Educational Alternatives, Volume 12, 2014

Abstract: This article highlights the Norwegian approach to professional training understood as integrated theoretical and practical learning. The article presents an action-oriented partnership between the teacher training institution and the practice field intended to cultivate mutual understanding and cooperation. This is considered a long-term process, and the present article only features one of the phases of this process. We find that the practical training involves somewhat different perspectives on the objective of integrated theoretical and practical learning, and that a dialogue with the practice field on desired objectives is necessary to ensure that the teacher training is comprehensively improved. Some of the practice teachers assume the dual role of being a teacher for both the teaching students and their own pupils, whereas other teachers focus on what works for the pupils, transferring their own insights rather than laying the grounds for an integrated theoretical and practical learning.