What teaching models do Pre-Service teachers learn during placements?

Abstract Observing the teaching-learning situations that arise in educational contexts is a key part of teacher education. The present study examined how forty-three future teachers constructed their professional knowledge. Adopting a qualitative approach, we discuss the teaching situations observed by pre-service teachers in the subjects of reading/writing and mathematics. Based on the results, educational interactions were far from representing collaborative and dialogic teaching/learning models. In addition, the students’ narratives lacked critical professional reflection. Thus, they did not provide support to possible alterations to the instructional design they observed, and thus failed to make them more participatory. To conclude, we believe that pre-service teacher training should promote a more collaborative model, in which critical and reflective skills are developed based on active student participation. The present study showed that teacher training needs to be redesigned: skills and strategies proper to professional teaching competence need to be emphasised so that pre-service teachers acquire them more significantly during their training.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The authors are university professors belonging to the Faculty of Education of the University of Alicante (Spain). They are researchers of the Interdisciplinary Research Group in University Teaching-Education and Information and Communication Technologies/Inclusive Education. Its lines of action are oriented to the design and development of multidisciplinary research projects on teaching and learning and research related to the quality of the teachinglearning process in initial teacher training. The authors are expert researchers in qualitative research in teacher training and their research shows the importance of studying teachers' reflections to improve their professional development as teachers, the lives of educators and students.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
The manuscript entitled What teaching models do future teachers learn during internships? Presents the learning of 43 teachers about how they learn when they carry out their practices. It is therefore a vision of learning to teach through educational reality. Specifically, it focuses its analysis on how students learn to teach as teachers in the subjects of literacy and mathematics in Early Childhood Education. This study showed that it is necessary to redesign teacher training: emphasize the skills and strategies of professional teaching competence so that future teachers acquire them in a more significant way during their training. This study is of interest to the educational community since the training of teachers is a fundamental part of teacher training. In this way, it is possible to familiarize yourself with your future professional practice and face the current challenges of teaching.

Introduction
New educational perspectives are altering our approach to classroom interactions. Indeed, learning environments are currently being created in which decisions of action are taken based on students' emerging ideas (Bergmark & Westman, 2018). Such reforms seek to give teachers greater flexibility, so they become increasingly aware of their specific context and thus conduct the class more effectively (Colson et al., 2017;Oss, 2018). In this way, these new perspectives highlight the need to develop teachers' ability to identify classroom situations that help build students' skills. From this viewpoint, the ability to conceptualise and identify contexts, to develop professional competence, and to improve the teaching and learning process is key. It allows teachers to observe and reflect on educational situations in a professional manner and thus constitutes a basic competence that they must acquire during their initial training (Abrami et al., 2015).
To develop their professional competence, pre-service teachers must consolidate their teaching experiences during their initial training, develop theoretical knowledge from practical experience (Korthagen, 2016;Flores, 2018), and relate learned theory to classroom practice (Mena-Marcos et al., 2013;Zhu, 2011). This enables future teachers to reflect on their practices and to ground their actions in educational theories. Debates are underway regarding theory and practice in initial teacher training (Keller-Schneider et al., 2020) and efforts are being made to design a teachertraining model that integrates this relationship (Flores, 2017;Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2015a;Cochran-Smith et al., 2015;Dotger, 2015;Sancho-Gil et al., 2017).
For Heinz and Fleming (2019), as well as Zeichner (2010), it is necessary to link universities to schools by promoting "hybrid spheres" in which to discuss and work together on a common position. It is also important to successfully import the models followed by professional learning communities into schools. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) argue that internships in schools provide an opportunity to learn, perform research and to incorporate the knowledge of these communities into initial teacher training.
In this sense, Practicum subjects represent an ideal opportunity. During these periods, future teachers observe and describe the planning, reviews and evaluation strategies adopted by schools and in specific contexts. They put their teaching skills into practice and acquire a comprehensive and fairly complete vision of what it means to be a teacher (Fuentes-Abeledo et al., 2020). Practicums also allows students to deepen their practical training, i.e., to build their professional competence and increase the adequacy of the initial training, adjusting to the requirements of the profession (Knight, 2015). This way, it is possible to become familiar with their future professional practice and to face the challenges of teaching.

Teaching/learning models as the basis of pre-service teachers' training
The educational models followed in Spanish school classrooms are usually rooted in three classic learning theories. Students observe these theories during their internships, albeit indirectly. The first model corresponds to the behaviourist approach. In this model, knowledge is understood as an accumulation of content that results from experience. Learning is based on the generation of new stimuli, relating to sensations and impressions, and the subject's individual response to those stimuli. According to behaviourism, the educational process is the outcome of a series of reinforcements given to learners. The second model is based on the cognitive-constructivist approach: teachers regard students as individuals, who are each actively constructing their knowledge and transforming their cognitive structure thanks to their experiences. The teaching staff is considered as mediators, or coaches, who oversee the student's individual construction process. This perspective is accompanied by a pro-active, problemoriented and interpretive methodology. The third model is the collaborative teaching/learning model, oriented towards social participation systems (Hargreaves, 2019). It consists of involving each person in the development of their identity and their learning framework, thus supporting transformative teaching. In this model, knowledge does not entirely reside in the student's mind; learning becomes a by-product of the student's participation in community activities.
Dialogue, activity and collaboration with other people allow transforming ideas, prejudices and fallacious thoughts, favouring learning and personal growth. It is therefore supported by the concepts of situated cognition and/or situated learning (Anderson et al., 1996;Cobb & Bowers, 1999).
In line with this approach, Professional Learning Communities have emerged that focus on developing teaching-learning processes in educational institutions (Hargreaves, 2019). Within these communities, teachers adopt the role of coach or guide; they share their thoughts and discuss proposals of practice (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). This allows them to improve the quality of teaching, to adapt it to students' needs, and to ground their work in successful educational practices in various fields (Karatas, 2014). Unsurprisingly, the quality of teaching and learning in schools derives from the work of local participating communities, who support and design schools that are capable of addressing new social needs (Darling-Hammond, 2009García-Carrión & Díez-Palomar, 2015). It does, therefore, represent a sphere in which learning takes place through social participation: all peers interact, and social theories of learning predominate, thanks to an awareness of the social nature of knowledge (Bergmark & Westman, 2018;Lave & Wenger, 1991).
The implication of this is that educational teams must consolidate collaborative practices. According to Hargreaves (2019), this model defends collaborative professionalism, in which commitment, responsibility and dialogue among all community agents are key factors. We agree with Hargreaves and O'Connor (2018) that this collaboration not only benefits the individual teacher and individual learner, it also benefits the group. Another component in this model consists of reflections and respect for different ways of acting and thinking. This diversity enhances the value of solidarity when sharing learning experiences and each participant's commitment.
In this context, the Practicum is a key factor of professional development, as it supports comprehensive and structured training (Grossman et al., 2009). Internships encourage preservice teachers to analyse and reflect on instructional theories and existing practices. It allows them to engage in professional and experiential learning based on the realities of the active teaching-learning they are directly witnessing. In addition, they have the opportunity to practice what they have learned, to reflect on a context in situ, and to share their experiences (Lawson et al., 2015).
For this reason, understanding pre-service teachers' beliefs (Loughran & Hamilton, 2016) can provide valuable information about their conceptions and contribute to the design of initial teacher training programmes (Anderson & Stillman, 2013). The main reason is that pre-service teachers' conceptions reveal how disposed they are towards taking future initiatives when they start exercising their profession. According to Cochran-Smith and Villegas (2015b), research focused on initial teacher training is rooted in "historically situated social practice". These authors argue that studies on initial teacher training should go beyond the relationships between what teachers believe and do in the classroom. They should examine instead how, and under what conditions future teachers learn (during their internships) and promote the development of reflective professional attitudes.
Consequently, the present work centred on understanding and analysing how pre-service teachers, based on their narratives about their school internship experiences, depicted the teaching/ learning models followed in the classrooms and what elements they used to modify the educational situations observed. The following research questions were formulated: (1) What were the experiences of pre-service teachers regarding the teachers' actions in two instrumental subjects in Spanish Languages and Mathematics?
(2) What underlying teaching/learning models did pre-service teachers observe, describe, and reflect on during their internships?
(3) What elements did pre-service teachers use to modify the educational situations observed?
(4) Could any attributes proper to the collaborative teaching/learning model be found in the pre-service teachers' reflections?

Design and methodology
The present study followed a case study design. Case studies shed light on problems or phenomena in specific educational contexts (Atkins & Wallace, 2012). A qualitative methodology of a descriptive nature was selected, using autobiographical narratives and a reflective qualitative strategy (Bolívar, 2017). This approach allowed collecting information based on pre-service teachers' own experiences and observations during their internships (White & Forgasz, 2016).

Participants and context
The study corpus consisted of the narratives of 43 pre-service students who carried out Practicums across a total of 43 Spanish Preschool Education schools. The Practicum was part of their last year of their Preschool Education Degree. During their internship, students observed and interpreted their teacher-tutor's educational situations in class. Prior to this practical training (the Practicum), the pre-service teachers had studied the theory of collaborative teaching/learning at university. The Practicum was divided into two periods: in the first, pre-service teachers observed the classroom; in the second, they designed an educational proposal and implemented it under the teacher-tutor's supervision. During the observation period, the participants were asked to describe and identify teaching-learning situations relating to Reading/Writing Competence (in this case, reading and writing in Spanish) and Mathematical Competence. They wrote their observations during the subject sessions (mathematics and Spanish) which took place throughout the eight weeks of their internship. The participants were mostly women, with a mean age of 22 years. The sample was of an intentional non-probabilistic nature.

Collecting and processing information
The instrument used for this study was based on the reflective narratives (Webster & Mertova, 2007) of Preschool education pre-service teachers. In these narratives, students described and interpreted the teaching-learning situations they identified. We chose the narrative as the study's instrument because it allows embracing the richness and variety of participants' stories and interpretations in educational contexts (Huber et al., 2013).
In order to direct the pre-service teachers' attention to the teaching-learning process, students were provided with a question guide helping to identify, interpret and determine the suitability of the teaching practices (Fleet et al., 2017). The questions were oriented towards two key factors: (1) the characteristics they could identify of the observed teaching/learning models; and (2), based on these identified characteristics, what modifications would they propose. The questions were designed and validated by an interdisciplinary research team composed of the following: two experts in qualitative research in Teaching and School Organisation; two specialists in the Teaching of Mathematics; and a specialist in the educational discipline of Language and Literature. The instrument was developed specifically for this research. The final instrument was elaborated based on these guidelines and distributed among the participating students who completed the document anonymously and voluntarily during the internship. The pre-service teachers' prior consent was requested, their anonymity was guaranteed, and the study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration.
The information was processed using the qualitative computer programme AQUAD (Gürtler & Huber, 2015). The qualitative data analysis process (Miles et al., 2014) allowed configuring the category map used for the coding process. These maps were analysed and validated (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2007) following an interdisciplinary approach by the four main researchers.
In order to preserve anonymity and confidentiality, the teaching narratives were identified via an alphanumeric system: M000 (Mathematics and the document number) or L000 (Reading/Writing and the document number).

Results
A total of nine categories grouped under three themes emerged from the final encoding results. The results are presented below taking into account the codes inferred for each category and the occurrence frequency weight based on the analysis of all participants' narratives.
Theme 1. Analysis of how the observed teaching situations unfolded.
The observed situations allowed pre-service teachers to move from merely descriptive comments to true interpretations of the information provided in the teaching environment. A key issue was to determine how Preschool Education pre-service teachers problematised the teaching situations, identifying relevant aspects and giving them meaning, based on theory and learned knowledge. In this way, the educational contents worked on in each situation were identified (Category 3. Educational contents), together with the schoolchildren's possible difficulties in performing the task or activity (Category 2. Difficulties identified in the activity); or, on the contrary, the aspects that were eventually understood as the activity developed (Category 3. Understanding identified in the activity).
Regarding the contents, most participants described a predominance of conceptual contents (code 1.1.1 Conceptual) in the subject of Mathematics (Table 1): "The content being worked on is number 7" (M033); as well as procedural ones (code 1.1.2 Procedural): "Identification of geometric figures, the circle in particular" (M010). The same was found for the Reading/Writing subject (Table 2) (Table 2): "Respect the person who is speaking and among classmates"(L024); as well as for Mathematics (Table 1): "Interest in Mathematical Concepts".
A behaviourist approach to the contents was found, since the educational objective was a final product, i.e., students' acquisition of the conceptual or procedural contents. Regarding the difficulties, most narratives identified that in the subject of Mathematics (see ,  Table 3), difficulties centred around understanding contents (code 2.1 Understanding the content). Thus, the corresponding narratives indicated, for example, a need to understand how a sum is structured: "Most did not know how to structure the sum, that is, they placed the numbers under the wrong group of penguins" (EIM001). In the Reading/Writing subject, however, the difficulties were less notable (see , Table 4) and were illustrated in the following narrative: "The only possible difficulty that we were able to find was writing the painter's name and work. Most of them looked at the blackboard, on which the teacher had written both words" (L009).
Moreover, in the case of Reading/Writing, difficulties were detected in the procedure (code 2.2. Difficulty in the procedure), specifically, in the writing of certain letters: "These difficulties may be due to the mirror effect of the letter 'E' and that is why they write it backwards, or due to the speed of writing they choose themselves, when inserting more horizontal lines" (L030). In Mathematics, difficulties were visible, though to a lesser extent: "(. . .) some pupils had difficulties in understanding how the scales worked, since they thought that if an object weighed more, it necessarily had to be 'higher' on the scale" (M007).
In code 2.4, Evidence of difficulty, in the subject of Mathematics, mutual help between classmates was described: "The girl looked at her hands but did not know what to do next, so the teacher told the other children 'let's all help Ivana' so they all counted together and completed the sum" (M023). In the Reading/Writing subject, evidence was also given regarding pupils' confusion when forming words: "The child heard the sound DI and interpreted it only as the letter I, the child did not realise that the sound was DI" (L015).
Less frequently, difficulties relating to a lack of attention or motivation were pointed out in both subjects (code 2.3 Others): "This shows that when the teacher asked the trick question . . . the child fell into the trap, so to speak, and did not pay enough attention" (M036). This theme identifies teaching/learning models based on the observation of teaching situations in the classroom. The teaching-learning model chosen by the teacher was identified based on the type of activity (Category 3. Type of activities), a type of group (Category 4. Grouping), the available materials (Category 5. Materials and resources) and the social interaction that took place (Category

Social interaction).
Regarding the type of activities (Category 3), students found that tasks were consistent with the above. In the Subject of Mathematics (see , Table 5), teaching proposals were based on mathematical contents (code 3.1. Conceptual activities) which elaborated on the meaning of the concept or algorithm: "The signs of the sum (plus and equal)" (M001). Procedural mathematical calculation activities were found to a limited degree (Code 3.2. Procedural activities):"Comparison of objects and numbers" (M009). And on a few occasions, a reference was made to mathematical problemsolving using examples that were meaningful to pupils (code 3.3.): "So the teacher will use something at hand to measure in her day-to-day reality, in this case, the steps" (M011).
For its part, in the Reading/Writing subject (Spanish), several narratives described activities involving the correspondence between spelling and phoneme (Code 3.2. Procedural activities): "The teacher first reads the riddle emphasising the U's and asks if that word carries U and the class answers yes or no" (L013). And there were fewer teaching proposals of conceptual exercises (code 3.1 Conceptual Activities): "In this way, we will record all the words that come out, in alphabetical order and create our own dictionary" (L008). Worthy of note, due to the nature of the subject of Reading/Writing, a large number of activities were commonly identified where the use of Reading/Writing occurred in the pupil's daily situations, leading to meaningful learning (Code 3.3. Activities for meaningful learning):"The important thing is that they know first how to identify the letters in their own name" (L018).
The following tables illustrate the results obtained for the type of grouping used for each observed competence.
With regard to groups of pupils, the narratives described how the usual procedure was to work on the activities individually and, subsequently, correct them in large or small groups, both in the Subject of Mathematics and Reading/Writing (see, Tables 6, 7 and 8): "Here are the instruction cards asking students to read them individually" (L001) or "Working in small groups of 5 or 6 children (. . .)". (M030) The following codes, represented in Tables 9 and 10, were identified after analysing the materials and resources used.
Another feature described in the teaching/learning models was the type of materials and resources used by teachers (category 5. Materials and resources). Three codes relating to the use of materials or resources emerged: code 5.1 External teaching materials, i.e. use of textbooks or publisher-designed papers; code 5.3. Designed materials, elaborated by the teachers themselves; and the final code 5.2 Interactive materials, electronic means (digital whiteboard) or digital telecommunications. Most narratives described actions that are typical of Educational Units provided by publishers, as seen in Tables 9 and 10: "Each child has a notebook they use in the class, which contains various photocopies" (M031) or "(. . .) you need the textbook sheet/activity or the text (whether literary or not) that is being worked on" (L016).
As for ICT (code 5.2), the whiteboard was used in the Reading/Writing subject to describe the exercise that was being performed: "As an alternative, we sometimes use the whiteboard to    perform the activity: word search, draw, write, etc. (L008)". To the same extent, and for the same subject, the use of reading-literature material was recognised as subject-specific (code 5.4 Reading-Literature): "The teacher explained the activity that consisted of surrounding the 'u' in a riddle, and then painting the correct animal in relation to the riddle" (L013).
In Tables 11 and 12, a number of codes show that the participating students collected dialogues and interactions between the teacher and learners (category 6. Social interaction). Some refer to the teacher's two-way communication (code 6.1.1 Bidirectional): "As illustrated in the dialogue between the pupil and the teacher, this child fulfilled some, but not all the objectives in the activity" (L001); others show that the participation is more active and cooperative, and the discussions and communication are the result of collaborative learning (code 6.1.2 Collaborative): "first, the teacher asked several children to collaborate to extract a rectangle from a box full of geometric figures and show it to the rest of the class"(M016). In some, there was no interaction (code 6.2 No social interaction): "The teacher worked on this activity without intervening in any way" (M004).
To summarise, the narratives mainly described a behavioural teaching-learning model. Indeed, the activities were characterised by conceptual content, the predominance of individual work, the use of external resources and materials, and the development of two-way communication. Category 8. Modification of the activity includes pre-service teachers' proposals to initiate a change in the observed teaching/learning models (see , Tables 13 and 14). This would allow to ascertain whether they are capable of integrating new strategies and resources, closer to a more collaborative model, or, on the contrary, tend to reproduce the model observed in Practicum classrooms. Participants maintained the same educational dimensions observed because they proposed basic modifications only (code 7.1) such as the task's degree of difficulty, offering fewer or more examples, or adapting resources. Thus, in the subject of Reading/Writing: "As the riddle develops, we will use gestures to facilitate students' understanding, providing visual supports and flashcards (. . .)" (L032) or "For pupils who hav e not achieved the objectives set out in this activity, we could do the following: Paint the pictures that contain the letter -d-". (L033). In the case of the subject of Mathematics: "The drawings can be removed for students who do not have difficulties. So they can begin with some simple sums without using drawings" (M001) or "A simple way to continue advancing in the understanding and learning of the first numbers would be to expand the number of bottle tops they have to take and write more numbers on the blackboard-". (M041) Very few students' narratives described modifications that would lead to a more collaborative teaching/learning model (code 7.2 Model modification). "The task consists of using the whiteboard and making a tab appear that shows many drawn elements (. . .). Each time, a student will walk up and, using the interactive pencil, press on one of the elements he or she believes contains the letter -u-" (L028) We could thus observe that students failed to introduce alterations. They pursued the same instructional approach they observed in the school, i.e., a behavioural model. Specifically, though they learned about professional collaborative approaches, essential for learning, the pre-service teachers failed to put into practice a social educational model. Indeed, they did not describe any modifications that would have oriented the observed model towards collaborative teachinglearning.

Discussion
The narratives showed that the pre-service teachers were able to identify the teaching contents worked on in the various activities proposed by the teacher-tutor. They also demonstrated that students were able to detect children's difficulties during the learning process. These actions do reflect a certain ability to connect educational theory and practice, but not to engage in a deep reflection (Matengu et al., 2021), i.e., to relate these practices to the theoretical knowledge acquired during their studies (Mena-Marcos et al., 2013;Zhu, 2011). Therefore, more emphasis has yet to be placed in this regard. These findings should lead us to deepen our reflection and critical stance towards educational processes at university (Abrami et al., 2015;Belford et al., 2020), where learning should take place through dialogues between educational agents (Knezic et al., 2019).
In this vein, the activities or tasks described by the participants were largely based on conceptual or procedural content. They did not focus on attitudinal contents, which are so essential to integrate all the skills in the classroom. These activities were usually developed individually. Despite the importance of collaborative or group learning, no tendency towards collaborative work in small groups was found, in which pupils help each other and cooperate (García-Carrión & Díez-Palomar, 2015). Furthermore, the material used by teachers encouraged these types of groupings and ways of working. The narratives highlighted teachers' widespread use of exercise sheets or books designed by publishers. Electronic resources or the use of digital telecommunications thus remained in the background, despite the benefits they offer in various fields (Karatas, 2014).
Cooperative, group and interactive learning was not the usual practice, and interactions were very limited. According to the results shown, relationships were bidirectional and teachers ultimately solved the learning situations without generating a dialogue. Such a procedure rules out learning by discovery, in which teachers are regarded as coaches or guides in the teachinglearning process (Yilmaz & Sahin, 2011). It thus perpetuates a more traditional vision of education: no collaborative and social learning (Clarà et al., 2019;Forte & Flores, 2014), integrating all members of the learning community, takes place.
With regard to modifications, the pre-service students continued to maintain the same professional perspective as the schoolteachers since they all agreed with their adopted positions. The educational changes they made were basic. They did not introduce new methodological strategies along the lines of collaborative or innovative models, which they learned during their degree, as observed by Mykkänen et al. (2021). It would be interesting to exploit the potential of internships, in which students can analyse and reflect on teaching practices to improve their professional competence (Fuentes-Abeledo et al., 2020). Therefore, it is essential that, in addition to developing the capacity to observe as well as recognise educational situations and reproduce models, students be confronted with new ideas, leading them to reflecting and then using that new knowledge to develop novel practices (White, 2009). In the present study, students were not confronted with different models and thus were not sufficiently geared towards modifying the educational situations (Hogg & Yates, 2013). It is necessary, therefore, to extend the time they spend in schools so they can observe a range of teaching/learning models. Collaborative work should continue to be emphasised in their initial training (McAlister, 2012;Raduan & Na, 2020) as a key tool to achieve professional competence, as was identified in the study by Kourti and Androussou (2013). This would allow them to root these attitudes more deeply in their academic and professional development (Bas, 2021;Tok, 2011), enabling them to reproduce them, even when no professional models are present in the classroom.

Conclusions
The results of this study led us to identify a behaviourist-oriented teaching-learning model. As mentioned above, the activities described by the participants focused on concepts and procedures but did not include daily life activities or real problem-solving tasks. This dissociation makes it difficult for students to learn in a meaningful manner, because they are not grounded in realities they are familiar with. The problem is made worse by contents that are essentially abstract and/or based on social convention.
The activities were usually performed individually, and the teaching materials or resources mostly came from textbooks designed by external agents. Using the traditional materials available rather than working on one's own materials-which would be much more flexible and open to modifications-constrains the variety of the teacher's proposals and adaptations to the classgroup. Such proposals have the potential to improve the quality of student learning by favouring a reflective and critical teacher figure, who designs, develops and modifies teaching resources.
Regarding digital competence, in most cases, the skills and techniques proper to ICTs were not worked on. The digital whiteboard was used only to replace the traditional blackboard: the teacher used it to present, explain and solve the activity. A component that would drive us away from this traditional or technological model and bring us closer to a more collaborative model would be appropriate teacher initiatives in the educational situations described. Indeed, by promoting an environment in which students actively participate, they are generating interactions in classrooms and sharing the teaching-learning process, making pupils co-responsible for their learning. This aspect, however, was not fully developed during individual work, leading to two-way interactions in which teachers themselves eventually solve problematic learning situations.
Students' narratives-in which they described their own observations and interpretations of what they observed-allowed us to identify the characteristics of the pre-service teachers' argumentative process. The latter can be related to other dimensions that define teaching quality based on the students' generated discourse. The situation raises specific questions on the processes underlying the development of professional competence. Pre-service teachers identified the students' difficulties thanks to the instrument designed for the present study. However, when asked to design the activity (to improve the pupils' understanding), pre-service teachers failed to make use of all the possible curricular elements. In this way, they did not attempt to alter the educational situation conducted by the teacher-supervisor, nor did they promote a more collaborative teaching and learning model in which the entire community would learn. They did not transform the model they had observed in their descriptions. They may possibly have considered that it was an ideal model for the given context, without reflecting on other proposals studied in the Degree. All this illustrates the fact that students did not engage in critical reflections, which could have led them to transform the entire educational situation by integrating the necessary curricular elements. The building of pre-service teacher skills is oriented towards an innovative professional model regarding educational design. Yet most students continued to show neutral thinking in their educational intentions and a dearth of critical and innovative thinking. Such thinking would lead them to question the educational actions under observation. Spontaneity and innovation were aspects that were overlooked, though the latter would enrich the teaching/ learning and encourage a greater collaboration between students and teachers. It is necessary to promote a greater acquisition of skills and strategies relating to professional teaching competence attributes, so the latter become an acquired and significant part of pre-service teacher training.