Definition of teaching practice - What it is, Meaning and Concept

The notion of teaching practice does not have a single definition nor can it be explained in a few words.The concept is very broad and refers to the social activity that a teacher or teacher exercises when giving class .

Teaching practice, therefore, is influenced by multiple factors: from the teacher's own academic training to the singularities of the school in which works, going through the need to respect a mandatory program that is regulated by the State and the various responses and reactions of its students.

It can be said that the teaching practice is determined by the social, historical and institutional context .Its development and its evolution are daily, since the teaching practice is renewed and It is reproduced with each day of class.

What a teacher does should develop different simultaneous activities as part of their professional practice and have to provide spontaneous solutions to unpredictable problems.

In another sense, it is possible to affirm that the teaching practice consists of the pedagogical function (teaching) and the appropriation that each teacher makes of his trade (being formed continuously, update their knowledge, assume certain ethical commitments, etc.) Both issues, in turn, are influenced by the social scenario (the school, the city, the country).

Teaching practice, in short, is made up of academic training, adopted bibliography, socialization skills, pedagogical talent, experience and the external environment.All these factors are combined with different way to configure different types of teaching practices according to the teacher, which will also cause different results.

Throughout many decades the idea was sustained that to learn a practice, it was enough to imitate those who had experience in it; However, thanks to a greater understanding of the inconveniences that may take place during the exercise of a practice and the advances in the theoretical field, a broader and more flexible training structure emerged, observing the history of teaching, we can distinguish the following three approaches to teaching practice:

* traditional : in the same way as the technocratic (which is governed or dominated by technology), the traditional approach defends a system in which future teachers they are trained at a theoretical level for a few years and, finally, they venture to put their knowledge into practice in front of a real class, under the supervision of an expert .In other words, consider that there is only one way of carrying out the work of a teacher, who should not be affected by his instinct or by spontaneous decisions ;

* constructivist : before certain unexpected situations, teachers must be able to act according to their own criteria, using their knowledge to make the most beneficial decisions for their students, but without forgetting that they are people, beings with needs and individual backgrounds, and not of variables in an exercise whose solution has already been found by a supervisor.This approach incorporates the practical rationality to open the doors to a more open and flexible vision of reality;

* constructivist-critic : Since the end of the 20th century, a series of investigations in the field of teaching focused on the importance of applying the criteria before acting This approach represents a true break with the traditional one, since it invites teachers not only to think before going into practice, but to reflect after having done so to evaluate themselves and give themselves the possibility of improving, of developing new and more adequate work techniques .A British pedagogue called Lawrence Stenhouse assured that teachers must become authentic researchers within the classroom, to build and shape their own knowledge at every step.