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A challenge faced by agricultural educators across the country is a lack of qualified teachers entering the profession. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between student teacher perceptions of the student teacher/cooperating teacher relationship and the decision to enter the teaching profession. Background/demographic characteristics were also examined to determine if relationships existed with the decision about entering teaching. These characteristics included gender, age, academic classification, race/ethnicity, previous agricultural work experience, and semesters of high school agricultural science courses completed. The target population of this study consisted of preservice agricultural education students at Texas A&M University. The sample consisted of 33 student teachers who completed their student teaching in the fall semester 2004. The instrument consisted of three parts. Part I of the instrument contained six background/demographic variables (gender, age, semesters of high school agricultural science courses completed, academic classification, race/ethnicity, and agricultural work experience). Part II of the instrument contained 14 items measuring student teacher perceptions of the student teacher/cooperating teacher relationship. For each item, participants were asked to indicate the importance of each characteristic and the current level of their cooperating teacher using a modified five point Likert-type scale. Part III of the instrument consisted of a single item, “Do you plan to teach agricultural science when you graduate?” accompanied by a seven point response scale ranging from definitely yes to definitely no. There was no relationship found between the student teacher/cooperating teacher relationship and the decision to teach. However, a relationship was found between previous agricultural work experience and the decision to teach, as well as a relationship between the semesters of high school agricultural science courses competed and the decision to teach. By knowing how many high school agricultural science courses a student had completed, one could better predict the decision to teach. As a result of the study, the researcher recommends that agricultural education programs recruit students who have completed high school agriculture courses. High school agricultural science teachers should encourage their students to pursue careers in agricultural education.

A plethora of literature on cooperating teachers exists, but it is written from university researchers’ perspectives, leaving cooperating teachers’ voices silenced. Most researchers discuss what cooperating teachers do rather than who cooperating teachers say they are, particularly when they speak of themselves as teacher educators. The focus of this study was specifically on music cooperating teachers, and its purpose was to investigate their identities as narrative constructions. I employed Connelly and Clandinin’s (1999) stories to live by, Bruner’s (1987; 1991; 2002) self-making, and Ricoeur’s ipse-identity and idem-identity to suggest that identity stories were multiple, mobile, and contingent. Still, human beings sought continuity in their identity stories over time, and such stories were shaped in social and institutional contexts. Using touchstones of narrative inquiry (see Clandinin & Caine, 2013), I held six planned conversations with two other music cooperating teachers, which first generated field texts, and then, led to many follow-up conversations. The participants and I engaged in an eight-month process of co-constructing interim research texts. Clandinin acknowledged that, because identity stories were works in progress, standard research texts often were ineffective vehicles used to convey narrative identity. Therefore, I implemented a novella, an emotional story relying on character development, to present the final research text, and I entitled it “Between the Hedges.” Within my interpretations and reflections on “Between the Hedges,” I discussed how, when considering ourselves as music teacher educators, we told public and private stories of family and school, further situated as children, students, and parents. Parents and music teachers were highly influential figures, and not always in positive ways. Although the situated identity stories were multiple, each cooperating teacher wove a thread of sameness between his or her stories as they were retold and relived. I concluded that the sameness in each story was key to understanding rationales for cooperating teachers’ practices of mentoring student teachers.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to examine how cooperating teachers’ narrative authority was revealed or strengthened within an intentionally formed knowledge community established to create a safe space for cooperating teachers to story and restory their experiences as music teacher educators. The conceptions of knowledge communities and narrative authority, grounded in Dewey’s theory of experience and narrative knowing, followed the research line of Connelly and Clandinin (1990). Concepts of interest emerging from this framework were cooperating teachers’ personal practical knowledge, continuity of experience between their stories, interaction with others in specific contexts, features of the professional knowledge landscape of music teacher education, and tensions arising from cooperating teachers’ positions on the landscape relative to the conduit. Of particular interest was how the strengthening of narrative authority within the knowledge community would allow cooperating teachers to question taken-for-granted notions of teacher education. The knowledge community, which included three participants and myself, met twice during the course of the study, but maintained continuous communication through conversations and emails. Observations were conducted during the student teaching practicum. Field notes were also an important part of the data collected. Data analysis and representation were situated within the three-dimensional inquiry space described by Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and drew on a variety of methods. Issues of researcher subjectivity and ethics were addressed through enacting the principles of resonant work in narrative inquiry in music education (Stauffer & Barrett, 2009). Four story categories emerged from the data: stories of established practice, stories of influential relationships, stories of tension, and stories of possibility. Laying alongside the stories of each participant created a thematic dialogue that gives readers a seat at the table to experience their stories and a jumping off point to add their own. There is potential for this type of knowledge community to strengthen practice by creating a space for sharing previously untold stories of practice. The process of looking back at past practices, reflecting on current practices, and reimagining future practices within the knowledge community strengthened narrative authority in a way that opened the possibility to trouble certainty.

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The purpose of the study was to identify the effects of the influence of cooperating teachers on how student teachers prioritize particular goals of education. This was accomplished by administering a predetermined list of eighteen educational goals to a group of student teachers prior and subsequent to their quarter-long student teaching experience, and to their respective cooperating teachers during their student teaching quarter. The list enabled the teacher groups to rank the goals in order of priority. In this way the cooperating teachers' goal rankings were compared to both the student teachers' pre and post student teaching goal rankings. Twenty-three student teachers and their respective cooperating teachers in secondary and special education served as subjects. The Phi Delta Kappa Goal Setting Instrument was used as the goals list in the study. The questions explored were: 1) are there differences between the relative importance as signed to selected educational goals by student teachers prior to the student teaching experience and the relative importance assigned to the same goals by the cooperating teachers; 2) are there differences in the relative importance assigned to selected educational goals by student teachers before their student teaching experience as compared to their assigned rankings after their student teaching experience; and 3) is there a relationship between any changes in the relative importance assigned by the student teachers prior and subsequent to the student teaching experience and the relative importance assigned by the cooperating teachers. To test the hypotheses under investigation, eighteen one-way analyses of variance with repeated measures were computed. Significant F ratios were found for two of the eighteen goals; the remaining F ratios were not statistically significant. The results suggest some tentative support for student teachers' goal prioritizations of two goals changing after the student teaching experience. Some tentative support was also suggested on these two goals for the student teachers' goal prioritizations changing after the student teaching experience to become more similar to the cooperating teacher' s goal prioritizations. However, the lack of significant change in sixteen of the eighteen goals more strongly suggested that the influence of a) the experience of the student teaching activity and b) the cooperating teachers' own goals prioritization biases upon the student teachers did not markedly affect student teacher goal prioritization behavior. The possibilities that the teacher groups had initial general agreement on goal priorities, that the goals may represent stable educational values, and that instrumentation concerns may have affected the results were then discussed.

This research study aims to investigate how cooperating teachers (CTs) in Partnership Schools working with pre-service teachers (PTs) from Universities in Ankara and Bursa reflect on challenges they face according to their own perceived roles and responsibilities in the process of implementing their complicated and demanding work to contribute to pre-service teacher training in schools. The present study specifically focuses on cooperating teachers&amp / #8217 / perceived challenges in relation to the feedback process and their cooperation with pre-service teachers to fulfill their roles and responsibilities to understand the nature of cooperating teachers&amp / #8217 / work, and how such recognition and understanding could empower all the parties involved- cooperating teachers and pre-service teachers with the aim of making the school experience more beneficial for pre-service teachers. The results of data collection show that CTs need further training in almost all aspects of their work directly related to the teaching learning environment in schools. Areas of their work that need improvement are also introduced, and recommendations to cope with challenges are presented.

xiv, 143 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This descriptive study collected both qualitative data and quantitative data to gain an increased understanding of changes in interns and cooperating teachers during student teaching in music. Five dyads consisting of an intern and a cooperating teacher participated. I gathered quantitative data through analysis of 20 videotaped teaching episodes: one of each intern and cooperating teacher at the beginning and near the end of each placement. Two recognized experts in music student teaching viewed the episodes in randomized order. The experts scored the episodes on 30 items using the Survey of Teaching Effectiveness (STE). The experts also gave an overall rating of each lesson's quality. Additionally, I tallied statements of reinforcement as either specific or nonspecific and as either statements of approval or disapproval . An additional category was found during analysis: nonfunctional communication . I gathered quantitative and qualitative data with a one-page demographic survey and by individual interviews. Though the participants were unanimous in stating that the interns improved as teachers during the placement, no quantitative differences were found. Interns all experienced fulfilled expectations, effective preparation, capable application, increased professionalization, and successful induction. Cooperating teachers were agreed that their interns came into the placement prepared to be successful in student teaching. / Committee in charge: Harry Price, Chairperson, Music; Sharon Paul, Member, Music; David Doerksen, Member, Music; Roland Good, Outside Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences

abstract: Experienced mentor teachers that are prepared for the task of mentoring pre-service teachers are highly valued. Few studies in music education address the music teachers’ role of mentor or the music mentor’s perceptions and practices within the mentoring process. This study investigates the experiences and practices of music mentor teachers and how they construct an understanding of their mentoring role. Guiding questions were: 1) How do music teachers describe their mentoring experiences and practices? 2) What do music teachers’ descriptions of their mentoring experiences and practices reveal about their understanding of the mentoring role? and 3) What types of preparation and support do music teachers feel they need to serve in this role? Four music teacher mentors served as participants for this study. Participants described their mentoring experiences and practices in working with student teachers and responded to questions in three in-depth interviews over three semesters. Each interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, and verified for accuracy and clarification. Findings indicate that 1) Mentors tend to rely on their own student teaching experience and beliefs about teaching when working with student teachers; 2) Mentors construct their own conceptions of the mentor role, mentoring style and relationships based on personality and their beliefs about what mentoring is and is not; 3) The rewards of mentoring are closely tied to student teacher growth and successful relationships, and challenged by issues of time and student teacher readiness; and 4) Learning to mentor is like learning to teach. It is a process learned over time and requires experience. Music education programs and teacher educators should consider preparing student teachers and the cooperating mentor teachers who work with them, by discussing mentor relationships and role expectations within the student teacher triad. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2019