Teacher education, and particularly practicum, are key for the construction of professional knowledge especially in the context of the global teacher shortage. According to UNESCO, to meet the goal of universal basic education by 2030, 69 million teachers will be needed worldwide (UNESCO, 2023). Portugal mirrors this global trend and will need to recruit more than 34,000 teachers by 2030/2031 (DGEEC, 2021). This critical scenario makes teacher education a central issue in the country's present and future.

Professional learning opportunities during the transition from student to teacher (Flores & Day, 2006) are crucial for the development of teaching and classroom management knowledge and skills, but also for the process of becoming part of a professional community (Marent et al., 2020). As an essential space for professional learning, practicum offers future teachers the opportunity to gain real teaching experience in schools and classrooms under the supervision of a mentor (Farrell, 2008). The role of practicum in preparing future teachers is, therefore, critical (Zeichner, 2012; Valdés Sánchez & Gutiérrez Esteban, 2016), as they provide opportunities to teach and develop essential competencies for the profession (Evagorou et al., 2015; Darling-Hammond, 2017). This idea is corroborated by research findings in the post-Bologna context in Portugal, which views the practicum as a key component of the curriculum in Master's degree programmes in Teaching (Flores et al., 2023), highlighting its importance in the development of pedagogical content knowledge, as well as contextual, educational, disciplinary, and inquiry-based knowledge (Vieira et al., 2019). A recent study focusing on the post-Bologna practicum model suggests that supervisors, cooperating mentors, and students have positive views on the practicum’s contribution to multifaceted professional knowledge and a transformative vision of education based on inquiry (Vieira, Silva, & Vilaça, 2020; Vieira et al., 2021). This process allows for "learning about practice in practice" (Kidd & Murray, 2020), although it is sometimes marked by tensions between "real practice" and the "idealised practice" (Flores & Gago, 2020). As Russell and Martin (2016) argue, if we aim to improve the quality of the practicum, it is necessary to question implicit beliefs about the nature of the school-university relationship and the types of professional learning experiences provided to student teachers. In fact, there is no consensus on what practicum should cover, as seen in the diversity of forms, content, duration, and focus (Flores, Vieira, & Ferreira, 2014). This ambiguity stems from the difficulty in defining a pedagogy of teacher education (Korthagen, 2016), resulting in critical issues in current models, namely the theory-practice divide, the contribution of the different curricular modules to the practicum, the duration and nature of teaching practice, and the role of research (Flores, 2018; Vieira et al., 2019; Vieira et al., 2021). Thus, this study seeks to explore the perspectives of student teachers regarding their first year in the Master's in Teaching. The focus on students’ voices allows for a critical reflection on how teacher education can be better aligned with their needs and the demands of the teaching profession. By assessing the quality and effectiveness of initial teacher education and identifying areas for improvement, the findings have the potential to inform the curricular design of initial teacher education, in particular within the process of restructuring of teacher education in Portugal.

This work is part of the PhD research project “Teacher Education in times of change and the role of the practicum in building professional knowledge: a mixed-methods study”, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The study was conducted in a Portuguese higher education institution. Student teachers were purposefully selected based on criteria such as being enrolled in a teaching master's programme, gender, belonging to different fields, different backgrounds (e.g. students without and with teaching experience) All of them have given their consent. In total, 11 student teachers were interviewed. They were aged 23-44, and they enrolled in a variety of subjects, including History, Portuguese, Philosophy and Informatics. This paper is part of the initial phase of a broader, ongoing longitudinal study that intends to explore the practicum as a key component of teacher education, focusing on its role in developing the professional knowledge and skills required for teaching, considering its different dimensions and its articulation with the other curriculum components. The semi-structured interviews gathered biographical data and participants’ perceptions about their first year in the Master’s in Teaching. The aim was to understand how the student teachers evaluated their first year and how they felt prepared to start their practicum experience. Content analysis was undertaken to look for similarities and differences in student teachers’ accounts. Three main themes will be explored: learning experience, challenges faced and suggestions for improvement.

Findings point to the centrality of Methodology courses to student teachers’ learning experience due to their valuable contributions to pedagogical practice. They also provide positive feedback on General Education subjects (e.g. curriculum, assessment, psychology, school organisation, etc.), stating that they provided a deeper understanding of the teaching field. However, student teachers expressed discontent with subjects related to the Teaching Area that seemed irrelevant or redundant, often covering content they had already studied in their Bachelor's degree programmes. Students also pointed to the existence of subjects with outdated content and out of touch with the reality of teaching. Lastly, the participants stressed the need to make compulsory curricular units that are optional due to their educational importance (e.g. courses on special educational needs and classroom management). Regarding the challenges faced, the results indicated that the most common were the insufficient integration of theory and practice; feelings of overwhelm due to heavy workload; and the absence of support and time. Furthermore, students provided recommendations for improving the programme, including: having more opportunities for actual teaching practice (e.g. classroom observation in the first year of the master's programme and more effective time in schools); making significant revisions to some curricular units; revisiting the subjects that will be taught in teaching practice; better integration of theory and practice through more dynamic/practical experiences; and providing training in the technical and bureaucratic aspects of teaching. The findings of this study inform a critical reflection on the curricular design of initial teacher education. By identifying areas for improvement, it offers insights into how teacher education can be better aligned with the needs of students and the demands of the teaching profession. A more systematic research will be conducted, based on an in-depth analysis of a broader set of data from the longitudinal study.

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