Developing intuition in marginal trainees on teaching practice

Abstract

The current approach to teacher professionalism is that articulated and conscious explication of our actions is all – by examining, reflecting, reframing, considering and analysing our teaching decisions we will be able to both understand our own actions and that of our learners and consequently improve on them. But such a conception of professionalism has its problems because when we look at how experts work we can see that expertise in whatever skill or profession depends to a large extent on fluid, largely unconscious performance where it is often not easy to either recall why we did what we did, or what kind of reasons informed our decisions but we know that it “felt right” and that “it worked”. Such implicit ways of behaviour are essential in any complex decision making situation because otherwise of course we would be unable to move forward with the ease and fluency that are required of a professional