Transitioning from the Role of Educational Assistant to Classroom Teacher: Experiences of Pre-Service Teachers in a Community-based Bachelor of Education Program

This presentation examines the experiences of students in a community-based Bachelor of Education program in western Canada as they transition from their role as Educational Assistants [EA’s] to teachers in remote locations. The Community-based program in this study was designed to address teacher shortages in rural and remote locations. Many of these students enrolled in this program are degree holders and mothers who found themselves volunteering in their children’s classroom and eventually became EA’s. Other students include mothers who always dreamed of becoming a teacher, but were unable to do so because of their remote location. Employing a descriptive phenomenological methodology, the authors examine how, and the extent to which, social positioning and self-identity (Johnson-Bailey 2012) led to transformative learning for students enrolled in this program (Mezirow, 1991; Mezirow, 2003; Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). In this regard, participants describe how their evolving identity as a pre-service teachers impacted their perspectives of self, interactions with school colleagues, family and community members; all the while seeking to balance the multiple demands of family, part-time work and full time study .