Is there a dialogic teaching model in primary school classrooms? A qualitative study in the practicum

This study inquires into how students in primary education teaching degrees professionally view teaching-learning situations during their practicum period at schools. In particular, it examines how they professionally view aspects of the teaching models they observe in the classroom. Using a qualitative approach, we analyse the narratives written by the teachers-in-training in which they had to identify and describe teaching-learning situations related to the mathematics competence and the linguistic communication competence. To focus the gaze of the teachers-in-training on the teaching models, they were given several guiding questions. The results show that in their narratives, the students highlight relevant aspects of the teaching models in the situations they observed. However, the changes they proposed show that they focus on the mathematics or language content without taking changes in the aspects of the teaching models observed into account. Therefore, they do not observe changes aimed at including new strategies or resources which resemble the characteristics of a more collaborative model common to learning communities. The main conclusions suggest taking decisions in pre-service teacher training towards a more collaborative model based on participative, dialogic and active collaboration in the educational process.