The challenge for school-based teacher educators: establishing teaching and supervision goals

ABSTRACT

School-based teacher educators (SBTEs) should be able to set goals in two roles – as a teacher and as a supervisor of student teachers. The purpose of the study was to investigate school-based teacher educators’ teaching and supervising goals and to identify how teachers in the role of supervisors perceived university expectations. Thematic analysis indicated that teachers have difficulty establishing goals for themselves as teachers and supervisors. Their teaching goals proceeded from curricula and focused on their pupils’ cognitive development, whilst their perceptions about supporting pupils’ social development were vague. Teachers were unaware of what exactly universities expected of them as supervisors, and believed that providing teaching models for student teachers as a main supervisory goal. It is necessary to offer options to encourage cooperation between teachers and universities and maintain supervisors’ professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• School-(SBTEs)
• teaching goals
• supervising student teachers
• teacher–university cooperation
• thematic analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Age Salo

Age Salo (PhD) is a teacher of Estonian language and literature in the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium (Estonia). Her main research interests are teachers’ beliefs, effective teaching practices and teachers’ professional development.

Krista Uibu

Krista Uibu is a professor of primary education in the Institute of Education at the University of Tartu (Estonia). The wider fields of her research are teachers’ teaching practices and their dynamics, teaching styles and instructional approaches; and relationships between primary school teachers’ teaching practices and their pupils’ language competence. She has a long-standing involvement in large research projects and is a member of the senior research staff.

Aino Ugaste

Aino Ugaste is a professor in the Institute of Educational Sciences at Tallinn University (Estonia). The field of her research has been connected with the study of teachers’ professional development, early childhood education and parenting educational values. She has participated in several international research projects which aim is to analyse children’s learning and teachers’ teaching practices.

Helena Rasku-Puttonen

Helena Rasku-Puttonen is a professor emerita at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). Her areas of interest in research include learning communities, collaboration and social interaction at school and working life contexts.