E-Based Practicum: A COVID-19 Model Worthy of Retention for Student-Teachers in Guyana

Practicum is critical to the teacher education programme at the University of Guyana. Practicum offers opportunities and experiences for skills development and simulations to enable student-teachers to acquire and demonstrate effective pedagogical practices and innovations. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic reconfigured practicum to e-based modes, capitalising on mock teaching and video-stimulated reviews. A descriptive survey allowed 241 student-teachers to visualise and categorise their experiences, challenges and potential opportunities from this new learning mode. The elements of e-based practicum that make it worthy of retention include its capacity for autonomous off-campus learning and experimentation, partnership and equitable relations, performance pacing and gauging, archiving of pedagogical growth, technology literacy skills development, and reflective and self-correcting practice. The experiences of these student-teachers could help (re)shape the practicum delivery for future cohorts and be informative for reviewing and upgrading practicum courses that rely solely on physical classroom interactions, observations, and supervision.