School Based Professional Support To Student Teachers In Preparation Of Teacher Professional Documents

Teaching practice is an important part of teacher training. Preparation of teacher professional documents is one among the major activities student teachers do during the teaching practice. This paper discusses the preparation of scheme of work and lesson plan as teacher professional documents and the professional support provided by experienced teachers in the teaching practice centers. The study was done in the southern highland of Tanzania during the 2015/2016 teaching practice period of the University of Dar es Salaam. Document analysis and interviews were done and qualitative data was collected. Content analysis was done and some descriptive statistics were used to describe the findings. Finds show that student teachers’ scheme of work and lesson plan had some variation based on the perception they had from the university and that little is learnt from the teaching practice stations. Some of the entries in the documents were wrongly constructed and in most cases differed among student teachers working in the same teaching practice station. It was also found out that little collaboration and assistance was offered from regular school teachers in the preparation of the documents. The paper suggests among others that schools should prepare their experienced teachers to actively be involved in the mentorship process. Key words:teaching practice, teacher professional documents, lesson plan, scheme of work. Policy