Building Resilience in Pre-Service Teachers

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 25, Issue 5, pages 717-723 (July 2009).

The paper explores the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience. This model puts its emphasis on relationships and pays attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their ‘student teaching’ contexts.
The paper draws on a number of studies including evaluations of two cohorts of graduate Bachelor of Education (primary) students and a self-study based on the work of two university academics. Jordan's (2006) model of relational resilience – with its characteristics of mutuality, empowerment and the development of courage – is used as a conceptual framework for illuminating some of the emerging insights from our work with the Learning Communities model.

Reference
Jordan, Judith V. (2006). Relational resilience in girls. In S. Goldstein, & R. Brooks, (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children. New York: Springer.