The clinical internship--also called student teaching--represents one of the most important experiences of teacher preparation programs nationwide yet remains not well understood. This article focuses on the experiences of teacher candidates who have struggled in their schools. Here we present data from a survey administered to 107 undergraduate…

This study examined to whom 43 elementary and secondary teacher education students at a large Southwestern university turned for help regarding problems during their student-teaching internship. Participants were asked to complete a survey related to student teaching. In addition, 5 students were interviewed as a follow-up to the survey. Of the…

Examined the impact of a reflective, research oriented internship program on the development of preservice teachers' classroom management beliefs. Survey data indicated that program participation impacted both personal and general efficacy as well as beliefs about classroom management style. There were significant gender differences in…

Reexamined Fuller's concerns-based model of teacher development, investigating teacher development during a two-semester teaching internship program by examining patterns of evolving concerns and aspirations. Results supported and extended Fuller's developmental model. Interns' concerns shifted outward from self, to tasks, to students, as well as…

Studied six intern teachers' reflections on past and future teaching experiences, noting the need for more emphasis on reflection to help prospective teachers look ahead as well as back. Themes emerging from interns' graphical and verbal descriptions of their internships were: discrepancy between anticipated and actual experience; reliance on…

Statewide concern for the quality of public school education in Louisiana led to the passage of a law which created the Louisiana Teaching Internship Program (LTIP) in 1984. The purpose of LTIP is to provide new teachers with a formalized support network and assessment system linked to professional certification. The purpose of this study was to…

Pertinent questions are raised which challenge the appropriateness of the student teaching experience. Research studies have shown that many beginning teachers found great difference between the more protected experience of student teaching and the real world of the beginning teacher who takes on the full responsibilities of the classroom. Future…

Describes a cross-cultural, equal status internship designed to prepare teachers for diverse classrooms, examining its influence on prospective teachers' emerging sociocultural perspectives and raced identities and exploring successes and challenges of this experience and what has been learned about supporting more mature anti-racist identities in…

This study was conducted to examine how a college supervisor can reduce stress in the post-conference analysis of a lesson taught by an intern, and to determine the merits of both informal and formal post-conferencing. Informal post-conferencing was introduced to create a more relaxed, comfortable, and less rigid environment to alleviate intern…

This paper reports on data from a 4-year, cross-sectional study of preservice teachers who participated in a yearlong Professional Development School internship/student teaching experience. Preservice teachers worked in classrooms with mentor teachers for two 8-week placements during the fall semester and returned to student teach with the same…

This paper describes the Sophomore Multicultural Internship for preservice teachers at Moorhead State University, Minnesota. From 1990-95, the program immersed preservice teachers in cross-cultural encounters and K-12 clinical experiences intended to: engender enlightened tolerance; provide an embedded context for making moral choices to pursue…

This study described the internship of two English language arts interns, examining how their perceptions evolved during the 4.5-month, senior-year internship. The study investigated how the internship affected their perceptions of and beliefs about (1) themselves as teachers, (2) teacher professionalism, (3) their effectiveness as change agents,…

This phenomenological case study explored how preservice teachers in a Professional Development School (PDS) internship program experienced supervision. It examined how the interns portrayed and interpreted practices that emerged from the PDS context, how they understood supervision, what the process looked like from their perspective, and what…