Understanding Candidates’ Learning Relationships with their Cooperating Teachers: A call to Reframe my Pedagogy

Abstract

This self-study frames the influences of cooperating (or mentor) teachers on teacher candidates in my teacher education classroom as an action-at-a-distance on my pedagogy of teacher education; that is, a tacit set of influences and expectations that teacher candidates develop about my course before it even begins. Interviews with teacher candidates enabled me to develop two conceptual metaphors to think about the relationships candidates develop with cooperating teachers on practicum. The first, freedom with foundation, reflects the fact that teacher candidates hope to have considerable autonomy in their practicum placements while simultaneously having the support from their cooperating teacher to receive meaningful, regular, feedback. The second, power and performance, names the tensions teacher candidates feel in experiencing the practicum as a site of performance rather than as a site of learning. I offer some specific pedagogical ways in which I have responded to these issues before making a turn to self. I examined journal entries from my own experiences as a teacher candidate 20 years ago with a view to understanding the ways in which the two metaphors may have played a role in my own development as a teacher. This research compels me to attend explicitly to action-at-at-distance forces in my teacher education classroom, such as candidates’ relationship with cooperating teachers and my relationships with my former cooperating teachers.