Introduction

The professionalization and practical training of the students from the master’s degree in Teacher Education for Secondary Education and Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language Teaching, in all its specialties, culminates with the Practicum course. The Practicum offers students the possibility of getting to know the professional environment in an experiential way. It also allows them to observe and analyze a real and particular professional scenario, reflect on this scenario and intervene directly.

The course consists of 14 ECTS credits, which are equivalent to 350 hours of student dedication. This total of hours is divided into 250 hours of in-person activity in an educational institution and 100 hours of distance work in the virtual classroom.

The in-person practical training hours are carried out at secondary education and vocational training centers and language schools which are certified and authorized as practical training centers by the Department of Education of the Government of Catalonia. The university is responsible for assigning the practice placement based on the offer of educational institutions, prioritizing the educational institutions that participate in the Reference Center Innovation Program.

The practical training is tutored and evaluated by a person from the teaching team of the educational institution who is an expert in the relevant field, recognized as a mentor for the practical training, and a UOC professor. These two teachers guide and supervise the work of the students throughout the three phases in which the Practicum is structured: 1) observation phase, 2) accompanied intervention phase and 3) independent intervention phase.

The person from the University’s teaching team monitors the students’ practical training in coordination with the educational institution’s mentor and ensures that theory and practice, action and reflection, all complement each other to create a learning based on experience (Kolb, 1984), which helps the students to undertake a path of constructing their own professional identity, from inquiry into the ethical implications of their praxis, research in action, problem solving and also the transformation and improvement of professional practice throughout life.

To accompany the students in achieving these objectives, the course is structured around five axes whose aim is to guide reflexive practice throughout the three phases of the Practicum. These axes are the following: 1) self-knowledge and teaching professional identity, 2) ethics as a reflexive activity, 3) the exercise of the reflexive habitus, 4) mediated reflexive practice and 5) reflexive writing. In addition, a special emphasis is placed on the development and assessment of the communicative competence and the digital competence of future teachers.

Learning outcomes

In the Practicum, the skills worked on throughout the master’s are applied, in an integrated way, and it is the moment when the acquisition of these skills is consolidated through the experience of authentic learning experiences in educational institutions, and also through participation in these experiences.

For the specializations of Educational Guidance, Training and Career Guidance, Mathematics, Technology, English Language and Catalan and Spanish Literature, the following learning outcomes are established, which are specified in each specialty according to the corresponding scope of knowledge:

1. Practice the planning, implementation and assessment of educational proposals for the courses corresponding to the specialization, while considering the potential of technologies.
2. Demonstrate a good command of the oral language and the written language in teaching practice.
3. Develop social strategies to promote a climate that favors inclusion and facilitates learning and coexistence.
4. Use positive processes in the practical training that promotes the development of self-regulation to establish proposals for improving the teaching and learning process.
5. For vocational training, define the business typology corresponding to the productive sectors, and characterize the most common organizational systems in companies.
6. With respect to orientation, intervene in the psychopedagogical evaluation and advice to other education professionals, students and families.
7. Recognize, understand and analyze the causes and effects of gender-based inequalities.
8. Understand and act according to the ethical principles that guide professional practice.
9. Relate in a respectful, assertive manner and without manifestations contrary to the values and dignity of people.

In the case of the Educational Guidance specialty, the training received also allows the following:

1. Design proposals for intervention in processes of educational guidance and psychopedagogical advice, taking into account the potential of technologies.
2. Analyze the context of the practices based on the theoretical frameworks developed in the master’s courses.
3. Act in all phases of an intervention plan in the field of educational guidance and psychopedagogical advice.
4. Evaluate the intervention carried out on the basis of theoretical knowledge and the evidence obtained from the practical training itself, through guided reflexive practice and the identification of areas of improvement.

Contents

To carry out the activities of the Practicum, the student must take into account what has been worked on or is being worked on in the different projects and in the different courses of the master’s. Therefore, must keep in mind the following aspects:

• The construction of the teaching professional identity.
• The dimensions of the teaching profession.
• The roles and tasks that make up the teaching profession at the secondary education stage.
• The observation and analysis of educational practices and the operation of a secondary educational institutions.
• Attention to the specific needs of educational support.
• The planning, design, application and evaluation of didactic interventions relating to the specialty studied.
• Reflection, innovation and research on the educational practice itself and on the dynamics of the educational institution where the practical training is carried out.
• The communicative competence, both oral and written, of the teaching staff in the classroom and in relations with the educational community.
• The identification and management of critical incidents and ethical dilemmas.