Student Teaching Supervisors Research Articles

Teaching Social Studies with Technology: New Research on Collaborative Approaches

MEETING THE DEMANDS OF TEACHING in the digital age requires the identification of effective types of educational technology and ways of encouraging its use, and that was the aim of a Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology (PT3) grant to the University of Michigan-Dearborn, from the United States Department of Education. This grant funded a four-year program involving not only public school teachers in the Detroit area, but also the faculty in the education and social sciences departments of the university. Dubbed MITTEN Program, it explored how the planned integration of new forms of technology affects instruction in social studies in elementary, middle, and high schools. What follows is a report on the outcomes of that project. Between September 1,2001 and April 30, 2005, a total of 257 educators in all of the core academic subject areas participated in seven cohort groups. In social studies, twenty-five full-time public school teachers, twenty-five pre-service teachers, five faculty members, and three field supervisors of student teachers were involved. The data presented in this study were gathered from surveys administered before and after people participated in the program, journal entries, reflections articulated in electronic portfolios and at meetings, and technology projects. The first half of the survey asked nine questions designed to measure the partici-

Learning to advocate for educational equity in a teacher credential program

Drawing on a 5-year program-wide investigation of ways preservice teachers learn to teach to diversity, this study uses focus groups of graduates to illuminate survey results of their feeling well prepared to advocate for equity in classrooms and schools. Offering suggestions for improvement, graduates nonetheless reported two broad categories of program strength. The first was the value of infusion of culture, language, and equity content in coursework. Themes in strong coursework included focus on culturally responsive, equity-focused pedagogy; preparation to teach English language learners; developing cultural knowledge and sensitivity; and learning advocacy beyond the classroom. Faculty taught and modeled these concerns through many means. The second, which extended coursework, was sustained and scaffolded apprenticeships in teaching for equity, including student teaching supervisors as equity mentors, placements that support teaching for equity, and ongoing cohort discussions of equity teaching.

Perceptions from a University Field Supervisor's Perch

The face of teacher supervision has changed tremendously in the past decades. That, of course, has impacted the supervision of student teachers as well. Supervision has evolved from a relatively unimportant role to a major one that assists in the school improvement process. A veteran student teacher supervisor chronicles stu{fent teacher assignments that have been amended, created, or deleted to meet changing needs. 1hese changes have been fashioned by multiple sources: the needs of student teachers, the teacher education program, district and state requirements, as well as a sh(ft in educational paradigms. Supervision is crucial to the improvement of teaching and learning. In the next years, the evolution of supervision will dictate whether its evolving precepts create a solid foundation, especially at the pre-service stage, where teaching and learning can be enhanced or simply become another divergent path.

True Confessions of Student Teaching Supervisors

The biggest obstacle to recruiting tenured faculty members to supervise student teachers is that the task is - there's no tactful way to put it - boring, Ms. Power and Ms. Perry confess. They propose a better way. WE CAN BEST capture the dilemmas education faculty members face when they work with student teachers by presenting one hour in our lives as supervisors of student teachers. It's a chilly February morning in 1999, and Brenda is in a third-grade classroom at a local school, a professional development school site for the University of Maine. She sits in the back of the room while a student teacher stands at an overhead projector, slapping on page after plastic page of detailed maps of Germany. The student teacher is lecturing about the climate, the terrain, the language. The children sit glassy-eyed, silently listening to her. Finally, one child tentatively raises his hand and asks, Are we ever going to get to writing workshop? Why are we doing this instead? In a few minutes, the student teacher replies. My professor from the university is visiting, and I want her to see me teach. A couple of the children turn to the back of the room and glare at Brenda. Meanwhile, at a large consolidated high school 20 miles away, Connie is sitting in the back of a sophomore Spanish class. The student teacher is leading the class through a lesson in how to conjugate verbs. The class is taught primarily in Spanish. Since Connie doesn't actually speak any Spanish, it's a little hard to follow what is going on. But she dutifully takes some notes about who is responding to questions, noting the mix of males and females being called upon, and she reminds herself to consult with the cooperating teacher about the intern's language expertise. Connie also has a scrap of paper under her notepad, on which she surreptitiously writes a list of groceries she will purchase after finishing her observations that day. We are members of a rare breed - tenured professors at a major research university who volunteer to supervise student teachers as a regular part of our teaching load. The question of how major universities might involve more tenured faculty members in on-site preservice education in local schools is one of the critical issues facing many research institutions today. The research literature on professional development schools is not encouraging. There are many barriers to involving university faculty members in supervision, including lack of time, lack of support within the promotion and tenure structure, and lack of a fit with professors' scholarly agendas.1 We think these arguments all overlook the biggest obstacle to recruiting tenured faculty members to supervise student teachers. Supervising student teachers is - there's no tactful way to put it - boring. And we're talking mind-numbin', spirit-crushin' dull. We say this from personal experience, having spent too many hours in the last few years watching young teachers deliver stand-up lectures in lieu of their normal instructional routines - in hopes of impressing us with their ability to manage a classroom. We like schools. We genuinely enjoy watching teachers practice their craft, and we never fail to be amazed at the wonder of children learning. That's why we were shocked at how quickly we came to despise our new roles as supervisors of student teaching. We realize it's not the university's job to give us professional responsibilities that are always entertaining and intellectually stimulating. And it's certainly not the responsibility of our student teachers to keep us engaged or of school staff members to see that we are comfortable on their turf. But our work over the past few years has also shown us that these issues aren't just personal ones. There are inherent problems in the traditional model of university faculty oversight of student teachers. Until we have a little more honesty about what's wrong with the system, we cannot make it right. …

Using Personal Digital Assistants in Clinical Supervision of Student Teachers

Journaling is an important tool to help student teachers reflect on the nature of the student teaching experience. The communication of journals to student teacher supervisors is enhanced greatly by using e-mail. Previously we described software that can be used to enhance journaling. This software included tools to facilitate writing field notes during in-class observations by the supervisor. E-mail exchange largely has supplanted the need for an electronic journaling tool. Here we describe flexible strategies using a personal digital assistant (PalmPilot) to facilitate the development of field notes during observations. These notes are then readily communicated to the student teacher by several means including e-mail.

Rethinking the Teacher Education Curriculum in Special Education: Dilemmas in Connecting with the Field

Teacher educators understand the importance of building strong connections between university coursework and preservice teachers' experiences in the field. However, often the two settings differ in terms of philosophical and methodological perspectives and practice, presenting teacher education programs with a number of dilemmas. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we describe our curriculum inquiry process in which we examined and reflected on data collected from cooperating teachers, student teachers, and university student teaching supervisors in the special education teacher certification program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). We were guided by a question that had plagued us for several years: How does our teacher education curriculum connect with preservice teachers' experiences in the field? Second, we summarize and discuss the outcomes of our inquiry as dilemmas, which emerged as we considered the experiences and expectations of each of the stakeholders in the student teaching process.

How the other Half Work: Student Teacher Supervision in Kenya

Teaching at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, during the 1995–96 academic year provided the author with an opportunity to work with education faculty in a developing nation and to witness some of the circumstances they encounter while preparing future teachers. This article recounts some of the insights gained from shadowing a KU student teacher supervisor. One crucial problem with showing how “the other half” work is the basic unfamiliarity of many Americans with the developing world. Some background information about Kenya's educational system and the country's political climate are vital to reach full appreciation of the quality of work Kenyan education faculty achieve. This profile, based on both personal observations and an interview with Mr. Daniel Muindi, a faculty member in Kenyatta University's Educational Communication and Technology Department, aims to convey a vivid, personal depiction of issues regularly confronted by Kenyan supervisors during this vital aspect of teacher preparation.

The Supervision of a Student Teacher as Defined by Cooperating Teachers

How do cooperating teachers define the supervision of student teacher? Is this definition coherent with the development of reflective teaching, a widely used term in current discussion about the nature of professional training (Calderhead, 1989, p. 43)? These questions oriented the qualitative research presented here. The notion of and reflective teaching is almost everywhere in teacher education. Bengtsson (1995), in terms very close to those of Calderhead (1989), writes that reflection has grown massively in Anglo-Saxon pedagogy and has become key concept in discussion about teacher education and the teaching profession (p. 23). Teacher education programs are, at the same time, devoting more and more time to practical experiences in schools. In these practical experiences, teachers in schools take on the role of cooperating teacher when they supervise student teachers. Their behaviour in this role greatly influences what the student teacher learns (Taylor, Borys, & Larocque, 1992), and it is oriented by the definition these teachers give to this role. It is therefore quite appropriate to enquire into the definition to find out whether concern with reflective teaching is present. Often teachers say that they learned to teach through trial and error in their classroom and that experience is the only valid way to learn to teach (FeimanNemser, 1983; Lortie, 1975). One might then assume that this personal method of learning to teach by trial and error would predominate in their definition of the cooperating teacher's role. Field (1994) says that supervision of student teachers has been seen in many instances as socialization and enculturation in the school context. Cooperating teachers contribute to student teachers' development of survival skills and tricks of the trade. Field reccommends that cooperating teachers act more as mentors and demonstrate skills such as being able to help student teachers reflect on their teaching. In more theoretical article, Housego and Grimmett (1983) identify two different conceptual frameworks used by supervisors of student teachers: performance-based direct one and more inductive developmental one. The performance-based approach emphasizes the cooperating teacher's provision of

Critical Reflection for Professional Development: A Comparative Study of Nontraditional Adult and Traditional Student Teachers

The professional education of nontraditional adult teacher candidates requires learning environments that include multiple perspectives, democratic principles, sound pedagogy, and critical thinking. Facilitating adult learning is a very complex process that incorporates diverse paradigms of thought (Galbraith, 1991, p. ix). The process requires a metacognitive understanding of varying worldviews, shifting expectations, diverse learning styles, personalities, levels of sophistication, and various cultural and ethical backgrounds. Different approaches are often necessary with adult learners because of their diversity, variability, varying intellectual levels, and extensive past experiences. Teacher educators should recognize and value the life influences on the personal and professional development of nontraditional teacher candidates because these can be used to advance their growth. Institutional settings and the social and political climate for learning must accommodate to the educational encounter between teacher educator and adult learner. Adult learners come to teacher preparation programs with a clear set of goals and sense of themselves that their cumulative life experiences have shaped. In this article, we compare the professional beliefs and teaching behaviors of traditional and nontraditional adult teacher candidates. Using weekly student autobiographical critical reflections during student teaching, we built trust and established authentic needs and purposes for coaching novice teachers in their professional development. In this study, nontraditional adult teacher candidates are preservice teachers over 25 years old with varied life experiences, including participation in the workforce, child rearing, military service, or postsecondary training. These experiences provide adult beginning teachers with skills and competencies transferable to becoming a teacher. Nontraditional adult teacher candidates' beliefs and operational theories may be more ingrained than those of traditional candidates who lack maturation, knowledge, and life experiences. The social, political, and cultural context influences how teacher candidates view themselves, their work, and the world. Marsick and Watkins (1991) state, The teacher's use of learning methods is highly colored by the lens through which they view themselves, their work, and the world (p. 75). The worldviews of nontraditional adult teacher candidates embody basic beliefs and assumptions about the human condition reflected in the paradigms they select for teaching and learning. These beliefs and assumptions form the basis for the operational theories they implement in classrooms. Nontraditional adult teacher candidates may need strategies to help them become conscious of the consequences of their attitudes, values, beliefs, and rules, long taken for granted, by which they make sense of their world. They may also need structures that facilitate questioning whether their traditional ways of doing things produce the results they want to achieve in their teaching. In this article, we describe major characteristics of the professional development of a sample of traditional and nontraditional adult teacher candidates during student teaching. We used critical reflection as a teaching, metacognitive tool to facilitate their ability to understand how one acquires professional knowledge, develops teaching practice, and becomes a teacher. We wanted to expedite their comprehension of the relationship between teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning and their pedagogical decisions. We used critical reflection as a data collection tool to help student teaching supervisors study the professional growth and development of beginning teachers and compare the traditional and nontraditional adult teacher candidates. Thus, we identified and documented the underlying assumptions, focus issues, and self-evaluation dynamics of becoming a critically reflective beginning teacher and how these affect professional development for two groups. …

What Cooperating Teacher Case Studies Reveal About Their Phases of Development as Supervisors of Student Teachers

SUMMARY This paper describes a qualitative study which examined case studies written by cooperating teachers who were enrolled in a graduate course in the supervision of student teachers. In these cases, cooperating teachers told their stories of working with student teachers. They described their thoughts and feelings, the dilemmas they faced, and the strategies they used to help their student teachers to succeed. The cases were used as a basis for studying cooperating teacher development. As a result of a content analysis, feedback from cooperating teachers and college supervisors, and a review of the appropriate literature, six phases of cooperating teacher development were identified and described. They are: Phase I: anticipation/ excitement; Phase II: confusion/clarity; Phase III: on-stage/backstage; phase IV: letting go/hanging on: Phase V: co-teacher/solo teacher, and Phase VI: loss/relief. The phases are intended to assist cooperating teachers in reflecting about their roles as teacher educators and supervisors.

Integrating Technology in Teacher Education Programs: Lessons from the Teaching Teleapprenticeship Project

Abstract The authors describe a three-year project designed around a model that extends the traditional face-to-face apprenticeships currently used in student teaching settings by using electronic networks. Through network interactions and resource sharing, this model brings together the university coordinators, student teaching supervisors, school district instructors, preservice teachers, and public school students. Based on these data and the publications of others who are using technology within their teacher education programs, we present what we have learned about the potential of technology to support teacher education. The unique problems that arise when technology serves as a component for enhancing student teachers' learning are outlined. The discussion centers on three factors impacting the quality and character of participants' use of technology: Issues of access, training, and context.

Conventional Thought and Practice in Physical Education: Problems of Teaching and Implications for Change

Viewed in the light of benchmarks for professional quality, the generally weak commitment to teaching clearly becomes the main problem with current physical education. The ideological legacy of the profession—the two conventional ideas of “physical education as training of the physical” and “physical education as education through the physical”—is a main cause of confusion as well as the source for the growing lack of public support for physical education as an integral school subject. This paper looks at the theory of the self-reproducing failing of physical education as an hypothesis to explain this continuing plummet of physical education. Prospects for change are dependent on (a) creating conceptual clarity and cohesiveness among physical education teacher educators, (b) recruiting carefully, (c) maintaining “learning to reflect” as the leitmotiv of the teacher education program, and (d) developing an agreement of concepts among student teaching supervisors.

The Teacher as Teacher Educator:New Roles in Professional Development Schools

Abstract In the movement to restructure schools, teachers are taking on many new roles and responsibilities. In these “boundary blurring roles” as Lampert (1991) calls them, teachers are both challenging traditional conceptions of teachers' work and changing the contexts for teaching and learning. We are particularly interested in the roles teachers adopt as teacher educators in newly created professional development schools. Professional development centers are attempts to reform the career-long education of teachers through the collaborative efforts of schools and universities (Holmes, 1990). New roles for teachers in professional development schools, such as supervisor of student teachers or co-instructor of university classes, have much in common with other teacher leadership roles described in this issue. They require an expanded vision of teaching as a profession, reallocation of time and resources to accommodate new responsibilities, and the development of new skills and perspectives. At the same t...

Teachers' and School Psychologists' Perceptions of School Psychologists

29 master teachers in elementary schools who are supervisors of student teachers and 85 school psychologists completed questionnaires concerning various perceptions of the functions and roles of school psychologists. The information provided by the respondents indicated general agreement concerning the importance of most areas of school psychologists' functioning. Disagreement between the two groups occurred in the areas of desired direct services to children, usefulness of consultation, severity of referral problems, usefulness and adequacy of communication, usefulness of information given teachers, how informed both groups were about each other, and how helpful services provided by school psychologists were to teachers and children. Teachers and school psychologists commented on several areas: improvement of present communication, what services are most valued, and what functions should receive more of the school psychologists' time.

The Concerns of Physical Education Student Teachers: A Developmental View

This study was conducted to assess the level of concern that exists in physical education student teachers with regard to self, task, and impact—three areas of concern identified by Frances Fuller and her colleagues during the 1960s and 1970s. The study follows the changes in the level of concern during the student teaching semester. Information gathered was subjected to factor analysis where it was found that Fuller’s three constructs did not exist among the physical education student teachers sampled. Rather, a more elaborate pattern of concern development was uncovered than that reported in previous work. The authors make recommendations for the supervisors of student teachers as a result of these findings.

An INSET Course in the training of Student Teacher Supervisors1

An INSET Course in the training of Student Teacher Supervisors¹

Student teacher supervisors can be educated!

Student teacher supervisors can be educated!

Developing Your Own Continent a Teaching Unit for World Geography

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobert W. RichburgRobert W. Richburg is an associate professor of social science and adult education in theDepartment of Education, Colorado State University at Fort Collins.David Lynn DornanDavid L. Doman is a social studies teacher at Lincoln Junior High School in Fort Collins, Colorado and student teacher supervisor at Colorado State University.

Evaluating the effectiveness of the university supervisor of student teachers: Role of the coordinator of field experiences

Evaluating the effectiveness of the university supervisor of student teachers remains one of the most persistent and critical issues facing a coordinator of educational field experiences. It is much easier to evaluate the performance of student teachers and supervising teachers than to evaluate the effectiveness of the university supervisor. Several factors make the evaluation of the university supervisor difficult. First, we must distinguish between supervising and visiting student teachers. Supervision of student teachers means that the university supervisor becomes an active participant in the teaching-learning process. He possesses in-depth knowledge and experience in teaching, human growth and development, and learning theory. The supervisor knows what the preparation program has prepared the student teacher to do and competencies the student teacher is expected to demonstrate. He knows the competencies supervising teachers need to demonstrate to be effective and, where needed, helps the supervising teacher to develop these competencies. He possesses and uses a wide variety of supervisory skills. He applies these skills in cooperation with the supervising teacher to assist the student teacher in developing his teaching skills to the greatest possible extent. Supervision is a process of guiding, helping, diagnosing, prescribing, evaluating, and recycling. The act of visiting student teachers involves social and not supervisory skills. This approach depends primarily on providing general information relating to program requirements, personal needs of the student teacher, empathy, and

The School Media Center: A Conceptual Model

Objectives and Definitions. For the past three years as a student teacher supervisor I have persistently and systematically insisted that my students learn to utilize and synthesize media resources and methods into their instructional strategies. This orientation comes not only from a background in curriculum development and instructional design but also with experience and commitment to school library media centers. As I spoke with various school library media specialists, it became increasingly apparent that a cogent representation of the scientific relationship between educational technology and school library media education needed to be graphically outlined for the innovative library educators. In addressing library science educators, a primary goal is to provide a buffer for those students in school library media studies who will have to convince administrators of the viable and legitimate functions of the library media center and its staff. Some schools still operate with great literal and figurative distance between their audio-visual department and their school library. Ideally a library media center in the school brings materials and people