Decisive or Deliberate? Prospective Teachers’ Agency in a Problem-Based Learning Model

Abstract Book of the 10th International Academic Conference on Teaching, Learning and Education

Year: 2026

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Decisive or Deliberate? Prospective Teachers’ Agency in a Problem-Based Learning Model

Lorenzo Cherubini

ABSTRACT:

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is an instrumental pedagogical approach for teacher education since it fosters prospective teachers’ agency to negotiate their learning in an inquiry-based and collaborative model. PBL encourages prospective teachers to be thoughtful in their critical considerations of real-world education problems given that the cases serve as the conceptual anchors for the reflective thinking and discourse with their peers. This presentation is an extension of a longitudinal study that focuses on the perceptions of undergraduate students enrolled in a concurrent education program. The data for this qualitative grounded theory analysis consists of thirty-six learning logs collected from 9 students at 4 specific intervals throughout a semester. The learning logs are a culmination of various reflections during different stages of each case analysis during the inquiry process. The data were analyzed using a line-by-line coding method that brought clarity to a core theme identified as Leveraging Judgement from a previous cohort of students. The presentation will discuss the respective findings of this analysis in terms of study participants’ learning to appeal more to the Ontario College of Teachers’ Standards of Professional and Ethical Practice rather than basing their judgements on case circumstances in subjective terms. The findings suggest that prospective teachers better understood the case complexities when considered in the context of the regulatory elements of the Professional Standards that they appreciated to be systemic constructs that take precedence over personal values and beliefs.

Keywords: Professional Standards; Teacher education