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. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 110 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-63).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1967. / Title from title page screen, viewed Aug. 10, 2004. Dissertation Committee: Elwood Egelston (chair), Leo Eastmen, Stanley Shuman. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-142). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-231).

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

The study was designed to gather data on both a control and an experimental group of student teachers throughout the duration of the professional semester (January - May, 1970) which could serve as a basis for a decision relevant to future structural changes in the professional semester for secondary student teachers at Butler University.The study was designed to test the following hypotheses stated in null form:Hypothesis I: There will be no significant difference between experimental and control groups in measures of emotional stability when the individuals in each group assume the duties of a full-time student teacher during the practicum part of the professional semester.Hypothesis II; There will be no significant difference between experimental and control groups in measures of actual social stability when the individuals in each group begin the duties of a full-time student teacher during the practicum part of the professional semester.Hypothesis III: There will be no significant difference between the individuals in the experimental and the control groups in the measure of professional satisfaction which will be derived from the student teaching experience.Hypothesis IV: There will be no significant difference between the experimental and the control group in the measure of confidence possessed at the beginning of the full-time student teaching experience.Hypothesis V: There will be no significant difference between the experimental and the control groups in the measure of student teachercooperating teacher satisfaction with the organizational structure of each professional semester.Included in the existing professional semester were four days of pre student teaching observation in the students' assigned schools. The professional semester for the experimental group included twelve days of pre student teaching visitation and participation in the students' assigned schools.The Edwards Personal Preference Schedule was utilized in a pre test-post test situation for both groups during the first half of the semester to assess the variables, emotional stability and social stability. The Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory, was administered to the groups just before and immediately after the student teaching experience to obtain an expression by the student teachers for the variable, the level of professional satisfaction which was derived from the practicum. A two-tailed test of significance was used for the difference in group mean scores at the .05 and .01 levels. A cooperating Teacher Opinionnaire and a Student Teacher Opinionnaire were administered at the beginning of the full-time student teaching experience to secure an assessment relative to the variables, amount of confidence possessed by each student teacher and the amount of satisfaction expressed with the structure of each secondary professional semester. The Likert Method of scoring responses was used in conjunction with a one-tailed t test of significance at the .05 and .01 levels to determine if any significant difference between the mean scores for each group had resulted.All five null hypotheses were accepted. No significant relationship existed between an increase in the number of school days spent in pre student teaching observation/participation during the professional semester, and the (1) stability of emotional self-concepts of student teachers, (2) social self-concepts of student teachers, (3) level of professional satisfaction of the student teachers, (4) confidence of the student teachers to begin teaching, and (5) satisfaction of the student teachers and cooperating teachers with the organizational structure of each professional semester at Butler University as measured by the instruments utilized.Data relative to the following variables: (1) knowledge of students by the student teachers, (2) substantial professional involvement of the student teachers, and (3) continuity of school and college experiences, as provided by the Student Teacher Opinionnaire suggest that the experimental design of the professional semester did make a significant difference in the responses of the participants.In spite of the acceptance of the null hypotheses of the study, subjective evidence indicated that the experimental professional semester better met the needs of teacher education at Butler University than did the existing professional semester. More detailed guidelines concerning pre student teaching visitation objectives should be created for student teachers and cooperating teachers. Pre professional semester meetings should occur between the cooperating teachers and the designated college supervisor. Continued effort should be made to relate the general methods classwork to actual problems encountered in teaching.