Pre-service Teacher Education from a Sociocultural Perspective: A Case-Study on Teaching Learning through Conceptual Mediation

This article presents an exemplary case-study that investigates the impact of a socioculturally based formative model in a pre-service teacher education program. From a sociocultural perspective, teachers' development involves a dynamic and social process of meaning mediation, where their beliefs or initial representations are to be confronted with the scientific concepts underlying good teaching practices (Esteve, 2018; Johnson, 2009). As a result of that confrontation, the initial pre-understandings should be reshaped and reconceptualized. The case-study presented is framed within an undergraduate subject that seeks to help pre-service teachers reconceptualize their understanding of 'assessment' through a formative model blending Vygotsky's double stimulation strategy with Gal'perin's Concept-Based Instruction (CBI) (Esteve et al., 2017; Esteve, 2018). This model entails activities of conceptual manipulation triggered by both reflective tasks and instruments, such as the Visual Reflective Diary (VRD), an instrument for pre-service teachers to ongoingly engage in dialogical thinking. Data from a single Visual Reflectice Diary (VRD) has been considered along with Negueruela's semiogenetic analysis (2011, 2013) conveniently adapted and implemented. The results of analysing this VRD support the evidence that the socioculturally-based formative process developed does contribute to expanding preservice teachers' pre-understandings of 'assessment', as an intrapersonally and interpersonally based, cognitively and emotionally driven process.