This study examined the experience of three secondary science student teachers from Western Oregon State College in Monmouth, Oregon during the Spring quarter of 1990. The question was: What is student teaching like from the point of view of the student teacher? The research methodology was qualitative, more specifically participant observation, prolonged engagement, and using the Constant Comparative Model. Data sources included audio taped journals from the student teachers, transcribed audio tapes from seminars, video tapes of teaching, rich descriptions from field notes made by the researcher, a journal from one cooperating teacher, and a journal kept by the researcher. Analysis of the data set produced 81 coding categories. A data set was marked, cut and filed under these coding categories. Patterns and generalizations were drawn from the categorized data set. The three student teachers had widely varied experiences. The analysis of data resulted in the generation of seven hypotheses concerning student teaching. They were as follows: 1. Student teachers react to the student teaching experience differently. 2. The student teaching experience may be so complex that a total, Gestalt, understanding of it is not possible. 3. For some student teachers, there is a critical point, called The Wall. 4. The nature of the critical point and the outcomes of the experience vary greatly among the student teachers. 5. Student teachers need a support group or support individual available during the student teaching experience. 6. The cooperating teacher(s) is/are a stronger influence on the student teacher than is the college supervisor. 7. The predictors for success in student teaching that were used in this study are likely unreliable. / Graduation date: 1991

The primary purpose of the study was to determine whether there was a significant relationship among perceptions of university supervisors, cooperating teachers, student teachers, and building principals regarding characteristics required to become an effective university supervisor of student teachers.In order to examine the research questions, data were collected from each of the four population groups with a questionnaire consisting of twenty-three supervisory characteristics. Twenty-three null hypotheses were tested by using the Chi square test of independence. The .05 level of significance was established as the critical probability level for the rejection of hypotheses.Findings1. There was a statistically significant difference among university supervisors, cooperating teachers, student teachers, and building principals in their perceptions regarding nineteen of the supervisory characteristics.2. There was no significant difference among university supervisors, cooperating teachers, student teachers, and building principals in their perceptions regarding four of the supervisory characteristics.3. The average number of years teaching experience was 18.4 for university supervisors, 13.5 for cooperating teachers, and 17.6 for building principals.4. The average number of years of supervising student teachers was 9.9 for university supervisors, 5.2 for cooperating teachers, and 8.1 for building principals.5. There were 46.4 percent of university supervisors, 7.8 percent of cooperating teachers, and 22.2 percent of building principals who possessed supervisory training.6. Reflecting a positive professional attitude and a real liking and respect for teaching are the most important characteristics needed by university supervisors.7. There was an observable difference in the perceptions of practitioners regarding characteristics required to be an effective university supervisor of student teachers, when compared to reports in related literature.Conclusions1. Subjects tend to agree in their perceptions regarding the importance of personal qualities and professional skills.2. Subjects tend not to agree in their perceptions regarding the importance of managerial skills and general qualities.3. Cooperating teachers tend to have fewer years of teaching experience.4. Cooperating teachers have considerably less supervisory experience.5. A high percentage of the subjects was not properly trained in student teaching supervision.

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2003. / Thesis advisor: H. Jane Fried. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Counseling." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-46). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Exploring school advisors' practices: Dwelling in/between the tectonic spaces is a story about three teachers assisting their student teachers in becoming teachers, and my safari through their landscapes; what i describe as dwelling in/between the tectonic spaces. Those spaces between school advising and student teaching, desire and fear, comfortable and uncomfortable, predictable and unpredictable, all speak to the fact that school advising is a complex phenomena. The exploration began with two research questions that guided the study: what is the school advisor's understanding of her practice? What is the school advisor's understanding of how one becomes a teacher? i worked with three school advisors from two large urban secondary schools during the 13 week secondary student teaching practicum in the 1994/95 school year. Diane and Jill came from Maskini Secondary School. They worked with one student teacher, Betty. Jessica came from Lord Cook Secondary School, and worked with two student teachers, Chety and Tiany. Several data generating procedures were integrated and a co-researching relationship fostered between the school advisors and me. The data generating procedures were conversations, participant observations, video and audio-taping. Student teacher assessment forms written by the school advisors were part of the data; and i kept a journal throughout the study. As i became immersed in the study, listened to several conferences between school advisors and student teachers, and held various conversations-on-actions with the school advisors, i realized i was dealing with a very complex phenomenon. Interpreting the data from the point of view of the two research questions that i began with, and trying to understand the school advisors' practices and their understanding of how one becomes a teacher from that view, would have meant camouflaging the dynamics and conflictual nature of such practices. Asking a what is question demanded that i objectify the school advisors. That would have meant sealing myself off from the atmosphere that i inhabited in those classrooms, the sounds of pedagogy that i heard, and the smiles that radiated the rooms. That would have meant not acknowledging what it was like for me inhabiting places full of love and hope. It would have also meant blocking off the painful moments that were evident at times. The moments and situations speak of what and how school advising was like and could be like. The data transformed the research questions. The complexity of school advising needed to be spoken of according to what it was like and could be like. Thus, what school advising was like and can be like or what the 1994/95 practicum was like for the school advisors is told in narratives and metaphors generated from the various conversations. The narratives, the situations, and the metaphors speak about what we have to grasp as a whole. They help us understand each advising of a student teacher by a school advisor on a certain day, in the tone of a previous incident, reminder, and suggestion. The narrative fragments and the synopsis make sense in the whole. Like parables they constitute what Paul Ricouer calls "networks of intersignifications." i have used geographical terms such as safari, tectonic, landscape, terrain, and paths, to communicate what the practicum was like for us as co-researchers. This study assists us in understanding what school advising could be like by offering accounts of what it was like for the co-researchers, Jill, Jessica, Diane, and myself. These accounts describe school advising and student teaching as processes of reorientation by disorientation which can be tectonic. For student teachers, the practicum is a reorientation to what was familiar when they were secondary students. For school advisors, the practicum is familiar because it is a yearly occurrence. However, this study found that student teaching and school advising can be very disorienting processes to the parties involved. The tectonicness highlight the need to nurture relationships in teacher education programs which include pedagogical relationships in the classrooms, triadic relationships during the practicum, student teacher-student teacher relationships, and, school advisor-student teacher relationships.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1999. / Includes bibliography (p. 841-843).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 285-291). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript. Sponsor: F. B. Stratemeyer. Dissertation Committee: D. M. McGeoch, K. W. Bigelow. Type C project. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [286]-289).

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2004. / Title from title page screen, viewed November 17, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Norma C. Presmeg (chair), Cynthia W. Langrall, Edward S. Mooney. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 289-301) and abstract. Also available in print.