Understanding the mentoring practices used by cooperating teachers to guide and support early childhood (EC) pre-service teachers’ learning-to-teach during internship in a disadvantaged environment was the main purpose of this qualitative case study. Three EC pre-service teachers and their cooperating teachers were purposively selected from whom data was collected through interviews, documents, classroom observations, and post conferences. Collected data were analyzed and identified cooperating teachers’ appropriate mentoring behaviors and practices as themes which evolved as a mentoring framework during internship. The findings presented in this study implicate the development of a mentoring framework that will guide the development of cooperating teachers’ capability for effective mentoring...

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The purpose of this study was to explore mentoring learning-to-teach experiences of early childhood  pre-service  teachers  in  disadvantaged  environment.  This  case  study was used   to  collect  qualitative  data  from three  early childhood pre-service  teachers, three   cooperating  teachers,  a  university supervisor  and  a  school principal who  were involved  in  this study. Triangulation using  multiple data sources for the themes and member participant  checking were used to validate the case study. Data from interview transcripts,  field  notes  of   classroom  observations,  pre-service  teachers’  reflective journals, and focused group discussion  were subjected to content and thematic analyses to answer the research questions. This study has  yielded these findings: (1) learning-to- teach  requires  content  knowledge,  understanding  of   pupils  and  how  they  learn, strategies for managing behaviors and o.....

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Literature has identified varied internship models yet preparing early childhood pre-service teachers (ECPSTs) to confront the realities and challenges of learning-to-teach during internship remain scarcely examined. The qualitative single-case study sought to uncover ways to optimize ECPSTs? latent knowledge and skills given a limited time for internship. Findings revealed that the three ECPSTs learned to draw upon insights by reflecting on their daily teaching and learning experiences, relying on their own personal characteristics, forming a conference group among themselves and action-taking to address problems of practice during their internship. The processes of belonging, being and becoming implicate the re-imagination of internship programs to consider learning-to-teach as iterative, unpredictable and unstructured process.  ..

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