A Case Study Analyzing the Impact of Cooperating Teachers on Social Studies Student Teachers’ Autonomous Practices

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Field Experience to Enhance Teacher Self-Efficacy, Decision Making, and Autonomy

Abstract

The purpose of this proposal is to describe a study exploring the impact of cooperating teachers on the autonomous pedagogical practices of preservice social studies teachers. Further, this study examined participants’ written reflections, social studies teaching philosophies, lesson plans, and interview transcripts to identify how preservice teachers at a large southeastern university were directly influenced in their autonomous decision-making by their field placements and, more specifically, their cooperating teachers. The essay will discuss the socialization of the participants and the role of the cooperating teachers in both preventing and promoting the autonomous practices of the student-teachers as they attempted to fulfill their identified aims of education including citizenship education, social justice, critical theory, and progressive forms of pedagogy.

Author

• Rory Philip Tannebaum, Merrimack College