Learning to teach: Pre-service teachers' experience of learning study

Abstract

Since Learning Study has been regarded as an effective approach for teacher professional development, it was introduced as a core module in the training programmes for over 400 year two pre-service teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education in 2007, This paper first illustrates the arrangements of the Learning Study module, including the module schedule, module content, mode of assessment and student profiles. It then draws on the data of an evaluation study of the module conduced in year 2007-08 to illustrate the experience of these pre-service teachers in Learning Study, focusing on how they learned to teach via participating in Learning Study and what difficulty they had encountered in the process. The paper also reviews the effectiveness of the module and puts forward suggestions for further improvement. It finally concludes with implications on applying Learning Study as a model of initial teacher education.