An Alternative Practicum Curriculum: exploring roles and relationships

This paper describes a curriculum change in teacher education. The challenges and successes of working with student teachers within an alternative structure, in different relationships, over an extended period of time, are reported and analysed. This paper also explores the way the participants’ roles changed to facilitate reflective practice and students’ ability to link theory to practice within the practicum component of the course. Our data were drawn from the interactive journals kept by the students throughout the twenty‐week programme; focus‐group evaluation meetings with co‐operating teachers, student teachers and university teachers; descriptive and analytic accounts of tutorial sessions; and planning and programme documents. From the data we identified the key themes of collaboration, empowerment, relationships and mentoring. By highlighting the highs and lows of the school‐based‐semester (SBS) experience for each of the stakeholder groups, we explored the roles and relationships of the participants.