Learning to Teach on a Construction Site: Applying Kolb's Model to the Student Teaching Practicum

Abstract

This study examines the pre-professional development of two pre-service teachers during a non-traditional student teaching placement on a housing construction site. The findings are analyzed from the perspective of Kolb’s (1984) model and examined against the Teaching Effectiveness Framework by Friesen (2009) to outline a powerful opportunity for field-based teacher education. Initial findings point to an enriched pre-service teaching environment that provided the opportunity to create rich inquiry based interdisciplinary lessons related to the building project, the potential to build pre-service teacher conversational and workplace skills through interaction with community stakeholders and the opportunity to develop competencies in peer feedback and collaboration.