successfulstudent teaching

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : March : 8

successfulstudent teaching
By Cindy

I did my doctoral dissertation with secondary English student teachers and the purpose was to find out what they felt would make them feel successful in student teaching. The four major areas they came up with were learning
(their own and their students'), relationships, confidence, and respect. I had had several student teachers myself when I did my study, so in intersecting my cooperating teacher experience with that study, I'd say do your best to give student teachers suggestions as to creating solid relationships with the kids (and do whatever you can to make sure you have a good relationship with your

student teacher), create conversations and other opportunities for them to think about and articulate their learning and to really be able to keep track of the students' learning, start them out with tasks (especially the nervous ones!) at which they can't fail or at least "failure" would not be public, such as putting together resources for a new unit or recording grades, etc., and prepping your students for the student teacher so they know he / she is a teacher and not just a "peon," and that he / she has all the rights and responsibilities of other teachers. I have also read that the first phase of student teaching is survival, so I always made sure my student teachers knew, right away, where all the bathrooms in the building were, how to check out a-v equipment, what to expect from secretarial, custodial, and lunchroom staff (and I introduced them to these staff right away) and anything else that was basic to day-to-day functioning. I didn't like to introduce them to all the faculty right away because I know myself that that's overwhelming and makes it hard to remember anyone's name at all. Don't know if this has been of any help, but let me know if you'd like to talk further. This year I am a first-year professor, and I love what I'm doing, but I miss my kids and having a student teacher too!