The supervised teaching practice as a central locus of the professionalization of teaching

Abstract

This article brings some reflections about teacher education and the teaching professionalization movement, focusing on supervised teaching practice. There are two study questions to discuss: 1) How supervised teaching practice has been manifested in teacher education?; 2) Does the Brazilian and international reforms of initial teacher education take professionalization as a presupposition, namely in what concerns supervised teaching practice? Initially, we present the concept and some aspects of the teaching professionalization's process. Then, a brief trajectory about how teacher education practice is conceived and understood is presented. Subsequently, the text explores some concrete examples of Brazil, France and Canada. In the analyses, it is possible to identify that, with the professionalization process, the universities and higher education institutions take on teacher education, structuring and organizing themselves in order to respond to the requirements of teacher education, assuming elements of a professional model.