In Loco Paedagogus: The pedagogy of a novice university supervisor

Abstract

The peripherality of the university supervisor during the student teaching experience has often been considered extraneous to the work of preparing preservice teachers. Despite the supervisor's potential to support learning, the low status of supervision in the preparation of prospective teachers has led to a lack of commitment in preparing, advising, and assisting novice supervisors entering the field. This self-study provides an insider's account of my practice as a novice university supervisor. My findings suggest that I constructed a pedagogy of field-based teacher education guided by a rationale I term in loco paedagogus, whereby I instruct students based on how I would react in a similar situation. Drawing on these findings, this article highlights the need to recognize how beginning university supervisors learn to teach teachers.

Keywords:

• university supervisor
• supervision
• student teaching
• novice teacher educator
• pedagogy of teacher education
• field-based teacher education

Acknowledgements

I thank Amy Parks, Hilary Conklin, and Todd Dinkelman for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.