Rethinking Apprenticeship in Pre-Service Teachers’ Training

The apprenticeship has a crucial role in many teachers’ training programs, nevertheless some scholars have underlined that in many cases the apprenticeship’s experiences don’t realize their full potential. Indeed the apprenticeship does not have a positive impact on the professional development of the pre-service teachers by default, but, in order to reach this goal, it must be carefully designed. Moreover, in order to transform the apprenticeship in a significant moment, it is essential to encourage pre-service teachers to consider it through reflective thinking. As a matter of fact, reflective thinking allows them to elicit the knowledge arisen from experiences through a critical and systematic analysis. According to this view, the Master's Degree in Primary Teacher Education at University of Verona reforms the pre-service teachers’ apprenticeship in the perspective of Community Service Learning, an educational approach that integrates community service and intentional learning activities. Applied to the pre-service teachers’ training, Community Service Learning sets up a service action that connects pre-service teachers with in-service teachers enabling the first ones to strengthen their training curriculum through an experiential path, to develop a sense of civic responsibility towards their community and to encourage the reflective sharing of their own experiences.