Student Teacher

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Home : 2002 : February : 7

Student Teacher
By Jennifer

Does the university supply a supervisor that comes in and observes your student teacher every few weeks? Having an on-going dialogue with that person, I think, is key.

I just finished student teaching last month and
every moment of it was wonderful. From the very first day of school (well, even the week before school started), my cooperating teacher viewed me as the second teacher in the room. She told all 15 of our kindergartners how lucky they were because they had 2 teachers while most classrooms only had one. We generally split up each day so that each of us would lead half of the day. After

my lead weeks (I did 3), we pretty much would split up the weeks so that she would lead some days and I would lead other days. She would be in the room or out of the room as much as I wanted her to on my lead days. When she was leading, besides assisting her, I would carefully observe her, taking notes, using her as a model for how to teach children reading, writing, etc. Then, the next day, I would take a stab at it. At planning time, she would often train me how to teach a specific skill and I would take notes on that, study them, and then try it out the next day.

My cooperating teacher saw right away that I was very experienced and very capable. She had had less experienced student teachers in the past, as well, but still had the same expectations of them. I just think that, the more experience a student teacher has leading, the better. Using dialogue journals and conferences to reflect upon those lead experiences is really important for growth.

Perhaps, since it sounds like your student teacher is relatively inexperienced, writing up a goals sheet for the week or for the day would help her to be more organized and know what her expectations are. I think it is important for things to be as concrete as possible and for open communication to be going on.

It sounds like you are doing a great job finding out how to help her. I think the most important thing you can do is to let her know that you want her in your room and that you are very approachable. I can remember several practicum experiences in which it seemed as if I was just in my cooperating teacher's way and I didn't know where my place was and I was too afraid to ask because my cooperating teacher just didn't seem to want to take the time to talk with me.

Hope this helps.