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…

Over the course of nine years as a supervisor of intern teachers, the first author collected observations of game play during lessons taught by intern teachers or their mentors. In general, the observations indicated that the majority of students got limited practice opportunities during game play. A close look at the data revealed an interesting…

This paper provides a conceptual framework for developing high-quality professional experiences for pre-service teachers. The paper begins with a discussion of how professional experiences are conceptualised, structured and supervised in each of three orientations, which we have termed traditional, reflective and learning communities. We then…

Creating the most effective and well-educated teachers possible has been always the clear focus of the Teacher Education Department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK). During the academic year of 1999-2000, a tripartite task force was created for the College of Education at UNK to identify areas in need of revision or elimination from…

Student teaching (guided teaching by a prospective teacher under the supervision of an experienced "cooperating" teacher) provides an important opportunity for prospective teachers to increase their understanding of mathematics in and for teaching. The interactions between a student teacher and cooperating teacher provide an obvious mechanism for…

The imperative for prospective teachers, school districts, Illinois policy makers and the public as a whole to know more about teacher preparation is the motivation behind this report. At the request of Advance Illinois, the authors evaluated 111 undergraduate and graduate programs in 53 education schools as well as three "independent…

For the past six years, the Cranford Public School District and Seton Hall University in northern New Jersey, USA, have been Professional Development School partners. As a result of this partnership, experienced teachers have systematically mentored pre-service candidates in university field experiences. The Japanese practice of Lesson Study was…

The aim of this study is to determine the level of opportunities given to science student teachers by practice schools in order to reflect their skills they acquired through curricula in their faculty. This study has been carried out by using case study approach. As the first step, the curricula of the teaching professional courses offered in…

Teacher education has struggled to better prepare beginning teachers for an increasingly diverse student population. This research examines the role that cooperating teachers play in developing multicultural/equity pedagogy knowledge and skills among student teachers. Five cooperating teachers working in California, USA, each of whom had extensive…

The purpose of the study was to examine student teachers' perceptions of teaching writing in kindergartens and to identify to what extent the cooperating teachers influence the student teachers' perceptions. To achieve the research aims, a 31-item questionnaire was developed by the researchers and administered to 50 student teachers and their…

The work of teacher candidates matters in particular ways to the quality of children's experiences and environments when they teach in preschools. We conducted a mixed-method study with survey, interviews, focus groups, and photographic documentation of classroom spaces, and theorized findings through Bahktin's dialogism and the notion of figured…

This article explores the experiences of 8 Inuit curriculum authors in the Nunavut Territory of Canada during the creation of "Inuuqatigiit: The Curriculum From the Inuit Perspective". The "Inuuqatigiit" authors' story is examined in terms of the group coming together, their work with elders, the educational community's…

The metaphorical basis of teacher reflection about teaching and learning has been a rich area of theory and research. This is a study of metaphor as a shared system of interpretation and classification, which teachers and student teachers and their supervising teachers can cooperatively explore. This study employs metaphor as a means of research…