I was pleased to attend the Third Annual Working Conference on Teacher Education in Canada. The theme for this year’s conference was Field Experiences in the Context of Reform of Canadian Teacher Education Programs. Tom Russell (Queen’s University) and I developed a paper entitled Does teacher education expect too much from field experience? in which we develop the argument that the practicum experience is, at best, a limited apprenticeship, that the problems associated with the practicum has deep historical roots, and that the structure of the practicum has inherent limitations.

We participated with colleagues from across the country in a focus group charged with thinking about the role of field experiences in teacher education programs. Our group discussed what is possible within current structures of education practice in universities and in schools, and how field experiences might best reflect both what we know about teacher education pedagogy and what we could be different about teacher education pedagogy.

The overall goal of these working conferences is to “develop a set of working documents that can be made available to the teacher education research community to support the scholarship and practice of teacher education in Canada.” Plans are underway to have the proceedings from the conference published in time for CSSE’s 2010 meeting in Montréal.

Sincere thank you to the other participants in the working conference for a productive series of discussions.