effective in promoting active discussions from their own perspective.
The author has developed a post-practicum guidance course that uses student episodes as teaching materials. This study focuses on the processes involved in student discussions based on one student-written episode. In the first class meeting, the author distributed description sheets to students, who were asked to write comments after reading the episode report and discussing it together. A review of the comments after the class revealed a wide range of student experiences and insights about their practicum. In order to share these comments among the students, the author prepared handouts that included the comments and distributed them to the students in the second class meeting, where they reviewed the different comments and obtained new insights. Thus, the role of the educator is to develop materials based on student comments and to provide opportunities for students to recognize and understand diverse insights. Observation of this process over three class meetings led to the conclusion that the class facilitated students in learning from one another, thereby reinforcing their practicum learning.
