Perceptions of Cooperating Teachers and University Supervisors of the Cooperating Teachers' Supervisory Role Regarding Planning and Instruction

Abstract

151 p.Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1992.The purpose of the study was to investigate and compare cooperating teachers' and university supervisors' perceptions of 32 supervisory activities performed by the cooperating teachers regarding their student teachers' planning and instruction. A survey instrument, consisting of 32 items describing commonly reported supervisory activities, was administered to 65 cooperating teachers and 12 university supervisors involved in secondary student teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Spring Semester 1991.Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to report and analyze the perceptual responses of the two participating groups. Item means of the Likert measures were used to rank the items. Visual analysis produced three levels of use and helpfulness of the activities to student teachers as perceived by the cooperating teachers and the university supervisors. The \chi\sp2 statistic was used to identify three levels of agreement (high, medium, low) between the two groups.The findings indicated that the two groups expressed significant differences over the helpfulness of stated expectations for student teachers, the modeling of teaching methods and styles, and a concern for instructional organization. The cooperating teachers perceived that these activities were more helpful to student teachers than the university supervisors perceived them to be. The two groups were similar in their perceptions of the lack of helpfulness of formal conferences and the helpfulness of the activities that granted student teachers autonomy to plan their lessons. They agree that informal supervision of student teachers in which a sense of autonomy to plan on their own is passed to the student teachers is more helpful than formal supervision entailing technical systems of observation and evaluation.The similarities and differences of cooperating teachers' and university supervisors' perceptions of the helpfulness of the activities suggest the usefulness of in-service programs, to allow the two groups to share their educational philosophies and supervisory knowledge.It is recommended that further studies utilizing representative samples of elementary and secondary cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and student teachers, including direct observation of supervisory acts, would provide useful empirical information to the education literature.Additional studies should examine the other areas of cooperating teachers' responsibilities: orientation, evaluation, and professional development.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD