Practical Experience in Teacher Education: issues Charting a European Agenda

This paper provides an overview and analysis of the role of practical experience within pre‐service and in‐service programmes of teacher education. The increasing importance of practical experience is noted and the variety of forms of partnership between Universities and schools are reviewed. The paper argues (i) for a stronger theoretical articulation of the relationship between the practicum and overall course design, (ii) for greater co‐operation between European countries in developing studies around this common element in all courses and (in) for intellectual links with newly emerging and closely related theories of learning and curriculum.