What Do Student Teachers Learn? Perceptions of Learning in Mentoring Relationships

Abstract

Student teachers and teacher educators view the practicum experience as the most significant aspect of learning to teach. Student teachers regard the relationship with their cooperating teachers as the most important part of the fieldwork experience. However, what student teachers learn about teaching practice from their cooperating teachers remains an unanswered question. We attempted to answer this question by collecting data of learning outcomes from student teachers' pedagogical journals. The theoretical framework of orientations to teaching and teacher education developed by Calderhead and Shorrock (1997) was used to categorize the reported learning outcomes. This framework consists of academic, technical, practical, personal, and critical orientations. The student teachers reported learning outcomes in the full range of these orientation categories. Based on the results, recommendations are made for mentoring and for the supervision of student teachers.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Ben Smit, ICLON, Leiden University, The Netherlands, for help in the analysis of the data.

We would like to express special appreciation to Dr. Trudy Zuckermann, Hebrew University and Achva Academic College, Israel, for her useful comments and editing of the final manuscript.