Establishing partnerships between teacher education and schools has become more and more frequent and in some contexts these partnerships have also developed. It is common that teacher students carry out practice periods at schools in order to gain knowledge of the skills and routines that are required in teaching situations in classrooms. But these partnerships can also include mutual exchange of ideas and practical applications of the theoretical studies at university.
In Sweden, the national guidelines stipulate that teacher education should be carried out in collaboration together with local partner schools. In line with this requirement, the program of the education of primary school teachers at Uppsala university now places the writing of the master thesis at the partner school. The students are requested to gather ideas and formulate research questions for their theses during their school practice period and then work further with these ideas and research questions with the supervisor of the master thesis. The purpose is to have topics in theses closely related to teachers’ everyday didactic dilemmas and challenges. The results of the pilot study indicate the new challenges and advantages with this approach.
The presentation will include evaluations by academic supervisors and staff at local municipalities and a recording of a student’s perspective. The Swedish project will then be followed by a discussion whether this way of working could be considered at other European universities.