This paper discusses research on teacher preparation and teaching in diverse settings, using data from questionnaires about various courses and components of one teacher education program. Student teachers completed questionnaires before and after student teaching, and cooperating teachers completed them at the end of student teaching. All student…

This paper describes the preliminary findings of a national survey of state requirements for cooperating classroom teachers serving as supervisors of student teaching. It represents a 90 percent national response, with data from all but five states (i.e., Kansas, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Texas, and Utah). Reported information includes: (1)…

This preliminary study reviews the journals of two teachers working side-by-side, a supervising teacher/mentor and a student teacher. The student teacher, a certification student, had a business degree, had worked in the business world for three years, and wanted to become an elementary classroom teacher. The supervising teacher, an experienced…

Numerous reports calling for reform in education have resulted in trends showing greater emphasis toward practical preparation experiences in teacher education. Many teacher education programs now stress more hours of teacher preparation devoted to professional education curriculum, strengthened and longer clinical experiences, stronger guidelines…

This paper describes a model of a field based or clinical experience program for prospective teachers. An overview of issues and concerns regarding field experiences and student teaching describes the traditional approach to supervised practice teaching. In a discussion of contemporary perspectives on student teaching programs, it is noted that…

This study sought to determine the ranked importance of the teaching tasks to be demonstrated by physical education student teachers as perceived by cooperating teachers and supervisors. The study was designed specifically to detect the nature of the tasks ranked highly by each group. Questionnaires were sent to 91 cooperating teachers and 30…

Research about student attitudes toward preservice teaching experience focused on two primary questions: (1) What do undergraduate education students expect from early field experiences? and (2) What underlying construct can be inferred from these expectations which may be useful in shaping future experiences? Two types of data were collected from…

This study sought to identify and compare the concerns of teaching interns (N=56) with cooperating teachers' (N=37) perceptions of intern concerns before and after a 10-week internship period. To provide insight into the differences, the Johari Window framework, a technique used in group process programs to depict how individuals give and receive…

The purpose of the study described in this paper was to explore the experience of student teachers working in a track-system and the meaning drawn from that experience. In order to gain access to this meaning, the method of in-depth, phenomenological interviewing was utilized. This research model is based on a format that one makes meaning of his…

A study analyzed the experiences of 10 student teachers, 5 of whom taught in a traditional program and 5 of whom taught without cooperating teachers. The study's purpose was to gain insight into factors influencing views and actions of student teachers and to determine why they did or did not correspond to views they expressed after participating…

This paper discusses the perceptions of student teachers, cooperating teachers and pupils in two social studies lessons. Videotapes of two student teachers in action in the classroom were used for stimulated recall interviews in which they discussed their perceptions and feelings about their own performance, their cooperating teacher's reactions,…

This study explores the contradictory two-fold role of the student teacher who is both a student and a teacher. Student or intern teaching is seen as a formalized transition from the role of student to that of teacher and, as such, a transitional period characterized by ambivalent feelings, insecurity, and contradictions. Participants in the study…

These case studies show how to improve the pre-service teaching experience by mentoring cooperating teachers. The case studies come from a Professional Development School (PDS) involving a large university and small secondary school. A system of "super cooperating teachers" was implemented in the PDS to accommodate all of the student teachers at…

This qualitative research, based on interviews with 30 secondary-level cooperating teachers, examines the student teaching experience from the perspective of the cooperative teacher. In the interviews, cooperating teachers identified many changes in their own classroom practices that occurred as a result of their experiences with student teachers.…

This study was conducted to learn how a new "experience" component in education foundations' core course work would be evaluated by teacher-trainees and their critic teachers, who were experienced classroom teachers. Project subjects were 186 men and women (84 senior students in a required Foundations of Education senior level core course, and 102…