Personal practical knowledge: An essential element in teacher education

As narrative inquirers and teacher educators, we value personal practical knowledge in the professional development of teachers and see creating a platform for teachers to share and reflect upon their experiences an essential element in teacher education. There is, however, little chance that out student teachers can explore deeply into their experience gained. We thus launched a project during the teaching practice to create chances for our student teachers to reflect upon, share, and discuss their experience in a casual but purposeful way. The participants in our project were 20 student teachers who had enrolled in a one-year full-time Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme. Eight weekly meetings were organized during their teaching practice at schools. Each time two or three participants shared stories of critical incidents which took place during their teaching practice that week. In each sharing session, the participants were prompted to reflect upon their stories and relate them to their personal experience while other participants were encouraged to respond to these stories. Written feedback and evaluation from the participants were collected at the end of the project. In this paper, we investigate the potential benefits brought to participants from the experience sharing sessions. We examine the process and outcomes of this project and discuss the implications on improving our teacher education programme. With the learning we gained from this project, we hope to inform our work in the formal teacher education programme.