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Effective media education requires that teachers have sufficient media literacy competencies as well as the competencies to promote media literacy in students. This article describes the development of a questionnaire to measure these competencies individually or as a team. The questionnaire was developed in five stages. A systematic and critical listing of existing inventories resulted in a preliminary questionnaire. In the final stage, the questionnaire was submitted to a representative sample of 454 teachers and 219 student teachers, and an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The results show that the questionnaire is sufficiently valid and reliable.

During field experiences in teacher education, student teachers are generally placed individually with a mentor. Teacher education institutes search for alternative field experience models, inspired by collaborative learning such as team teaching. This study explores two team teaching models, parallel and sequential teaching, by investigating the student teachers’ perspective. Quantitative (survey) and qualitative (self-report) methods were used to map their attitudes toward both models, their perception on collaboration, advantages and disadvantages, and the conditions for implementation they consider critical. Student teachers adopt positive feelings toward both models. In sequential teaching, collaboration is experienced significantly higher than in parallel teaching. Both models have their own advantages and disadvantages, but advantages clearly outweigh disadvantages. In comparison with previous research, decreased workload and better management are new advantages, interdependence and complex management new disadvantages. “Preparation for new roles” is the most important condition in order to successfully implement both models.

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Teacher education institutes are in search of alternative models of field experiences, inspired by collaborative learning. This study examines team teaching. We focus upon the assistant teaching model, in which the student teacher assists the mentor during teaching. We investigate which assisting activities student teachers prefer, how student teachers and mentors experience these activities and the conditions for implementation they foresee. Data were gathered using activity reports, reflective documents and questionnaires.Results show that the preferred assisting activities mainly consist of guiding pupils during individual and team work and of teaching a part of a lesson in front of an entire class group. The assistant teaching model has both advantages (professional growth,…) and disadvantages (feelings of unfamiliarity,…) for the student teacher. Advantages and disadvantages have also been reported for mentors (support, high workload,…) and pupils (support, confusion,…). Finally, several conditions for successful implementation of the assistant teacher model are discussed.