| dc.description.abstract | Education is widely considered as the key to development. For increased rate of
development, teachers, who are facilitators of learning, should be recipients of high
quality professional training. However though, the education of teachers has been riddled
with innumerable problems; irrelevant and utopian curricula, reluctance in incorporating
new knowledge and technology, and poor handling of teaching practice.
This study endeavoured to find out the challenges student teachers faced during teaching
practice. To this end, it aimed at investigating secondary school's syllabus-related
problems; identifying the classroom related problems experienced by student teachers in
the teaching-learning situation, finding out any assessment-related problems that student
teachers encountered, determining the adequacy of the B.Ed. (Arts) program in equipping
potential teachers with relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes and finally suggesting
ways in which problems in teaching practice could be overcome.
The research questions were formulated in line with the above objectives. The literature
reviewed delved into the importance of training teachers, the content and quality of
teacher education curriculum; the problems in teacher education and finally how these
problems were manifested in teaching practice. The incisive review has helped ground
the study and has been utilised to ascertain the findings of the study.
The research design employed was ex-post facto. The sample of student teachers from
CEES was arrived at through multi-stage stratified sampling while teaching practice
assessors were purposively sampled. Two questionnaires were used to collect data- and
their validity was established as adequate. The average questionnaires return rate was
76.9%. Data from the questionnaires was analysed and interpreted using frequencies,
percentages and descriptive statistics.
In answering the research questions, it was established that the subject matter knowledge
gained in college was way above the requirements of secondary schools. Therefore, some student teachers had difficulties in utilising this knowledge to bring about learning.
Further, the college curriculum did not introduce student teachers to the secondary school
syllabus before hand and this presented problems when planning for what to teach. The
professional courses were deemed as very important but more of these were needed, like
more vigorous micro teaching, reinstatement of the educational evaluation and
measurement unit in the curriculum and more instruction in how and when to use
teaching aids.
The course units learnt prior to teaching practice were to equip student teachers with
knowledge and skills that would enable them perform various teaching-learning tasks.
Most students performed these tasks with aplomb. Two tasks however: ensuring
satisfactory discipline among learners and maintaining learners' interest and motivation,
presented some difficulties to quite a number of student teachers.
The student teachers experienced some difficulties in handling the secondary school
curriculum. Some were not aware of its contents and therefore they were unsure on how
to scheme or plan for it. Only few had difficulties in understanding the syllabus content
thus teaching of subject matter was done satisfactory by many as per assession
opinion.
Much criticism was leveled against the way supervision was conducted. Student teachers
complained of distracted and hyperactive learners during assessment. Some assessors
harassed and intimidated the student teachers while others gave conflicting suggestions
and recommendations. Supervision generally began when the school term was far gone
and this necessitated organising lessons at the behest of the supervisor- an inconvenience
that impacted negatively on the teaching-learning process.
Other problems that students encountered include lack of co-operation from regular
teachers and school administrations, overworking the student teacher by allocating him many lessons and lack of teaching-learning resources. Solutions to the problems
identified were incorporating secondary school curriculum into the college one
beginning supervision early in the term, lecturers to hold demonstration lessons for
students and college to forge a close relationship with schools. Finally a summary of data
analysis is provided.
In the last chapter is the summary of the study and among the conclusions made; the
training of teachers is said to be imperative while lack of partnership between schools and
training colleges need urgent rethinking and action. The study recommends that regular
teachers be involved in assessment and subject areas be assessed by subject specialists.
Areas for further research have been suggested in order to generate more information on
how to raise the quality of teaching practice and that of teacher education. | en |
