Teaching efficacy beliefs of agricultural science student teachers, and their relationship with their cooperating teachers during field experiences, are variables that may affect the number of student teachers entering the profession. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects implementing structured communication between student teachers and cooperating teachers would have on student teachers’ self-perceived teaching efficacy, and the relationship between the student teacher and cooperating teacher during the student teaching experience. The learning environment of these field experiences must be more fully understood to explain why some student teachers enter the profession of agriculture science teaching, and others do not. A conceptual model guiding this study, based upon a thorough review of the literature, explains the role of constructivism, teaching efficacy, and communication theory. This study employed a quasi-experimental design with a non-random sample in a multiple time-series design. The average respondent in this study was a 23 year old white undergraduate female placed at a multiple placement cooperating center. Respondents in an environment where the amount and type of communication between student teachers and cooperating teachers was structured were less efficacious when compared to those respondents who were not in a structured communication setting. In addition, student teachers in a structured communication environment declined in their teaching efficacy measurements overall, whereas student teachers who were not involved in structured communication increased in their self-perceived teaching efficacy levels. Through contrast analysis, the age and academic standing of student teachers significantly affected their perception of the value cooperating teachers placed upon student teacher – cooperating teacher relationships. Structured communication influences student teachers’ beliefs regarding their ability to teach and their perception of their relationship with the cooperating teacher. In order to better understand the perceptions of student teachers regarding their teaching efficacy levels, and the student teacher – cooperating teacher relationship, additional research should be conducted in these identified areas. In addition, further research should be conducted on these variables at other institutions of higher education with teacher preparation programs in agricultural education.

Teaching efficacy beliefs of agricultural science student teachers, and their relationship with their cooperating teachers during field experiences, are variables that may affect the number of student teachers entering the profession. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects implementing structured communication between student teachers and cooperating teachers would have on student teachers’ self-perceived teaching efficacy, and the relationship between the student teacher and cooperating teacher during the student teaching experience. The learning environment of these field experiences must be more fully understood to explain why some student teachers enter the profession of agriculture science teaching, and others do not. A conceptual model guiding this study, based upon a thorough review of the literature, explains the role of constructivism, teaching efficacy, and communication theory. This study employed a quasi-experimental design with a non-random sample in a multiple time-series design. The average respondent in this study was a 23 year old white undergraduate female placed at a multiple placement cooperating center. Respondents in an environment where the amount and type of communication between student teachers and cooperating teachers was structured were less efficacious when compared to those respondents who were not in a structured communication setting. In addition, student teachers in a structured communication environment declined in their teaching efficacy measurements overall, whereas student teachers who were not involved in structured communication increased in their self-perceived teaching efficacy levels. Through contrast analysis, the age and academic standing of student teachers significantly affected their perception of the value cooperating teachers placed upon student teacher – cooperating teacher relationships. Structured communication influences student teachers’ beliefs regarding their ability to teach and their perception of their relationship with the cooperating teacher. In order to better understand the perceptions of student teachers regarding their teaching efficacy levels, and the student teacher – cooperating teacher relationship, additional research should be conducted in these identified areas. In addition, further research should be conducted on these variables at other institutions of higher education with teacher preparation programs in agricultural education.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the effects of the student teaching experience on secondary agricultural education teachers. Eight of the thirteen participants in this study served as a cooperating teacher during the 2012 spring semester for pre-service teachers in agricultural education from a land-grant institution. Three of the participants had served as a cooperating teacher during either the 2010 or 2011 spring semester but had reported a negative student teaching experience with their last student teacher. Two of the participants had served as pilot interviews for the study, but they were added as participants during the analysis of the study. The participants provided interviews, opportunities for professional observations, and teaching documents for analysis. Four major themes emerged in the study 1) The professional identities of secondary agricultural education teachers are affected by their membership in the pre-service teacher community. 2) Secondary agricultural education teachers volunteer as cooperating teachers to help others and themselves professionally. 3) Secondary agricultural education teachers empower themselves and other members of their communities through their leadership due to their strong sense of political efficacy. 4) The professional practices of agriculture teachers are influenced by their service as a cooperating teacher. / Ph. D.

The problem of this study was the extent of the relationship between the classroom verbal behavior of the cooperating teacher and that of the student teacher. The purpose of this study was to determine if the student teacher tends to imitate the verbal classroom behavior of the cooperating teacher.

This dissertation explores what cooperating secondary science teachers attend to during observations of pre-service teachers as they enact lessons in their classrooms and how they make sense of what they see. This study applies the teacher noticing framework, recently used in research with mathematics, to the secondary science context and uses it to describe teacher attention. The study also aims to determine if cooperating teachers use the act of noticing to engage in pedagogical reasoning and draw connections to their own teaching practice. As an interpretive qualitative study, the format for data collection and analysis utilized a case-study methodology with cross-case analysis, and used semi-structured interviews, lesson debriefs, collected artifacts, and classroom observations. Data on the four study participants was collected over the 2011-2012 school year. Findings support several conclusions. First, the cooperating science teachers in this study regularly engaged in reflection and pedagogical reasoning through the act of noticing. Second, the cooperating teachers made regular connections to their own practice in the form of vicarious suggestions, reflective questions, comparisons of practice, and perspective shifts. These connections fostered the emergence of "pivotal moments" or times when the cooperating science teacher self-identified a desire to change their current practice. Third, cooperating teachers used observations of pre-service teachers in their classrooms as a form of professional experimentation and built knowledge in practice through the experience. Lastly, the findings suggest that observations of pre-service teachers be added to the list of professional development activities, like video analysis and lesson study, that help teachers reflect on their own practice. For science teacher educators, this study demonstrates the importance of attending to field experiences as a learning opportunity for the science cooperating teacher. It provides a new way of looking at classroom observations as professional development opportunities and it recommends that teacher preparation programs reconceptualize the tasks they ask cooperating teachers to engage in. Suggestions include designing observation tools that direct teacher noticing toward student learning in science, viewing cooperating science teachers as learners, including metacognitive activities for cooperating science teachers, and reorienting lesson debriefs toward a notion of classroom inquiry. / text

Nearly all research that seeks to assist in reforming mathematics student teaching in the United States has been limited in that it (1) does not consider student teaching models in non-Western cultures, and (2) has not sufficiently studied the unique context of mathematics in student teacher-cooperating teacher interactions. This multi-case study addresses these issues by analyzing the interactions between three cooperating teachers and two student teachers in the mathematics student teaching setting in Japan. Four conclusions are presented to generate a coherent picture of the principles of teaching and learning to teach that are emphasized during this Japanese student teaching experience.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe how professional educators make sense of their role in helping novice practitioners make meaning from authentic clinical practice. Simultaneously studying a clinical educator from teacher and graduate medical education, and subsequently setting their stories side by side, speaks to the interest both professions have in learning from the other. Both clinical educators were Board certified in their respective area of practice. In-depth phenomenological interviewing was used as the study’s methodology, and the professional formation construct served as the study’s conceptual framework. Data corroborate findings in the literature that there is a lack of consensus about what the clinical educator role entails. Participants showed alignment with the professional formation conceptual framework and demonstrated that the clinical educator role is multifaceted, complex, and made up of more than discrete functions. Their capacity to support professional formation comes from their ownership of a special mix of cognitive and behavioral processes, professional knowledge, and personal attributes. Given both professions’ interest in and ongoing efforts to improve clinical education, the study can help both continue their work toward understanding the clinical educator role and ensuring that people selected for the role are chosen through thoughtful methods and provided with clinical-educator-specific professional development throughout the professional lifespan.

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In order to investigate ways pre-service student teachers (PSTs) might learn to teach with high-level tasks and effectively incorporate student thinking into their lessons a teaching experiment was designed and carried out by the cooperating teacher/researcher (CT). The intervention was for the CT to interject into the lessons of the PSTs during moments of opportunity. By interjecting a small question or comment during the lesson the CT hoped to support the learning of both the students of mathematics in the class and the PSTs. This in-the-moment interjecting was meant to enhance and underscore the situated learning of the PSTs within the context of actual practice. Essentially the PSTs learned how to manage and improve the discourse of the classroom in the moment of the discourse. This study utilized both an ongoing analysis of the data during collection in order to inform the instruction provided by the CT and a retrospective analysis of the data in order to develop an understanding of the developmental sequence through which PSTs progressed. The results suggest the interjections provided to the PSTs served multiple roles within the domains of mathematical development for the students of mathematics and pedagogical development for the PSTs. A classification of the interjections that occurred and the stages of development through which PSTs passed will be discussed. Implications from this work include increased attention to the groundwork leading up to the student teaching experience as well as an adjustment to the role of cooperating teacher to be more that of a teacher educator.

No description available.