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An Advisory Practicum for Practicum Advisors: A follow-up study

For 15 years, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has offered a credit course for classroom teachers who wish to learn about and prepare for their work as practicum advisors. The course is voluntary and, in many respects, similar to courses offered to advisors at other North American institutions. Until recently, the underlying theme permeating all aspects of the course was “student-teacher teaching”. In 1993, the course was revised and a new theme adopted: “practicum-advisor advising”. While both emphases are important in any discussion of student teachers and practicum advisors, we believe at UBC that the latter is likely to have a more enduring effect on the quality of the practicum experience for both groups. Acting upon this belief, I introduced the concept of an “advisory practicum” as the major component of the course. In 1997, an analysis of 45 teachers' advisory practicum accounts, collected between 1993 and 1996, demonstrated the power of this innovation for problematizing issues related to practicum advising. The study outlined in this paper was undertaken to determine if the influences initially reported by the advisors in their practicum accounts have endured over time. The results indicate a generally favourable outcome with the reciprocal professional development benefits associated with the advisor/student relationship being the most prominent.