The activities of teaching are quite varied. The teacher activities involved in preparation, planning, and evaluation can also be related to expertise as it is discussed by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993). There are two kinds of activities - reflective action and routine action - about teaching job. The distinction between reflective action and routine action is one that respects teachers as professionals whose technical expertise goes beyond the application of pedagogical treatments. Understanding this distinction can help teachers to penetrate the superficial agreement that can come too quickly and easily when, in either preservice or inservice, teachers are asked about their use of reflective practice. One current writer, in fact, characterizes routine action and its reliance on thinking about methods in absence of context as “magical” because of the powers ascribed to their use (Bartolome, 1994). Clearly, teachers possess various areas of knowledge about pupils, the curriculum, teaching strategies, and educational aims which are drawn upon in the development of plans for teaching (Shulman, 1986; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). However, the knowledge that more directly informs practice has been considered to be more relevant and suitable for meeting the demands of teachers in the practical and real situations in the work. This knowledge which is generally referred to as practical knowledge includes such concepts as belief systems, implicit theories, schema, images, rules of practice, and scripts. Teachers in this study suggested that practical knowledge has very critical role in managing their moral and practical problems in the classroom. Learning to teach is a field of inquiry in research on teaching and teacher education. This important field has primarily focused on the process of teacher professional development from inside. In other words, it addresses how teachers develop their knowledge of how to teach. The main idea in this field of inquiry is to insist on the fact that most of teacher professional learning happens in the work while they teaching. Frequently in teacher education we seem to present student teachers with tasks which they in fact lack the appropriate skills and knowledge to complete, and which provide minimal learning opportunities, resulting in students' devaluing and losing interest in their professional preparation. For instance, in initial periods of classroom observa¬tion, student teachers often have difficulty cue¬ing in to classroom processes (Copeland, 1981; Calderhead, 1984, 1988). They lack the con¬cepts with which to perceive what is going on in classrooms. They lack knowledge about teachers' and children's intentions and behavior, knowledge about the curriculum and classroom working procedures, and need guid¬ance to learn to discriminate the noise and activity of classroom life. As a conclusion, from a deliberative or reflective perspective, the formal knowledge or other trainings in teacher education program, even though, provide a basic knowledge to start the work of teaching, they are not sufficient in meeting the demands of situational appreciation of classroom life. Practical knowledge, which teachers develop as a result of their experiences and reflection on them, inform and guide the more practical or changeable pedagogical events in the context of teaching. Such knowledge is a direct outcome of teachers’ reflection and professional deliberation. Accordingly, this qualitative study considers teacher practice from two points of view: those pedagogical moments which demands the application of reflection and need more deliberation and are primarily guided by practical knowledge; and those pedagogical events that are guided by more routines.

qualitative study / interview with Turku teacher education graduates (now teacher)

Graduates pointed out that teacher education program provided them a basic theoretical or formal knowledge. This formal knowledge was considered to be more useful in understanding the routine activities. In fact, more than 88.7% of teachers believed that teacher education has given them enough basic or theoretical knowledge. Graduates were not satisfied with teacher education programs because they argued that the programs and courses given failed to meet their practical demands in different and complex situations of the classroom. Therefore, they- more than 54.1%- suggested that teacher education departments must provide more practical-based courses and programs; and close supervision and observation by departments in order to fill gap between theory and practice. Graduates believed that they obtained their practical knowledge by deliberation or reflection through their professional experiences in the real situations of the work (52.1%). In developing of teachers’ theoretical and practical knowledge [routine and deliberate activities], respondents recommended that teacher education programs must pay attentions more to practical knowledge such as communication skills and cooperation with colleagues e.g. special educators, psychologists and social workers (29.4%), and parents (30.7%); student characteristics (e.g. learning differences between students, to meet the special children, and different age groups in the same class) and the environmental context of learning (35.8%); comprehensive education about school and classroom management (17.9%); subject matter content (14.4%); designing lesson plan to help students (8.2%); to enhance motivation to learn (7.4%); and both theoretical and practical knowledge such as knowledge of new technology or ICT (13.2%); The pupil's evaluation methods and aptitude tests (8.9%); teachers’ rights, duties or work protection (8.6%); and New teaching methods (7.8%).