Cooperating Teachers Perceptions Of The Student Teaching Experience

This study describes 29 cooperating teachers' perceptions of the student teaching experience. Because cooperating teachers are an integral part of teacher education programs, it is important to learn more about how elementary and secondary cooperating teachers view their roles. Fifteen elementary and 14 secondary cooperating teachers were interviewed about their perceptions of their work with student teachers. The research questions were: (a) What are cooperating teachers' perceptions of their responsibility for interacting with student teachers? (b) How do cooperating teachers report making decisions about student teachers' classroom responsibilities? (c) What are cooperating teachers' perceptions of the purposes of student teaching? (d) How do cooperating teachers describe their roles? (e) How do cooperating teachers perceive their own professional learning as a result of working with student teachers? The interview data document that there are more similarities than differences between elementary and secondary cooperating teachers' views of their work. Both elementary and secondary teachers had plans for gradually easing student teachers into classroom responsibilities. They used the same indicators of readiness for teaching. They perceived themselves as valuable partners in the process of teacher education. Having worked with many student teachers, the cooperating teachers in this study perceived that their classrooms served as laboratories for learning how to teach. They also felt that student teachers were able to learn about children. The major difference between elementary and secondary teachers was that teachers' expectations for student teachers at the secondary level were more content specific. Elementary teachers tended to expect their student teachers to be generalists.