This article analyses the process of supervision by teacher educators and its influence on English language student teachers during a practicum in Kenya. The student teachers were enrolled in a four-year Bachelor of Education course for teaching English at secondary school level. Drawing on the perspectives of teacher educators, co-operating…

In "Redesigning Supervision", active professionals in teacher education and professional development share research-based, alternative models for restructuring the way pre-service teachers are supervised. The authors examine the methods currently used and discuss how teacher educators have striven to change or renew these procedures. They then…

This study follows one individual student teacher during a period of one single school year in which she was supported in developing "presence" while teaching. The notion of "presence" was formulated by the teacher herself, and coincides with the growing interest in this aspect in psychology, and in theories about becoming a teacher. In her…

This article analyzes student teachers' interactions in different practices over a period of one semester. We use Cultural-Historical Activity theory as a theoretical framework to address how interactions at the boundaries in teacher education are constructed and made relevant to the participants when they are working on object constructions. In…

In the following self-study, I consider how my involvement in a teacher preparation program that features looking across multiple contexts of second language teaching influenced my supervisory practice with a particular student teacher during her secondary foreign language student teaching placement. I conduct this inquiry by identifying and…

This paper reports on research that suggests a new view of assessment of the practicum in teacher education. By transcending the stereotypes of "failing" student teachers who do not achieve traditional benchmarks, this new lens highlights the complexity, diversity and inequality of experiences through listening to the voices of the…

The eSupervision instructional program is a series of five online modules housed in a content management system that support triad members (student teachers, cooperating teachers, university supervisors) during the field experience. The program was designed on a cognitive apprenticeship framework and uses a variety of technology to support both…

Mentor teachers need a versatile supervisory skills repertoire. Besides taking the prevalent role of daily advisor and instructor, mentor teachers should also be able to stimulate reflection in student teachers. Video recordings of 60 mentoring dialogues were analysed, both before and after a mentor teacher training aimed at developing the…

To what extent might the practicum be regarded as a complex phenomenon? After introducing complexity science and its potential to illuminate educational practice, five characteristics are explored within the context of teacher education. Vignettes from a kindergarten classroom extend this exploration into the practicum setting. Five implications…

Despite the complex emotional and interpersonal challenges inherent therein, credential students often comment that their student teaching experience had the greatest influence on their development as new teachers. An essential component of teacher education programs, the field experience serves many purposes. Although the theoretical potential…

Learning and effective teaching are both complicated acts. However, many administrators, teachers, parents, and policymakers appear not to recognize those complexities and their significance for practice. Fueling this perception, recommendations from "isolated" research findings often neglect the complexities in learning and teaching, and when…

For universities located in rural areas, field placement supervisors often find it difficult to locate placements for student teachers who are specialized in areas (e.g., special education, P.E.) with a limited number of cooperating teachers in each school. In those cases, placements for student teachers may require the cooperation of schools…

This paper explores the student teachers' perceptions about the most positive aspects of the supervision provided during their teaching practice. The authors developed a study based on the reflections of a group of 224 student teachers about their cooperating teacher's and university supervisor's performance. Student teacher's appraisals regarding…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which cooperating agricultural education teachers used selected supervision models. The relationships between maturity characteristics of the cooperating teachers and their choices of a supervision model were also examined. Results showed that cooperating teachers commonly used clinical,…

Professional standards in teaching are developed in many education systems, with professional learning and quality assurance being the central purposes of these standards. This paper presents an initiative in developing a professional development progress map (hereafter, progress map) within a learning-oriented field experience assessment (LOFEA) …