Field Experience Models

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Deepening the Exchange of Student Teaching Experiences: Implications for the pedagogy of teacher education of recent insights into teacher behaviour (2004)
Anke Tigchelaar and Fred Korthagen.
In order to study how teacher education seminars can be arranged in such a way that theory is integrated with student teachers’ practical experiences, this article first presents a theoretical framework on the sources of teacher behavior, followed by a discussion of its implications for practices within teacher education. Next, the authors describe a development research study, which led to the identification of three approaches that can help to integrate student teachers’ experiences with theory. Finally, a five-step procedure characteristic of all three of these approaches is described, illustrating each approach with real-life examples of interventions and their effects.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/tigchelaar_04.pdf

Fieldwork requirements in special education preparation: A national study. Prater, M.A., & Sileo, T.W. (2004). Teacher Education and Special Education, 27(3), 251-263.

Holmes Partnership Website.
A network of more than 80 school-university partnerships in collaboration with key national professional associations and organizations to create high quality professional preparation and development and significant school renewal. The Holmes Scholars Program also enriches the scholarly experience and preparation of talented men and women of color at Holmes institutions who are under-represented in leadership positions in universities and professional development schools.
http://www.holmespartnership.org/ (Holmes Partnership)
http://www.holmes-scholars.org/ (Holmes Scholars Program)

The Impact of an Alternative Model of Student Teacher Supervision: Views of the participants (2006)
Elizabeth Wilson.
This study examines the views of student teachers, classroom teachers, and university-based personnel who participated in an alternative model of student teacher supervision and traditional triad model. A variety of data sources including surveys, interviews, and anecdotal evidence was used to determine the perceptions of the participants. Although there were concerns about the alternative model, the participants viewed it more positively than the traditional triad. Recommendations for teacher education programs and the student teaching experience are made.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/wilson_06.pdf

Impact of Pre-Service Student Teaching Experience on Urban School Teachers (2005)
A total of 204 K-12 teachers were surveyed for the purpose of investigating the effect of pre-service student teaching on teachers' career goals, affective measures and classroom teaching. The study also explored whether different levels of supervision of student teaching may have had different effects on teachers' personal and professional aspects of their job. Among new teachers, those who had student teaching experience had a significantly higher level of job-satisfaction than those who did not have student teaching experience. Teachers who had student teaching tended to show a higher level of confidence in their ability to change student learning in positive ways. Teachers indicated that making a positive impact on students was the most important job factor in their decision to remain in teaching. Teachers indicated lesson planning as the most helpful area and building professional relationships as the least helpful area in which they received help from student teaching..
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/studentteaching2.pdf

An Internship Model to Recruit, Train, and Retain Special Educators for Culturally Diverse Urban Classrooms: A Program Description (2003)
This program description portrays untrained teachers needing current, efficient, relevant, and timely instruction with significant school district and university support. The University of San Francisco's (USF) Mild/Moderate Education Specialist Credential Internship Program was expressly designed to meet the need for more fully credentialed teachers trained specifically to work in diverse urban classrooms.
Andrews, L., Miller, N., Evans, S., & Smith, Sherrye (2003). An internship model to recruit, train, and retain special educators for culturally diverse urban classrooms: A program description. Teacher Education and Special Education, 26 (1), 74-78.

Multiple Voices, Multiple Realities, What Truth? Student teachers’ learning to reflect in different paradigms (2005)
Wilfried Admiraal and Theo Wubbels
Although this article’s primary focus is that of epistemological and methodological beliefs leading to different research approaches and outcomes, the comparison that the article draws on is that of two researchers’ work on a single phenomenon: the use of tele-guidance environments for communication between student teachers and their teacher educators during student teaching. The model for supervision is an interesting one, but it is also enlightening to consider how critical the methods and paradigms being used in the research literature we read should be carefully analyzed.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/admiraal_05.pdf

Reexamining the Field Experiences of Preservice Teachers (2003)
This study spans three consecutive semesters of investigation into the teaching and learning responses of 77 preservice teachers enrolled in a 3-week language arts field practicum just prior to student-teaching. Despite consistent efforts by university professors to help preservice teachers examine theory into practice during their practica, the data indicated that procedural concerns of time management, teaching expected lessons and content, and classroom management most often focused the practicum experience for the preservice teachers.
Moore, R. (2003). Reexamining the field experiences of preservice teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 54 (1), 31-42.

Research on Methods Courses and Field Experiences (2005)
Renee Clift and Patricia Brady. In Studying Teacher Education, Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Kenneth Zeichner (eds.) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
This chapter in the AERA Publication Studying Teacher Education, the authors document the evolution of research in coursework and field experiences from a search for discrete, observable, and measurable teaching behaviors that could impact student attitudes and achievement to more recent investigations of the interactions among thought, intention, belief, behavior, subject matter content, and social and institutional context.

School–University Partnerships in Special Education Field Experiences: A National Descriptive Study (2002)
A national survey was conducted in which universities and colleges that provided special education teacher preparation programs described and evaluated their relationships with schools in terms of field experiences for preservice teachers. Surveys were mailed to randomly selected institutions of higher education (IHEs) that provided special education teacher preparation programs. Nearly three fourths (72.2%) of the IHEs reported having formal written partnerships with districts, schools, or teachers; however, such formal partnerships only partially influenced the identification and placement of preservice teachers in special education field experiences. Some IHEs used either university supervisors or cooperating/mentor teachers only, but not both, when evaluating the students’ performance in field experiences. This phenomenon occurred, however, only in pre–student teaching field experiences. Less than half (41.4%) of the IHEs allowed teacher candidates to complete the student teaching requirement while employed as teachers. Reported elements of the formal and informal partnerships are reported as well as the conditions under which on-the-job fieldwork was permitted.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/spedfieldexperience.pdf

Special Education Student Teaching Practices (2005)
This article presents findings of our nationwide study of undergraduate special education student teaching practices. The authors were especially interested in grading systems, assignments, supervision practices, and unique challenges. Results indicated variability in grading systems, use of traditional assignments such as lesson plans, use of student reflection through portfolios or journals,and challenges associated with locating student teaching placements that reflect researchbased practices and parallel the conceptual framework of the teacher preparation program.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/studentteaching.pdf

Summative Evaluation of Student Teachers: An Enduring Problem (2003)
This article proposes that teacher education faculty are not taking sufficient care in preventing weak, incompetent student teachers from attaining state licenses. Several factors that contribute to this problem are cited and discussed. One explanation accounting for the difficulty in withholding licensure from weak students is that the concept of incompetence is not sufficiently clear. Responding to this explanation, the authors make the following two distinct contributions: (a) They place incompetence in a continuum of teaching behaviors from criminality and malpractice through best practice; and (b) teaching acts in specific settings are pronounced as indicators of teacher incompetence. The article concludes with significant caveats that need to be taken into account as the definitions of incompetence are shared or adopted.
Raths, J., & Lyman, F. (2003). Summative evaluation of student teachers: An enduring problem. Journal of Teacher Education, 54 (3), 206-216.

Teaching With a Peer: A comparison of two models of student teaching (2003)
Robert Bullough, Jr., Janet Young, James Birrell, D. Cecil Clark, M. Winston Egan, Lynnette Erickson, Marti Frankovich, Joanne Brunetti, and Myra Welling
Two models of student teaching were compared: the traditional model of placing one student teacher with a mentor teacher and a peer teaching model, where two student teachers worked with one mentor. While the peer teaching model involved some trade-offs, the model was found to have a positive impact on children and to offer several important advantages for student teachers including increased support, the opportunity for on-going conversation about teaching, and experience in learning how to collaborate to improve practice. Mentor teachers found much of value in the model and support its continued use.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/bullough_03.pdf