The use of cooperative learning in initial teacher education: A qualitative research

One criticism that crops up time and time again in the literature on initial teacher education is the poor articulation between theory and practice. In this paper, we will address the pedagogical approaches employed by teacher educators to overcome this shortcoming. Indeed, the way future teachers are taught in the course of their training significantly affects the way they will practice in the future. The concept of pedagogical isomorphism argues that education should be based on the same strategies that the trainee teacher will use in the future with their students. On this basis, we will describe a subject common to five master's courses at the University of Porto, which uses cooperative learning as the main mode of pedagogical work, and will analyse how students have perceived this experience through a qualitative methodology. The results revealed that most students considered group work organized in a cooperative way to be a positive experience and that the final classification obtained was fair considering the individual investment for the collective effort. Likewise, they saw the application of cooperative learning with students in primary and secondary education as viable. The results of this investigation allow us to sustain that initial teacher education should privilege pedagogical approaches that make visible the articulation between certain conceptual frameworks and their concrete application at the level of teaching as a strategy to bring theory closer to practice in teacher education.